In my first article, I had some fun breaking down my winning lineup for the Playboy Basketball Championship qualifier, but unfortunately it's been over a month since I've won a big tournament.
I'm not complaining, nor is this surprising given the low cash rate in large fields (i.e. guaranteed prize pools, or "GPP"), much less having the stars align to reach first place. However, what this also means is I've analyzed over a month's worth of winning lineups to gain insight into what worked for a particular day, and you should be doing the exact same thing.
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I'm on the East Coast, so this usually means carving out time the following day to see why someone else won all the money. Make no mistake, it's excruciatingly painful, and stings more after a bad night and exponentially worse in the middle of a losing streak (think Russell Wilson watching Super Bowl game film). Regardless, analyzing winning GPP teams needs to be done by every DFS player -- it's our version of watching film after game day.
After a poor performance, it's very tempting to simply curse a certain day of NBA action and move on to the next. This is very understandable, especially given one of the main appeals to DFS is that we all start the following day with a clean slate and can forget about the mistake(s) from the prior day. The bankroll-crushing irony is when you refuse to learn from the previous day, your selective amnesia will likely hinder future success.
Much is discussed on player psychology in DFS, most of which revolves around not breaking bankroll management rules when you're on a hot or cold streak. In the same mold, it's important not to let the bad choices surrounding your NBA lineups keep you from researching what worked for the winners. Suck up your pride and dig into yesterday's winning lineups, noting reasons they won and why it looked so different from the hot mess of a team you seemed to love before roster lock.
MORE DFS TIPS: How I ended up at the Playboy Mansion
With all that said, let's take a look at two winning DraftKings rosters from last week, in what was undoubtedly the biggest day for NBA DFS in 2015. On Jan. 28, DraftKings had the best available contests, as they paid out $100,000 to the winner of their Slam Dunk tournament (part of their "January Jam" series) and also awarded more tickets to the Fantasy Basketball World Championship. If you haven't heard, the winner of the FBWC live final will take home $1,000,000 and it's easily the most coveted ticket in DFS at the moment.
Let's take a look at the two winning rosters for the $500,000 Slam Dunk & $27 FBWC Qualifier.
First off, let's congratulate "Chadg10" for landing the $100,000 Slam Dunk top prize, and "Seida" for earning a five-night trip to Las Vegas with the chance at a $1 million top prize and no less than $7,000. It's safe to say everyone reading this article is jealous, including myself. Very well done!
If you play regularly, you know that each day ends up with its own unique storyline, and this was "The Kyrie Irving Day." Lebron James had been an industry-wide top recommendation versus Portland, however word came down right before tip-off that he would not play. The DFS world was scrambling, and only one out of four chose to roster Kyrie at $8,800. Irving scored 55 points, an NBA season-high at the time, while racking up 75.5 DraftKings points. It was simple: If you didn't have Kyrie, you couldn't win the GPP. (See what I did there?)
Langston Galloway and Zach LaVine were great examples of not having to over-think your picks to win a big tournament, especially given the Qualifier only had 2,520 entrants and the Slam Dunk had a very manageable field of 5,555 (the $100 buy-in and very top-heavy prize pool allowed for a $100,000 top prize while keeping the entries to a minimum). With Mo Williams out, LaVine ($3,000) felt close to a plug-n-play, and 45-50 percent of the DFS community agreed.
Galloway was less popular because he was more expensive than LaVine at $4,300, and priced similarly to another value guard in Brian Roberts, who was starting for the injured Kemba Walker. More importantly, paying up to $5,800 would land you the flavor-of-the-week, D.J. Augustin, coming off great performances and facing the 76ers. The Pistons wet the bed and Augustin was no different, meaning jumping off his bandwagon at the right time was crucial. In this regard, it's equally as important to evaluate which players the winning rosters did not include.
Carmelo Anthony rounds out the list of common players rostered on these two winning GPP lineups. The constant uncertainty surrounding Melo's knee was perfect for lineup differentiation, and even though he was a confirmed starter well in advance of tip, only 10 percent took the risk that he'd play a healthy amount of minutes. In hindsight, the four common players were needed to build a winning lineup. However, what's equally notable, is the other half of their lineups were completely different. I don't know about you, but I always feel better knowing there's more than one answer to the problem we all try to solve daily.
Now, let's take a look at the differences.
"Chadg10" used a more balance approach to construct this lineup, and also used some more of the chalk plays to win the $100,000. Al Jefferson and Thaddeus Young were widely recommended, leaving this winning roster with five out of eight players over 20-percent owned. Remember, this isn't daily NFL, so there isn't a need to go out of your way to differentiate yourself at every position. However, you do need some differentiation, and Monta Ellis delivering 46.5 fantasy points at just 6-percent ownership at $7,100 proved to be just that.
"Seida" leaned more to a "stars and scrubs" strategy by paying up $11,100 for James Harden (alongside Anthony at $8,900 and Irving at $8,800). The salary cap savings came in the form of Jusuf Nurkic ($4,800), Jason Smith ($3,900) and Robert Covington ($5,200) all scoring more than 30 DraftKings points. Harden was a popular play with Dwight Howard sidelined again, yet even with a relatively poor performance by Harden, this roster was still good enough to win the Qualifier.
What we can learn from the winning rosters above:
- Don't fade the cheap value play simply to be contrarian. The winner of $100,000 rostered five players over 22-percent owned and none less than 6-percent owned. Along the same lines, none of the players on either team above were names that surprised anyone following DFS recently.
- Have a plan in place to adapt to the most important news of the day. Personally, I was kicking myself on this day for not having a "Kyrie Irving" roster ready to use if needed. LeBron's health was the most pivotal news of the day, and Kyrie was obviously the direct beneficiary without LBJ. I realize proper roster construction is consuming enough, but if time allows, try to set a contingency lineup or two based on the most important news of the day. (Adjusting to news prior to lineup lock is of utmost importance and will be discussed in more detail in future articles.)
- Do not let bad breaks -- such as missing out on Kyrie -- send you on a tilt for the week. Just as rainouts happen in MLB, the NBA will have plenty of these wacky nights, and it shouldn't be a shock when they happen. Yes, you need to be smart and agile enough to react to this news, but it won't ever go smoothly. When it doesn't work out, be sure to wake up the next day and play your normal amount of action while using the same process.
- The final takeaway -- and I saved the most important for last -- is that there's NO single correct way to build a winning roster. Sure, there's always going to be an optimal lineup, but this is not consistently achieved. The lineups above finished less than five points apart, yet have only four common players. This shows us there are many different ways to build a winning lineup, leaving the strategy up to you.
Improving your strategic thinking by analyzing winning rosters and reading more articles than just the "plays of the day" are vital to a well-rounded DFS player. The more knowledgeable you become, the less likely you'll be to have a deer-in-the-headlights reaction when late news breaks and you're forced to think on your feet. Did you win your GPP last night? Me neither, now go see who did and why!
Sporting News contributor maddox2 has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for two years and season-long fantasy since 1998. When not tending to his full-time job in Finance, he's grinding DFS all year long in the three major sports. 2015 Fanduel PBC Finalist; @maddox2DFS on Twitter.
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