NBA DFS Cash Game Rankings Advanced for 1/30/19

Today, we will improve on our nba cash cash game rankings, taking out a few higher risk players and trying to fit in players with a higher floor and ceiling. We will take a more advanced approach for today, 1/30/19 as this is an early look with updates, and adjustments marked here around 30 minutes before the 7:30pm tipoff on a 8 game slate, giving us plenty of options.

Plan ahead for NBA DFS Cash

Yesterday, I explained the simple methods here for generating cash using this model for cash game plays. Remember to confirm starting lineups before games, as you can use the roto grinders page here to get a clear picture of that. Just be aware you may get conflicting information out there on twitter media. Also, I will more than likely use the late breaking news, as there is a lot of lineups changes per projected ones you might see, using those for tournaments instead of cash. These would be fine for 100+ player contests.

#1 Focus for 1/30/19

UPdate as of 6:29pm: 

Jokic should get a nice bump in usage, (+7.1) as long as Gary Harris is out. 

Focus on value as the #1 parameter, as all stats matter, however, being advanced about it, we also want to avoid chalk in some cases. You can look to gauge chalk, and avoid the mistakes that others will make by checking in on the ownership projections. Here is the DFS Army Domination station and what that looks like here before submitting your slate.

NBA DFS Cash Game Rankings
This screen will take you to the optimizer

As always on my posts you can get the Optimizer by simply clicking on the screen shot above. Here you will be to sort through the highest projections of the day as shown in my video, after scrolling down a bit.

In Advanced Strategy Summary:

Its not really all that advanced. Follow the basic elimination process from yesterday and today, and focus on the values in the simulations, and keep up to date on real news and lineups NBA teams put out there.

Here is the breakdown in order:

  1. Look at the minutes and usage such as show above on my chart.
  2. Look at how much value the player can create and FP per Min.
  3. Get the Vegas Over Under and Implied Team Total
  4. Pace up or Pace down game? Total Pace?
  5. Consistency, based on how often the player reaches X score and/or value
  6. Deployment: In the starting lineup today?

ADVANCED BONUS

Make sure you have watched the video to the end to see the simulation model in work.

Cash Game Plays today for NBA DFS 1/29/18

Here are some of the best plays on the slate, especially if you are playing on DraftKings today. These cash game plays for NBA DFS today on 1/29/19 will give you the maximum chance to actually cash in instead of taking risks which you can leave for GPP or tournament contests on any of the DFS sites.

Cash Game Plays

This will give you the safest plays on the main slate in no particular order of position, so you can sort out your own preference when it comes to late game scratches and injuries. You must improvise successfully to win in cash consistently.

Breaking News

Keep in mind to always check the starting lineups to confirm as shown in the dfsarmy nba breaking news feed. such as shown below on the previous nights slate.

Cash Game Plays today for NBA DFS 1/29/18You can also get the NBA research station for my deeper research into this, and any other NBA slate run by a team of experts to give you help with Cash, tournament lineups, and lineups Optimizers to fill in lineups much faster.

Here is a video breakdown of the slate filtering out players I don’t want to play in cash lineups.

NBA Cash Pool for 1/29/19

I was not able to embed the spreadsheet onto the site here like I wanted to but here are the plays in order of preference on this 1/29 slate today.

Update at 5:54 pm

Best Value Play update:

Think about getting Richaun Holmes and Jahlil Okafor into your lineups tonight. Great spots for best value per 1000 simulations today. per the DFS lineups simulator, which is also available per the link or click on the picuture to access for a trial run at some Cash!

Here’s a practical tip to get your players watched on youtube, just click on this link to google to bring up the schedule and click on the videos, directing you there for a full 9-10 version of highlights of any game.

Remember some of these plays may be out. This is my pool of players based on plays that I want to fit into my lineups, some easier then others based on price.

NBA DraftKings Picks for Friday January 25th 2019

If you are looking for NBA DraftKings Picks for today, January 25th you have come to the exact right place.

