A solid four-day week to start 2019 in the NBA. The 4th and 5th spots in our season-long standings continue their weekly flip-flop and the gap between 1st and 2nd is now razor thin! Enjoy!
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 expert, but produced an “A+” grade. I also list the top DraftKings Points per $1000 experts for each day. 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 on all weekdays that feature at least four games 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 (December 31st)
Industry Consensus Picks
DO Score – 4.21 (12th of 20)
Total Plays – 29
A+ – James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns, Tyus Jones, Julius Randle, Russell Westbrook, LaMarcus Aldridge, Derrick White, Kyle Anderson
F – Maxi Kleber, Dennis Schroder, DeAndre Jordan, Josh Jackson
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RG 6-Pack (Score: 6.50) started off last week strong with half of Beer’s six plays scoring an “A+.”
#2A) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.90) scored an “A+” with half of their 10 plays to tie for 2nd.
#2B) DK Playbook (Score: 5.90) also hauled in “A+” grades with half of their 10 plays.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
RG 6-Pack (6.17 DKPts/$1000)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Dorian Finney-Smith (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jaylen Brown (FantasyPros)
A+ – De’Anthony Melton (DailyFantasyNerd)
Tuesday (January 1st)
Industry Consensus Picks
DO Score – 4.04 (11th of 18)
Total Plays – 23
A+ – Kawhi Leonard, Moe Harkless, Nikola Jokic, Jusuf Nurkic
F – De’Aaron Fox, Jamal Murray
Top Experts of the Day
#1) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.36) finds the top-2 for the 2nd day in a row on Tuesday. Seven of their 11 plays scored “A” or better.
#2A) FantasyGuruElite (Score: 5.00) put together some solid plays on Tuesday as nine of their 17 selections scored “A” or better including five “A+” scores.
#2B) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 5.00) optimized a nice lineup with five of their eight plays scoring “A” or better with two “A+” grades.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
Rotowire (6.13 DKPts/$1000)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Derrick Favors (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Malik Beasley (Daily Overlay – Hot Sheet)
Wednesday (January 2nd)
Industry Consensus Picks
DO Score – 5.46 (12th of 21)
Total Plays – 28
A+ – Twelve of the 28 picks scored an “A+” grade.
F – Kyle Kuzma, Malik Monk, Kemba Walker, TJ Warren
Top Experts of the Day
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 7.60) made five plays and scored three “A+” grades, an “A” and a “B” for the day.
#2) DK Playbook (Score: 7.20) scored “A” or better with seven of the 10 plays on Wednesday including six “A+” grades.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
Rotoballer (6.32 DKPts/$1000)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jaren Jackson, Jr. (DailyRoto)
A+ – JaVale McGee (DailyRoto)
A+ – Alex Len (Rotoballer)
A+ – Reggie Jackson (Rotoballer)
A+ – Josh Jackson (FantasyPros)
Friday (January 4th)
Industry Consensus Picks
DO Score – 6.00 (14th of 22)
Total Plays – 30
A+ – Fourteen of the 30 plays scored an “A+” grade.
F – Thomas Bryant, Deandre Ayton, Chandler Hutchison
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RG Core Plays (Score: 10.00) played TJ Warren as their only selection to pick up the top spot.
#2) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 9.29) scored six “A+” grades and an “A” grade with their seven plays to cap the week.
Top DK Pts/$1000 Expert of the Day
DailyFantasyNerd (6.19 DKPts/$1000)
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Trae Young (DailyRoto)
A+ – Patrick Beverley (DailyRoto)
A+ – Evan Fournier (DailyRoto)
A+ – Taj Gibson (DailyRoto)
A+ – Kyle Anderson (RG Grind Down)
A+ – Alec Burks (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Demarre Carroll (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Richaun Holmes (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Thaddeus Young (Scout)
A+ – Jarrett Allen (Rotowire)
A+ – Trevor Ariza (Rotoballer)
A+ – Trey Burke (FantasyPros)
A+ – Marcin Gortat (FantasyPros)
A+ – Nerlens Noel (FantasyPros)
Overall Leaderboard
FantasyLabs continued their heater to place some distance between themselves and the rest of the competition. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
#1) RG Core Plays (Score: 5.66) is clinging to 1st place by a thread after a .17 drop in score last week.
#2) FantasyLabs (Score: 5.62) closed the gap even further last week. We could be looking at them atop the standings after this week.
#3) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.52) stayed relatively flat in score last week and holds on to 3rd place.
#4) DFS Army (Score: 5.32) continued the weekly flip-flop with the RG Consensus as they hopped back into 4th place.
#5) RG Consensus (Score: 5.28) slipped back into 5th place and maintains a slight edge over the other experts.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 5.11) slipped .01 in score for the week. The Consensus remains in 7th place for the season.
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.
Cash
| Count | $9k+ | $7k – $9k | $5k – $7k | $3k – $5k |
| 17 | 57.60% | N/A | 86.90% | N/A |
| 16 | 53.30% | N/A | N/A | 84.87% |
| 15 | 70.95% | 76.40% | 69.00% | 0.00% |
| 14 | 55.08% | N/A | 72.50% | 58.97% |
| 13 | 31.60% | 61.80% | 44.70% | 63.77% |
| 12 | 29.08% | 50.69% | 51.88% | 65.33% |
| 11 | 34.50% | 42.11% | 45.62% | 49.15% |
| 10 | 24.13% | 31.84% | 38.26% | 42.58% |
| 9 | 18.19% | 24.68% | 29.18% | 41.51% |
| 8 | 11.92% | 18.25% | 28.78% | 32.98% |
| 7 | 10.41% | 19.26% | 23.02% | 30.39% |
| 6 | 10.82% | 15.12% | 17.61% | 22.10% |
| 5 | 7.08% | 8.97% | 12.10% | 12.27% |
| 4 | 4.92% | 6.05% | 9.05% | 13.24% |
| 3 | 2.73% | 4.91% | 5.56% | 6.76% |
| 2 | 1.83% | 2.94% | 3.52% | 4.16% |
| 1 | 1.63% | 1.79% | 2.46% | 1.76% |
GPP
| Count | $9k+ | $7k – $9k | $5k – $7k | $3k – $5k |
| 17 | 39.80% | N/A | 53.60% | N/A |
| 16 | 40.00% | N/A | N/A | 60.90% |
| 15 | 42.80% | 47.10% | 40.30% | 0.00% |
| 14 | 38.50% | N/A | 47.35% | 38.43% |
| 13 | 22.88% | 38.55% | 28.47% | 39.10% |
| 12 | 22.75% | 37.50% | 34.06% | 43.50% |
| 11 | 23.47% | 29.68% | 31.01% | 32.00% |
| 10 | 21.33% | 23.16% | 27.13% | 25.81% |
| 9 | 16.59% | 20.85% | 22.24% | 28.39% |
| 8 | 13.70% | 16.79% | 23.29% | 23.85% |
| 7 | 12.43% | 15.68% | 17.39% | 21.93% |
| 6 | 11.32% | 13.90% | 16.09% | 16.21% |
| 5 | 9.63% | 9.84% | 12.26% | 10.99% |
| 4 | 7.88% | 8.01% | 9.58% | 10.43% |
| 3 | 5.21% | 6.59% | 7.40% | 6.91% |
| 2 | 5.10% | 4.80% | 5.24% | 4.50% |
| 1 | 2.92% | 3.20% | 3.92% | 2.36% |
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 Weighted Consensus article.
