The NBA DFS experts started out the post All-Star break with a BANG providing very good selections and high DailyOverlay scores on both Thursday and Friday night with good analysis and picks to navigate the trades that transpired during the break. Meanwhile, the experts continue to play musical chairs at the top of the leaderboard with our own DailyOverlay – Value Index making the biggest jump back into the Top 5 but not enough to overtake the current leader FantasyTeamAdvice.
We have also added a new feature to the NBA Expert Recap starting this week by providing the top DraftKings Points per $1000 experts for each day and for the season. PokerNewsSports (formerly FantasyWired) leads the way for the season with a strong 5.32 DKPts/$1000 on the season. We will also list the top DK Pts/$1000 player that was recommended by at least one expert for each day’s slate.
In this article, I will give a brief recap of each day we gathered and graded the experts, including how the Industry Consensus picks performed, 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
Thursday (February 23)
Thursday consisted of a nice six-game slate of NBA action coming out of the All-Star break. The experts performed very well with 15 out of 19 experts finishing with a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 or higher.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished in the top half coming in 9th place out of 19 experts graded with a strong 5.55 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – Tyreke Evans, Willie Cauley-Stein, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Jusuf Nurkic, Maurice Harkless, Kemba Walker, Willy Hernangomez, Buddy Hield, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Stephen Curry, Tobias Harris, DeMarcus Cousins, DeAndre Jordan
F – Nikola Jokic, Jrue Holiday
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 8.00) tops the list with all five selections receiving either an “A+” or “A” grade including Damian Lillard, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Tyreke Evans, Aaron Gordon and Jusuf Nurkic.
#2) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 7.13) grabbed second place on the night with five “A+” grades out of their eight selections. Their top plays included LeBron James, Willy Hernangomez, Tyreke Evans, Kevin Durant and Willie Cauley-Stein.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DailyOverlay – Value Index (7.20 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (10.66x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Terrence Ross (DailyRoto)
A+ – Ish Smith (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Nene Hilario (DraftKings Playbook)
A+ – Tristian Thompson (FantasyLabs)
A+ – Andre Iguodala (FantasyLabs)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Willie Cauley-Stein (12.08x value) – 14 experts
Friday (February 24)
Friday night brought us a big 10-game slate of NBA action which was another strong night for the DFS experts with 14 out of 19 receiving a DailyOverlay score over 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus didn’t finish as well in the rankings coming in 12th place out of 19 experts graded but still had a good 5.34 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – TJ Warren, Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan, Dario Saric, Rudy Gobert, Seth Curry, Karl-Anthony Towns, Robert Covington, Gary Harris, Blake Griffin, Bradley Beal, Steven Adams, D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Tyler Johnson
F – Nikola Jokic
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DraftKings Playbook (Score: 6.86) finished in the top spot with 10 picks receiving a grade of “A” or better out of their 14 selections. Top plays included John Wall, DeMar DeRozan, Seth Curry, Robert Covington, TJ Warren, Blake Griffin, Dario Saric and Rudy Gobert.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-pack and DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 6.80) tie for second place. Both had three “A+” grades out of their five selections. The 6-pack’s top plays included Steven Adams, Dario Saric and Gary Harris, while the Value Index’s best picks were Tyler Johnson, Marquese Chriss and Rudy Gobert.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DailyOverlay – Value Index (6.03 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Marquese Chriss (8.69x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Pau Gasol (DailyRoto)
A+ – Ricky Rubio (FanSided)
A+ – Marquese Chriss (DailyOverlay – Value Index)
A+ – Manu Ginobili (FantasyPros)
A+ – Tony Parker (DailyFantasyNerd)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Richaun Holmes (9.43x value) – DailyRoto, RotoGrinders Consensus
Overall Leaderboard
We are now through Week 18 of the NBA season. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.23) remains in the top spot coming out of the All-Star break with Top 5 finishes on both Thursday and Friday.
#2) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 5.06) jumps back up into second place on the leaderboard with two sensational days coming out of the All-Star break with a 1st place showing on Thursday and 2nd place tie on Friday.
#3) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.04) drops one spot in the overall standings but still has a good start to the second half of the season with two Top 7 finishes this week to increase their overall DailyOverlay score.
#4) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 5.01) drops one spot in the standings for the second straight week despite increasing their overall score with two Top 6 finishes this week.
#5) DraftKings Playbook (Score: 4.95) moves back into the Top 5 overall with a slim lead over two other sites thanks to their 1st place finish on Friday.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 4.66) fell one spot down to 14th place out of 22 experts ranked in the overall standings through 18 weeks of action.
Top DK Points/$1000 Leaders
Combining the total DraftKings points for every player selected this season divided by the total salary of every player selected to get each experts DK Pts/$1000.
#1) FantasyWired (now PokerNewsSports) (5.32x value)
#2) DailyFantasyNerd (5.28x value)
#3) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (5.24x value)
Let’s see which experts can make the grade next 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.
Below are the tables showing the actual data collected so far this season. Results are using a DraftKings Double-Up for Cash and single entry tournament for GPP. The Count column shows the number of times a player was selected by the experts for a given day. The salary columns show the average ownership percentages for all players that were recommended by the given number of experts for the salary range provided.
Check out the “Smarter Projected Ownership Percentages” article for a full explanation of how we are using this data.
Cash
| Count | $9k+ | $7k – $9k | $5k – $7k | $3k – $5k |
| 15 | 63.10% | 60.20% | ||
| 14 | 36.35% | 63.95% | 45.27% | |
| 13 | 50.01% | 47.48% | 53.32% | 75.30% |
| 12 | 41.92% | 47.82% | 48.73% | 29.70% |
| 11 | 35.34% | 41.66% | 44.74% | 44.04% |
| 10 | 28.33% | 33.65% | 33.44% | 58.23% |
| 9 | 21.98% | 27.44% | 24.95% | 31.04% |
| 8 | 18.47% | 19.67% | 22.86% | 33.30% |
| 7 | 14.45% | 19.09% | 19.11% | 24.54% |
| 6 | 13.94% | 13.83% | 15.27% | 21.97% |
| 5 | 11.73% | 11.81% | 10.96% | 19.13% |
| 4 | 9.13% | 8.63% | 8.89% | 14.08% |
| 3 | 5.16% | 6.96% | 6.47% | 9.22% |
| 2 | 2.46% | 4.79% | 3.99% | 5.00% |
| 1 | 3.13% | 3.42% | 2.69% | 2.67% |
GPP
| Count | $9k+ | $7k – $9k | $5k – $7k | $3k – $5k |
| 15 | 47.60% | 36.30% | ||
| 14 | 27.95% | 44.20% | 27.23% | |
| 13 | 35.49% | 35.35% | 38.52% | 50.20% |
| 12 | 32.44% | 33.90% | 30.80% | 23.00% |
| 11 | 26.83% | 30.19% | 30.45% | 30.75% |
| 10 | 21.67% | 24.10% | 25.77% | 35.44% |
| 9 | 19.51% | 22.51% | 20.70% | 22.27% |
| 8 | 17.81% | 18.57% | 19.43% | 24.15% |
| 7 | 13.88% | 16.78% | 17.01% | 17.65% |
| 6 | 14.37% | 13.21% | 14.27% | 15.69% |
| 5 | 11.77% | 11.98% | 11.41% | 13.98% |
| 4 | 10.64% | 9.43% | 9.33% | 11.33% |
| 3 | 7.71% | 8.60% | 7.77% | 8.07% |
| 2 | 4.28% | 6.02% | 5.69% | 4.93% |
| 1 | 5.20% | 4.82% | 4.44% | 2.80% |
We 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.
