The Desire to be Contrarian
One of the most common questions asked by new players to the NBA GPP scene is “How much do I need to differentiate my lineups?” It’s a question that has a different answer in the NBA than with other sports. I briefly touched on this in Lesson #2, but I felt like it was imperative to discuss it a little further. Let’s take a look at a few scenarios that could come up on a given night in the NBA, and figure out how to attack them on a GPP level.
Scenario #1 – A fast-paced team sees their two starting guards scratched early in the day.
The 2014 Golden State Warriors could be used as a good example of this. Let’s say Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are both ruled out during morning shoot-around. This is a huge boost to the value of a previously-role player like Shaun Livingston. Suddenly, a role player who generally plays about 15 minutes a game would be thrust into a 30-35 minute workload. Livingston also would likely be extremely cheap on every DFS site for this particular night. The obvious answer is to play him as a top-tier value play. However, you have to also consider the fact that Livingston would likely be 50%-plus owned given these circumstances. Still, you have to evaluate the opportunity costs. If there are other value plays in similar (but maybe not quite as good) spots, you can logically pivot to them in a GPP. If it’s a night where value is hard to come by, I would probably lock Livingston in my lineups.
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