This past week featured a variety of experts on top of the daily leaderboards with only DailyFantasyNerd showing up in the top 2 more than once. We also had a newcomer this week, our very own Stephen Monahan with his Value Index. He performed very well in his first week and has jumped into the lead in the overall standings but we’ll give him another week of picks and grades before we “officially” add him to the leaderboard. This week should be another fun week as we inch closer to the All-Star break.
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 (January 16)
The Monday slate grading focused on the four-game night slate on Martin Luther King Day. The experts didn’t perform too well on the small slate with no expert finishing with a DailyOverlay score over 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished in the middle of the pack coming in 7th place finish out of 14 experts graded with a DailyOverlay score of just 2.60.
A+ – Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green
F – Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love
Top Experts of the Day
#1) FanSided (Score: 4.35) tops the list with 10 players receiving a grade of “B” or better out of 17 selections including picks of Eric Bledsoe, Draymond Green, DeAndre Jordan, Rudy Gobert and Kelly Olynyk.
#2) Rotoballer (Score: 3.75) grabbed second place on the night with three selections receiving a grade of “C” or better out of four picks. They were led by their selections of Rudy Gobert and Nicolas Batum.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Kelly Olynyk (FanSided)
A+ – Marreese Speights (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Joe Johnson (FantasyPros)
A+ – Andre Iguodala (FantasyPros)
Tuesday (January 17)
Tuesday featured another small slate with only five games of NBA action. The experts performed much better with 16 out of 20 experts finishing with a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 or better.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished in the bottom half 14th place out of 20 experts graded but had a strong DailyOverlay score of 5.18.
A+ – Kenneth Faried, Nikola Jokic, Brook Lopez, Lou Williams, Robin Lopez, Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, Goran Dragic, Will Barton, James Johnson, Nick Young, Cory Joseph, LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Ingram, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
F – D’Angelo Russell, Lucas Nogueira, Pau Gasol, Eric Gordon, Montrezl Harrell
Top Experts of the Day
#1) CBS Sportsline (Score: 8.67) tops the list with five out of six selections receiving an “A+” grade including picks of Goran Dragic, Lou Williams, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kenneth Faired and Brook Lopez.
#2) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 7.71) takes second place with five picks receiving an “A+” grade out of their seven selections. Key selections included Lou Williams, Kenneth Faried, Brook Lopez, Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Terrence Ross (DailyRoto)
A+ – Sam Dekker (RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down)
A+ – Ricky Rubio (FanSided)
A+ – Jordan Clarkson (FantasyPros)
A+ – Patty Mills (FantasyPros)
Wednesday (January 18)
Wednesday night featured the first big slate of the week with nine games of NBA action. The experts had a solid night with six experts recording a DailyOverlay score over 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus had a down night finishing in 15th place out of 19 experts graded coming in with a 3.92 DailyOverlay score.
A+ – James Harden, DeMarcus Cousins, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, John Wall, Mindaugas Kuzminskas, Marc Gasol
F – Kelly Olynyk, Tim Hardaway Jr, Kyle O’Quinn, Joffrey Lauvergne
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DraftKings Playbook (Score: 6.27) tops the list of experts on Wednesday with 11 out of 15 players receiving a grade of “A” or better. They were led by selections that included Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, James Harden, DeMarcus Cousins, Aaron Gordon and Marc Gasol.
#2) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 5.65) finishes second place with 15 out of 20 selections receiving a grade of “B” or better. Key picks included James Harden, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Marc Gasol, Patrick Beverley and Marcus Morris.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Patrick Beverley (RotoGrinders Consensus)
A+ – Jeff Green (CBS Sportsline)
A+ – Marvin Williams (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Courtney Lee (FantasyPros)
A+ – JaMychal Green (FantasyPros)
A+ – Frank Kaminsky (FantasyPros)
A+ – Al Jefferson (FantasyPros)
A+ – Derrick Rose (DraftKings Playbook)
Friday (January 20)
Friday night consisted of a solid nine-game slate of NBA action. The experts finished the week on a high note with 11 out of 19 experts coming in with a DailyOverlay score over 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks fell just short of a 5.0 DailyOverlay score finishing at 4.88 which ranked 12th out of 19 experts.
A+ – Joel Embiid, Mason Plumlee, Anthony Davis, Dennis Schroder, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Aaron Gordon, Lou Williams, Marc Gasol, Rudy Gobert, Vince Carter, Brandon Ingram, Thaddeus Young, Kemba Walker
F – Jimmy Butler
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 7.13) takes home their second top two finish this week with five “A+” grades from their eight selections. Their top picks included Lou Williams, Vince Carter, Marc Gasol, Dennis Schroder and Anthony Davis.
#2) Rotowire (Score: 6.56) comes in second place with eight of their nine selections receiving a grade of “B” or better. Key picks included Dennis Schroder, Jordan Clarkson, Anthony Davis, Marc Gasol and Mason Plumlee.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – DJ Augustin (DailyRoto)
A+ – Robert Covington (RotoGrinders Lineup Builder)
A+ – Jeff Green (FantasyAlarm)
A+ – Kris Humphries (FantasyAlarm)
A+ – Gordan Hayward (FanSided)
A+ – Zaza Pachulia (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Jordan Clarkson (Rotowire)
A+ – Al Jefferson (FantasyPros)
A+ – Timofey Mozgov (FantasyPros)
A+ – Bismack Biyombo (FantasyPros)
Overall Leaderboard
We are now through Week 13 of the NBA season. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.26) might have a new challenger with Daily Overlay – Value Index putting together a strong first week.
#1A) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 5.36) put together a good first week including two top 5 finishes. We will fully incorporate them into the leaderboard after another week of picks to grade.
#2) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 4.96) had a down week with only one day finishing in the top 5 but they remain in second place in the overall standings.
#3) RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down (Score: 4.90) holds onto third place finishing in the top 8 every day this week.
#4) DraftKings Playbook (Score: 4.85) jumps up into fourth place behind a strong week that included three top 4 finishes.
#5) FantasyLabs (Score: 4.83) drops one spot in the standings with a couple low ranking days on Monday and Tuesday.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 4.56) holds steady on the leaderboard this week ranking in 13th place out of 22 experts ranked in the overall standings through 13 weeks of action.
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 |
| 15 | 61.65% | 41.95% | 2 |
| 14 | 40.82% | 31.58% | 5 |
| 13 | 51.49% | 36.73% | 23 |
| 12 | 44.64% | 33.48% | 21 |
| 11 | 38.94% | 27.57% | 39 |
| 10 | 33.71% | 24.81% | 66 |
| 9 | 24.01% | 20.59% | 91 |
| 8 | 21.52% | 19.19% | 124 |
| 7 | 19.52% | 16.79% | 160 |
| 6 | 16.00% | 14.38% | 224 |
| 5 | 13.12% | 12.33% | 299 |
| 4 | 10.69% | 10.26% | 352 |
| 3 | 7.70% | 8.31% | 518 |
| 2 | 4.64% | 5.40% | 723 |
| 1 | 2.91% | 3.48% | 1295 |
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.
