We are now almost a month into the NBA season and the overall leaderboard is starting to stabilize a little bit with four of the same experts topping the list that were also there last week, led by a couple of Lineup Builders from CBS Sportsline and RotoGrinders. You might want to give these tools a look when you are working on lineup construction.
In this article, I will give a brief recap of each day we gathered and graded the experts, including how the Industry Consensus picks did, highlighting which experts were at the top for the day and which players were only called out by one or two experts, but produced an “A+” grade. I will also review the overall standings and highlight the top experts so far this season. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
As a reminder, we are currently gathering selections and publishing the NBA Industry Consensus articles each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday during the NBA season, so be sure to check back about an hour or so before the first game tips off to get a look at the industry expert’s consensus picks for the day.
On to the grades!
Week in Review
Monday (November 14)
Monday featured a solid eight-game slate of NBA action. The experts did very well with 16 out of 19 experts exceeding a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 on the night.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks did well finishing in 9th place out of 19 experts graded with a DailyOverlay score of 6.00.
A+ – Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Anthony Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza, Isaiah Thomas, Marcus Smart, CJ Miles, Ish Smith, Chris Paul, Tobias Harris, Clint Capela, Jon Leuer, Seth Curry, Kristaps Porzingis, Hassan Whiteside, James Johnson
F – Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Robert Covington
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 8.25) tops the list with six “A+” grades out of just eight selections. Some of their top plays included Russell Westbrook, Trevor Ariza, Nik Stauskas, Aron Baynes and Jon Leuer.
#2) FantasyWired and DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 7.00) tied for second place with FantasyWired receiving five “A+” or “A” grades out of their six selections, while DailyFantasyNerd had five “A+” selections out of their eight picks. FantasyWired had players such as James Johnson, Trey Lyles and Russell Westbrook while DailyFantasyNerd’s top plays included Marcus Smart, James Harden, James Johnson and Nene Hilario.
Sleepers of the Day
Too many to name them all but some of the off the radar picks included:
A+ – Jeff Teague (DailyRoto)
A+ – Mike Conley (DailyRoto)
A+ – Tyler Johnson (RotoGrinders 6-pack)
A+ – Nik Stauskas (RotoGrinders Lineup Builder)
A+ – Vince Carter (DFSOnDemand)
A+ – Zach Randolph (Rotoballer)
Tuesday (November 15)
Tuesday night featured a mini five-game slate. The experts didn’t fare as well on the short slate with only five experts recording a DailyOverlay score over 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks also didn’t fare as well with a 15th place out of 19 experts with a DailyOverlay score of only 3.50.
A+ – Kemba Walker, LeBron James, Brook Lopez, Julius Randle, Kyle Lowry, Josh Richardson, Hassan Whiteside
F – Lou Williams, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Sean Kilpatrick, Nemanja Bjelica, Marvin Williams
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DFSOnDemand (Score: 5.60) tops the list with four out of five selections receiving a grade of “B” or better. Key sections including Kemba Walker, Channing Frye and Jimmy Butler.
#2) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.38) comes in second place on the day with six grades of “B” or better out of eight selections. Their picks were led by selections of Kemba Walker, LeBron James, Julius Randle and Jimmy Butler.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Bojan Bogdanovic (DailyFantasySportsRankings, DailyRoto)
A+ – D’Angelo Russell (DailyRoto, RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down)
A+ – Channing Frye (DFSOnDemand)
A+ – Timofey Mozgov (FantasyPros)
Wednesday (November 16)
Wednesday night featured a big slate of 11 games of NBA action. The experts had one of their better “big slate” scores this week with seven experts coming in with a DailyOverlay score of 5.00 or higher.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus finished in the middle of the pack with an 11th place finish out of 21 experts graded coming in with a 4.27 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – Russell Westbrook, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevin Durant, Mike Muscala, Kevin Love, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kenneth Faried, Victor Oladipo, Brandon Knight
F – Eric Bledsoe, Kelly Olynyk, Chandler Parsons, Tim Frazier, TJ Warren
Top Experts of the Day
#1 tie) CBS SportsLine (Score: 6.25) ties for the top leaderboard for the day with four “A+” grades out of eight selections including top plays of Russell Westbrook, Brandon Knight, Kyle Korver and Joakim Noah.