I will personally give you a pool of baseline picks so you can fit them into your lineups, allowing for injury updates and players’ lineup news as the day and night goes on, so you can make adjustments on the fly.

Here is the value chart to keep in mind today for Draftkings as its hard to reach these values, but keep open to looking for them.

NBA DraftKings Picks for Friday January 25th 2019

Here are the plays per team.

Miami Heat

Josh Richardson: Richardson is the guy over Justin Winslow tonight, versus the Cavs, being in the bottom half of the league in overall defense.

Hassan Whiteside: Whiteside is a great bargain if you don’t want to mess with a center at rock bottom price and just settle for the lower 6k price on draftkings. Stack him with Richardson in tournaments or 100 players contests tonight.

Orlando Magic

I you notice, I am not giving you superstars to place in your lineups. If you can pay up for a James Harden or Blake Griffin, or Giannis Antetokounmpogo right ahead comfortably. That will work with some key low cost entries you can find on DFSArmy.com’s Breaking News Section.

I like the Magic as a team vs. the Wizards, of whom are going on the road on a back to back, previously losing to the Warriors, as the Magic can take advantage of the 25th ranked defense.

Aaron Gordon: Gordons’ overall game is good and the matchup vs. Jeff Green gives him another advantage.

Nucola Vucevic: Vucevic is another optional upgrade to the position if you can afford him. You may go elseware with the salary, but the individual matchup is also very good vs. the Wizards starting center, Thomas Bryant.

Nuggets/Suns

In what looks to me to be a high pace game., this should have very good matchups on both sides.

Jamal Murray: With Murray running the point with no one else taking significant time, his 33 PPG is good for his lower 7k salary range.

Paul Milsap: Look for Milsap to get points in the paint. Use for tournament or 100 man contests, as the consistency is lacking.

Gary Harris: Harris would seem to be the next benefactor in this matchup. As with Milsap, use Harris as well for the 100 man/GPP contests.

Deveon Booker: While this is not the preferred side of the matchup playing on the back to back, Booker’s value and usage on this team is very high and worth the around 7.5k tonight.

Kevin Oubre: As a nice value play tonight as well freeing up money for the other positions.

Here’s my video of the day cut for you, as a value based overview:

 

Daily Fantasy Strategy 101: NBA Pace of Play

What is pace of play and how is it used for nba daily fantasy?

Pace of play is the rate at teams run their possessions on the floor. If there is a pace up game for a slower team, it benefits the team that is walking up the court. If the game is a pace down for a running team, it then downgrades their regular pace of play in the NBA.

You can find pace of play her at DraftDashboard.com for a simple easy to read breakdown to follow the total pace.

Daily Fantasy Strategy NBA Pace of Play
Get a Trial Version of the DraftDashboard by Clicking on the Screen Shot

As you can see here the total pace of play is when both teams accumulate together the total pace of the game. This of course is more of a projection in play as the teams do not always perform up or down to this level.

What you may also notice is that on today’s games there are teams with orange colored indicators on the pace of play circle so that when hovering over the players analytics, you will notice the disadvantage in the game, as green is good, and red is below average for the category.

When you have a dream matchup.

When both teams are at or above the 200 possessions per game, you are good. Many games can reach this level, and the nba seems to be more of running league then it was just a few short years ago. Couple this with a high over/under in a close matchup and it really is a dream matchup that you want to stack, especially in tournaments. Always look out for players that step up in starting roles as well due to injuries or perhaps rest.

FreeSquare players for the day and Cheat Sheets.

Additionally to get player suggestions that you won’t get too early in the day, but to check here later in the afternoon/evening you will want to see the cheatsheet here to get the best players for the day offered on the site.

