Another week in the books as the NBA season starts to wind down. We added another new DFS site to the mix at the end of this week, FantasyGuruElite. We also saw our very own DailyOverlay – Value Index jump into first place in the overall standing by a fraction of a point over FantasyTeamAdvice.
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 also list the top DraftKings Points per $1000 experts for each day and for the season as well as the top DK Pts/$1000 player that was recommended by at least one expert for each day’s slate. Finally, 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 (February 27)
Monday consisted of a solid seven-game slate of NBA action. The experts performed very well with 14 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 7th place out of 19 experts graded with a strong 5.48 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – DeMar DeRozan, Dario Saric, Lou Williams, Ricky Rubio, Kyrie Irving, Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, James Harden, Dennis Schroder, Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap, Monta Ellis, Seth Curry, Dwight Howard, Hassan Whiteside
F – Channing Frye, Eric Gordan, Gorgui Dieng
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 6.15) tops the list with nine selections receiving an “A+” grade out of 20 picks including Ricky Rubio, DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, Dario Saric, Karl-Anthony Towns and Lou Williams.
#2) FanSided (Score: 6.12) grabbed second place on the night with 11 “A+” grades out of their 25 selections. Some of their top plays included Karl-Anthony Towns, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Dario Saric, Dwight Howard, Ricky Rubio and Monta Ellis.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DraftKings Playbook (7.20 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Lou Williams (7.27x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Malcolm Brogdon (DailyRoto)
A+ – Kosta Koufos (DailyRoto)
A+ – Nene Hilario (FanSided)
A+ – Nik Stauskas (Rotowire)
A+ – Zaza Pachulia (Rotowire)
A+ – Sergio Rodriguez (FantasyPros)
A+ – Kent Bazemore (FantasyPros)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Nene Hilario (8.26x value) – FanSided
Tuesday (February 28)
Tuesday consisted of a nice six-game slate of NBA action. The experts had a down night with no experts topping a DailyOverlay score of 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks once again finished in the top half coming in 6th place out of 16 experts graded with a 3.14 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – Russell Westbrook, Nikola Jokic, Damian Lillard, Marcus Morris, Julius Randle
F – Nicolas Batum, Jimmy Butler, Nikola Mirotic, Kevin Durant, Reggie Jackson, Jon Leuer, Jeremy Lamb, Ivica Zubac, Tobias Harris
Top Experts of the Day
#1) Rotoballer (Score: 4.17) tops the list with four selections receiving a grade of “B” or better out of six picks including Marcus Morris, Kemba Walker and Frank Kaminsky.
#2) CBS Sportsline (Score: 4.14) grabbed second place on the night with four grades of “B” grades out of their seven selections. Their top plays included Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, Eric Bledsoe and Bradley Beal.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
CBS Sportsline (5.76 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Damian Lillard (7.65x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Ish Smith (Scout Fantasy)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Julius Randle (11.49x value) – DailyRoto, FantasyTeamAdvice, Scout Fantasy, DK Playbook
Wednesday (March 1)
Wednesday consisted of a big 11-game slate of NBA action. The experts improved over a poor Tuesday with four out of 21 experts finishing with a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 or higher.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished near the middle of the pack coming in 12th place out of 21 experts graded with a solid 4.58 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Seth Curry, Nikola Jokic, Isaiah Thomas, Ty Lawson, James Harden, Khris Middleton, Harrison Barnes, Kristaps Porzingis, Serge Ibaka
F – George Hill, Dario Saric, Taurean Prince, Lou Williams
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 7.20) tops the list with three “A+” grades out of five selections including Khris Middleton, Serge Ibaka, Nikola Jokic.
#2) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 5.25) make their second appearance in the top two this week with 10 out of 20 picks receiving a grade of “A+” or “A”. Top selections included LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, Khris Middleton and Ty Lawson.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DailyOverlay – Value Index (5.58 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Khris Middleton (7.05x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Dante Cunningham (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jae Crowder (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jon Leuer (DailyRoto)
A+ – Malcolm Brogdon (FanSided)
A+ – Lance Thomas (Rotowire)
A+ – Josh Richardson (FantasyPros)
A+ – Ersan Ilyasova (FantasyPros)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Dante Cunningham (9.25x value) – DailyRoto
Friday (March 3)
Friday night brought us a big 10-game slate of NBA action which was a solid night for the DFS experts with six 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+ – DeMar DeRozan, Alan Williams, Russell Westbrook, Khris Middleton, Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, Nikola Vucevic
F – Taj Gibson, Brandon Ingram
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 6.60) finished in the top spot for the second straight day with three “A+” grades out of five selections including Kyrie Irving, Khris Middleton, Kawhi Leonard.