#1 tie) DFSOnDemand (Score: 6.25) ties for top honors on the day with three out of four selections receiving a grade of “A” or higher. Key selections included Russell Westbrook, Mike Muscala and James Harden.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Terrence Jones (FantasyWired, DailyOverlay – The Process, Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Kristaps Porzingis (FanSided, DailyOverlay – The Process, Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Kyle Korver (CBS Sportsline)
A+ – Joakim Noah (CBS Sportsline, DailyFantasyNerd)
A+ – Mike Conley (FantasyAlarm, DailyOverlay – The Process)
A+ – Wilson Chandler (DailyOverlay – The Process, Scout Fantasy)
Friday (November 18)
Friday night consisted of a 10-game slate of NBA action. Friday proved to be a little tougher for the experts with only five experts topping a DailyOverlay score of 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished in the middle of the pack for the second straight day with a 10th place out of 21 experts, posting a solid DailyOverlay score of 4.71.
A+ – Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, Russell Westbrook, Victor Oladipo, Terrence Jones, Anthony Davis, Blake Griffin, Wilson Chandler, Mason Plumlee, Emmanuel Mudiay, Nicolas Batum
F – Kelly Olynyk, Amir Johnson, Trevor Booker, TJ Warren
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 5.38) takes home the top spot for the second time this week with five out of eight picks receiving a grade of “B” or better. Key selections included Cody Zeller, Blake Griffin, Tony Parker and DeMar DeRozan.
#2) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.33) had 12 out of 15 selections receive a grade of “B” or better on Friday including strong performances from Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, Victor Oladipo, Kyle Lowry and Brook Lopez.
Sleepers of the Day
Too many to name them all but here are a few of them…
A+ – Chris Paul (DailyRoto, DailyOverlay – The Process, FantasyPros)
A+ – Kyrie Irving (DailyRoto, CBS Sportsline)
A+ – Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (DailyRoto, Rotowire)
A+ – Nikola Jokic (DailyRoto, FantasyPros)
A+ – Tony Parker (RotoGrinders Lineup Builder, Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Kent Bazemore (FanSided, DK Playbook)
Overall Leaderboard
Through Week 4 of the NBA season and a couple of lineup builders are leading the way so far. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
#1) CBS Sportsline (Score: 5.46) remains in the top spot in their second week being graded led by a first place finish on Wednesday this week.
#2) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 5.23) jumps up three spots in the overall standings into second place with a huge week including first place finishes on both Monday and Friday.
#3) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.18) hold their spot in third place in the overall standing thanks to a second place finish on Tuesday.
#4) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.13) drops two spots in the overall standing this week but maintains a solid lead over fifth place and the rest of the field through four weeks.
#5) RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down (Score: 4.97) moves back into the top five overall with three solid top nine finishes this week.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 4.52) remains in 13th place out of 21 experts ranked in the overall standings through four weeks of action. The Consensus picks are starting to perform more consistently near the in the middle of the pack each day. Look for them to climb up the rankings some as the season progresses.
Let’s see which experts can make the grade this week!
Ownership Percentage Tracking
A part of daily fantasy sports strategy is understanding ownership percentages and being able to predict ownership percentages prior to entering contests especially for GPP tournaments where you might want to be contrarian by selecting lower owned players or fading highly owned players depending on the payout structure and size of the contest.
We utilize the Industry Consensus list to help predict ownership percentages by tracking the actual ownership percentages for each player that shows up on the Consensus list and averaging the ownership percentage for the number of times a player was selected by our list of experts.
Below is the current table showing the data through the first week of the season. Results are using a DraftKings Double-Up for Cash and large field tournaments for GPP. The Count column shows the number of times a player was selected by the experts for a given day. The Cash % column shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a Cash game. The GPP % column shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a GPP tournament. The Total column shows the number of occurrences that a player was selected that many times.
| Count | Cash% | GPP% | Total |
| 14 | 23.00% | 16.70% | 1 |
| 13 | 53.31% | 40.00% | 9 |
| 12 | 54.33% | 39.93% | 7 |
| 11 | 38.54% | 25.82% | 17 |
| 10 | 33.98% | 24.46% | 16 |
| 9 | 25.22% | 20.99% | 31 |
| 8 | 19.16% | 18.40% | 40 |
| 7 | 20.09% | 17.38% | 52 |
| 6 | 16.88% | 14.39% | 63 |
| 5 | 11.93% | 11.14% | 85 |
| 4 | 10.97% | 10.20% | 97 |
| 3 | 7.78% | 7.87% | 145 |
| 2 | 4.19% | 4.75% | 195 |
| 1 | 3.21% | 3.58% | 378 |
We will look to continue to track this over the course of the season as we provide projected ownership percentages for players on each slate in our NBA Consensus and Weighted Consensus articles.