You can get a trial run on DD along with these features and benefits:

  • Browse NBA Teams rosters along with their Fantasy Rankings for the day or Dash Rank. This allows you to see the fantasy points per gm together.
  • Position Optimizer to make it easy to sort the players you want in your lineups. This is where I suggest using the bullseye feature, where the DD will save your targeted players for the day on avoid your avoided players.
  • Sleepers and Studs will help you make decisions on consistent fantasy starters and/or low cost sleepers in certain price ranges.
  • Player Trends Helps you decide which players have salary value and relief along with high performing players
  • Lineup Optimizer helps you build the lineups with the players you targeted so that you can quickly fit them into a lineup saving lots of time!
  • Watched Players will show all of the players that you have watched  throughout the day, saved.
  • Pro Player Pools will provide certain pro’s pool of players for the particular day in fantasy sports.

All of these tools are now available along with the sortable columns of FPPG, usage, minutes, values, and projected points for the slate. All of this is sortable by the slate. More features are constantly added and updated on the site as well.

Daily Fantasy Basketball Strategy 101: Player Updates and Breaking News

In my previous articles such as NBA Daily Lineups using an NBA Optimizer, we talked about a general value proposition for your own value system. In Daily fantasy basketball strategy, if you don’t get this part right you will lose. You can also check yourself by looking to rotogrinders 101 guide. Im article per the above nba daily lineups link, there is an easy to follow chart you can reference to make sure a player that you choose on a certain site fits the bill for potential return on X value investment.

BTW, what is the X value?

Great question, as the X value is simply for the sake of simplicity, hoping for 5 dfs, or daily fantasy points for every 1k of salary that you spend on the site. Most players are averaging about 5k, so your want 25 points at this player salary on the site. This is of course not real money, as the only real money you are using is the money you spend on the contest, perhaps $1.

Player updates and breaking news are the staple to your game to have any chance of winning on the main sites contests’ on the daily or nightly.

Players sitting out or hurt for whatever reason creeps up on your roster you chose, if your not checking the starting lineups roll outs 20-1 min. before tip offs. You need a place where you will get a tip off for true verified information.

Where do you go for Player Updates and Breaking News?

You could try the twitter sphere and try and follow every team’s beat writer for the latest. However this is not easy for myself as there are too many updates on twitter in general to sort through and too much going on in my general everyday life to glue myself to twitter.

A better solution is to follow the slack chat with a team of players updating from around the web. Here is an example of a NBA breaking news feed:

Daily Fantasy Basketball Strategy
Click on the Picture to get to the NBA DFS Staff on Slack Chat.

Once you are set up for player updates per the DFS Army site, you will have access to the community, and you will receive an email if you like every time someone updates the section of the slack chat, so you don’t miss an important player update.

If you have a player that is getting you 5 X value and is coming off the bench to automatically increase your team’s output, you will lose as the others professional players’ teams are set up to take advantage of the minutes uptick increasing their chance of wins in ownership.

For example a player on Drafkings only costing you 4k, only needs 20 points to get you the 5 X or 5 Draftkings points per 1k of salary use. Once you have this locked in you can move on to the next player. Actually the rest of your lineups needs to already be locked since hopefully you have spent part of the day researching and using the tools you need to be successful in nba dfs.

You don’t want to settle for a gross lineup when it comes to trusting in experts free picks, as they make mistakes too. And while in cash games you may cash in on some nights, you will give yourself little chance in making any real money, which is made in larger tournaments. Per my article, getting your bankroll right, the ladder system approach does exactly that.

Let me know of any more questions or concerns you have about Daily NBA Basketball Strategy in your comments. Thanks for reading.

How to Get Your Fanduel NBA Starting Lineups Tonight 1/18/19

As you look at the Friday 1/18/19 Fanduel NBA Starting Lineups Potential on the slate, there are enough games, 7 in total to begin breaking down the slate using the fundamentals I referred to in my NBA Daily Fantasy Advice 101.

Here in this article for today, I am going over how to apply these fundamentals to see about our results as I will make a lineup based on these easy strategies for you.

Please however keep updated at least, if you cannot on the DFSArmy site, then on the easier to read and keep up with updates on the Draftdashboard with the latest real time news with updates on the “NBA Cheat Sheet”, so you can get that for a trail run, of which you can then cancel before getting charged the full amount.