#2) FantasyAlarm (Score: 5.83) takes second place with 10 “A+” grades out of their 24 selections. Some of their top plays included Russell Westbrook, John Wall, LeBron James, Khris Middleton and Nikola Vucevic.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DailyOverlay – Value Index (5.95 DKPts/$1000) – Best pick: Kyrie Irving (8.33x value)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Courtney Lee (DailyRoto)
A+ – Justin Anderson (DailyRoto)
A+ -Tim Hardaway Jr (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Elfrid Payton (DraftKings Playbook)
A+ – Derrick Favors (FantasyGuruElite)
Top DK Pts/$1000 Player of the Day
Justin Anderson (10.42x value) – DailyRoto
Overall Leaderboard
We are now through Week 18 of the NBA season. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
#1) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 5.17) moves into first place in the overall standing just a fraction of a point ahead of second place with two first place finishes to close out the week on Wednesday and Friday.
#2) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.17) drops into second place just barely out of first with a down week.
#3) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 5.01) moves back into third place after falling to fourth the previous week.
#4) FantasyLabs (Score: 4.97) drops one spot in the overall standings finishing outside the top 6 every day last week.
#5) DraftKings Playbook (Score: 4.92) remains in fifth place with three finishes in the top 7 last week.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 4.65) moved up one spot into 13th place out of 23 experts ranked in the overall standings through 19 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) (5.289x value)
#2) DailyFantasyNerd (5.253x value)
#3) DailyOverlay – Value Index (5.245x 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 | 49.67% | 48.89% | 48.02% | 75.30% |
| 12 | 41.92% | 47.82% | 48.73% | 29.70% |
| 11 | 35.34% | 39.76% | 45.14% | 44.04% |
| 10 | 27.39% | 31.59% | 34.11% | 58.23% |
| 9 | 21.98% | 26.91% | 25.44% | 31.04% |
| 8 | 19.28% | 19.50% | 23.09% | 34.02% |
| 7 | 14.79% | 19.28% | 19.98% | 24.54% |
| 6 | 14.01% | 14.16% | 15.60% | 21.59% |
| 5 | 10.83% | 11.62% | 10.73% | 19.70% |
| 4 | 8.49% | 8.39% | 9.11% | 14.18% |
| 3 | 5.16% | 6.91% | 6.36% | 9.37% |
| 2 | 2.39% | 4.63% | 3.96% | 5.04% |
| 1 | 3.06% | 3.34% | 2.71% | 2.66% |
GPP
| Count | $9k+ | $7k – $9k | $5k – $7k | $3k – $5k |
| 15 | 47.60% | 36.30% | ||
| 14 | 27.95% | 44.20% | 27.23% | |
| 13 | 34.73% | 34.56% | 34.65% | 50.20% |
| 12 | 32.44% | 33.90% | 30.80% | 23.00% |
| 11 | 26.83% | 28.87% | 30.48% | 30.75% |
| 10 | 21.11% | 22.93% | 26.29% | 35.44% |
| 9 | 19.51% | 22.21% | 20.83% | 22.27% |
| 8 | 17.89% | 18.44% | 19.52% | 24.27% |
| 7 | 14.23% | 16.90% | 17.44% | 17.65% |
| 6 | 14.31% | 13.49% | 14.32% | 15.47% |
| 5 | 11.46% | 11.90% | 11.28% | 14.29% |
| 4 | 10.24% | 9.26% | 9.39% | 11.36% |
| 3 | 7.71% | 8.56% | 7.68% | 8.11% |
| 2 | 4.04% | 5.88% | 5.67% | 4.97% |
| 1 | 5.19% | 4.76% | 4.45% | 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.