Here is the main slate breakdown using the DraftDashboard:

Check back for updates as I will help to get optimal must plays thoughout the day.

NBA Daily Lineups: Using an NBA Lineup Optimizer

In this article we will dive deeper into strategy on how to win in nba daily fantasy with advice on how to understand how to go about your process for finding daily nba players.   

Where to find to confirm nba starting lineups.
You can find your nba daily lineups in your rotogrinders page per my video below.
I also show you where to get advice on the daily as the best or most reliable source for getting updates and up to speed on the latest nba news which include the daily nba lineup shakeups as many players sit out or are injured on the night.
So while you can check a general optimizer, with varying results on your nba dfs contests, you will have to make manual adjustments on the fly leading up to minutes before tipoff to get optimal results. This perhaps happens at times in football as the actives and in actives are announced 45- to one hour before a kickoff but nba lineups are not so clear before the tipoff, making it more difficult to give your self the most practical chance to win IF others have more information then you leading up the tip offs.
The DFS Army news and slack chat will give you real time updates once you are a member.
Remember as well, that on fanduel there is one player that is dropped, which was not done in prior year, but is not implemented on the site. Some nights there is simply no way to change it up as teams may not make any announcement before the lock of the slate there.
Draftkings should allow you to change your lineups with later starting games, allowing you to grab someone else at a different start time as long as you remember to check your dfs lineups.
Here is an example of a sheet used on DFSArmy.com to get your player values set up.

X Value Propositions

One very basic way to using the lineup Optimizer on sites like DFSARmy is to use the X or times value that you get out of a certain player, it works like this according to the sheet below:

This can be found and referenced inside the DFSArmy Blog as well:

nba lineup optimizer

Using the projected value rating based on the player’s salary and their projected points by the system, this is what it looks like on a recent slate time with the actual up to date values on cash and GPP options.

NBA Daily Lineups
I decided I wanted to look up the value on both contest types in the higher mid range salaries so I highlighted those yellow for you. Here is basically shows that Kemba Walker is most likely to hit 5 X value. However remember, as show about, a player in the 10-11k range is only expected to get 5-5.24 X return on value, so if you pay up you will get more projected points, its just that your rate of return will be lower.
I hope this helps in understanding Daily NBA and setting lineups using the optimizer. For best preparation in using the Domination Station Optimizer got to DFSArmy.com DS Optimizer Tutorial.

NBA Daily Fantasy Advise 101: Getting your BankRoll Right

I will go over in this article, the not so exciting part of NBA Daily Fantasy Advice. However take this advice to the Bank! You will be profitable if your start with this approach.

I you have played any kind of fantasy sports including season long football, you at least have the basics of how scoring is measured and set up. Daily fantasy sports works different of course, in that your players are salary managed according to the cap allotted to you in the contest you entered.

NBA Daily Fantasy Ladder System

You can view the article I base my work off here: The DFS Ladder System, as I will simplify this approach and offer my real world experience to show you the best advice there is to offer to manage banroll.

What you can do ensure you have enough bank roll management is to primarily separate the 2 type of contests, with hybrids included. This will simply mean that your tournaments of over 100 players will be worked very differently on most selective slates. Many times you can use these contests as hedge against your cash and hybrids failing as well. Here is the screen shot of the ladder system:

NBA Daily Fantasy Advise 101
Click on photo to get the sheet in the DFS Army Resources.

What is Cash and GPP?

Keep in mind that the sliding amount that you want to invest will give %20 to GPP exclusively. As you become more skilled and experienced in the GPP game I can recommend upping that amount. I have experienced average returns doubling my money in small investment tournaments and placing first place overall in a certain sport contest, particularly NHL.

Cash is anything referenced that gives you at least a %20 chance of winning positive cash. Many times winning more then double your money depending on the contest. I personally avoid the Head to Head simply because you don’t really know if you are playing against an expert unless you are able to enter a beginner contest, lessoning your competition. I prefer to enter the %50/50’s and Double ups as a basis of more than half entry point, providing myself decent cash flow for the day.

The idea is to more than double your exposure to winnable contests consistently, so that your bank roll never drops too dramatically. Will you have days where you still lose it all. Yes you will. Hopefully you have not invested though, more than %5 of your total allocated funds, I recommend.

The Hybrids by the way are anything from triple up to 100 man 20 player payout to be about exact. So you can combine the dfs strategies as you would like from both ways of formulating your lineups.

Summary of Cash/GPP

Here is a quick summary of the Cash/GPP question per the DFSArmy Blog:

  • GPP = Guaranteed Prize Pool, or the big contests with top-heavy payout structures were 25 or fewer % win, and the real money is at the top 5 spots. (Pro Tip: These are like playing lottery tickets. Even with 150 LUs entered your odds of winning a top 5 spot in a 15,000+ entrant contest are miniscule.
  • CASH = any contest that pays 40% or better of the entrants.

Hedge Yourself

Lastly, how do you hedge yourself from total loss. Well there are enough lineups you will make from the methods I will show you in my next article but basically you will have all of your lineups different by at least 2 players so that the same players are not hurting your every lineup in NBA.

Now that you hopefully understand the difference between the contest types and structures related to your spending account, I will get into the basics of the foundation of your NBA lineups including the nba lineup optimizer theory in the next article.

Fantasy Football Analytics Projections: How to Correlate

What do we do with analytic data to support decisions made in fantasy football?

Don’t worry I won’t bore you with the analytics since i’m not a math major nor set out to be one, but will put this into simple terms as it relates to fantasy football and other sports as the info you really need is readily available in the resources below.

When you set up to win, you should constantly be testing for better
results and application of the processes you use to win in daily
fantasy sports.

When you learn how to correlate, you recognize the difference between
a correlation and just a number.

There are correlation factors in many stats of the analytic game.
Rushing attempts always correlate to rushing yards, in fact more then
any other statistic in football. Then targets correlate to receiving
yards.

Nothing really correlates in the touchdown department from year to
year or week to week, unless they have a good red zone percentage
going for them, which means the team is using the player fairly
consistently within the 20, 10, and goal line downs. A team may very
well go to a player they frequently go to at any position, especially
with the game on the line or in the playoffs.

Another correlation is with winning teams. Winning teams likely run
the ball for a while with their #1 back, especially at home, as teams
always do better winning at home. The correlation will be seen in
their up tic in rushing attempts, all correlating nicely together for
your fantasy outlook.

When correlating, you must begin with players who are obviously likely
to score points together. These include the Quarterback with his receivers, mostly the WR and TE positions.

This works in other sports as well. In fact very well in the success I have seen recently in NHL Hockey.. if you would like a breakdown of how I placed 1st in a recent tournament on fanduel, out of 7k+ players, check out my breakdown here for my NHL DFS GPP Strategy.

Here is a spreadsheet for the what the layout looks like when correlating players from opposing teams.

fantasy football analytics projections
Displaying the Correlation Matrix Spreadsheet

When using a correlation sheet, you simply follow the columns of the players you want to use so that you can see if they have a red or green or neutral correlation. You can get the sheet at DFSArmy.com or by clisking on the sheet itself. I explain some things to look for in this video:

If you notice I also show the fantasy football algorithm sheet used by draftdashboard. They have an interesting way of rankings by comparison to the latest sheet for the week for the divisional round playoffs. There is no correlation sheet on this site, however, you can go to the “browse by teams and look for the top 6 otpimal plays by team on this screen, giving you a better chance to obtain 2 players from the same team such as Rivers with Allen this week for Los Angeles.

fantasy football correlation

By the way, here is my fantasy football rankings by position post for my best plays by position.

To note: You can get rankings as well on fantasypros.com.

However, its better to get projections, reflecting the analytics as well as the human reason for coming up with practical rankings based on these projections, of which I find are best at the DFSArmy.com such as Big Marley’s Draft Kings Player Pool.

And of course the latest Research Station for the Week, as its finished as of this writing. Big Marley’s player pool should be updated tomorrow as its better to wait a day before the main slates play on the dfs sites. For Fanduel, Geek’s Player Picks are Best with his breakdown.

Any questions for comments about fantasy football or other sport analytics in general? Or even for this Divisional Playoff? Go ahead and comment below

Fantasy Football Projections by Position: Divisional Playoffs

Get your team stacked by position on the main Divisional playoff football slate on fanduel and draftkings for this write up of fantasy football projections by position breakdown.

This page will be updated on friday morning with my own player pool per my explanation on youtube here:

Here are the default DraftDashboard rankings of the QB position to start with.

fantasy football projections by position divisional playoffs
The quarternacks who should score the most points.

Since there are about a few sites I take into consideration when coming up with my projections by position, I will basically balance everything out according to game script to sort through these guys, as you have to make decisions based on the flow of the game and total score, whether the game is close or not. Here is my write up for this slate.

Quarterback Pool

Here’s who stands out to me. When you look at the over/under total for the KC/Indy game, you can’t ignore the fact that this is implied as much higher scoring then any other game. The game should be cold in KC, but thats not a factor. With KC given 5.5 points as of thursday morning, look for any changes in the line today or friday. My feeling is that Mahomes should be favored as he is no longer a rookie. Amazingly he has been better on the road this year, however this environment is tough for any team, as this game should however be very close, perhaps closer then 5.5 points. If i was betting on it, it would have to be closer then this spread. Therefore we have ourselves as projected a close high scoring game as advertised. Load up on these quarterbacks with their teams no problem! However no defenses here will be needed.

Best Choices: Patrick Mahomes and Andrew Luck

I could easily see this game going either way in the highest scoring projection as the Colts could have quite an edge in many facets of the game, as the Cheifs are one dimensional with the passing. Mahomes though is till the #1 pick as he has been all season averaging 5 points more than any other QB during the 2018 span of time.

Running Back Pool

Since we are working with fanduel and draftkings, we have to consider the value of what we are actually paying for on these sites.

Tod Gurley is 1k less on draftkings, making an unusual scenario at the position, where you can fit more stud backs into your lineup creating room for other receiver positions on your roster. So he is worth a look on DK only. Zeke Elliott is viable on both sites, no matter if they lose by the spread or not. He is always used, getting touches.

Also, surprised to see Alvin Kamara 1100 less on DK. This is back who is the #1 offensive option or weapon on the Saints. As long as they play towards their potential in this matchup, he will get his touches.

Damien Williams is rock bottom pricing in the top tier of back, aslo being 1k less on DK as he has earned the starting job and I personally am not worried about him getting his fair share of touches on the day.

Marlon Mack is quite a bargain on DK, and is very playable there as they have proven to run the ball against a more formidable defense of the Texans. Can they also do it on the road against a weaker defense. I would give the approval on this play.

Melvin Gordon is shockingly low for his usual tier on both sites as he is really banged up. This assumably is the reason he is so low. Still a bargain for limited carries projected in the game in a must win playoff win or go home.

Best Choices: Depends on site and left over salary

Wide Receivers/TE’s Pool

The obvious choices are not so obvious when you start to build lineups using the players above. I am leaving the top 2 guys out in Michael Thomas and Tyreek Hill which could be a big mistake, especially with Hill’s big play potential. However I believe the Colts secondary can handle him with their safeties not allowing much deep, as I believe this will lead to Travis Kelce leading the team in targets and yards, which makes sense when you compare what the colts allow to TE’s to WR’s. To see the differences, like the above picture, for all positions head on over to draftdashboard.com 

Best Choices: Travis Kelce, Eric Ebron, TY Hilton, or Tyreek Hill depending on the QB you choose, with WR’s from the Eagles/Saints game.

For more on how to correlate your lineup so that you do not place players who negatively correlate against each other, visit my Fantasy Football Analytics projections, and how to correlate.