The NBA season is starting to wind down as the DFS experts try to make a final push up the standings. RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down and DailyRoto continue to produce consistently strong picks every week but a newcomer to our grading, Scout Fantasy, has put up impressive scores two weeks in a row. Our Lineup Construction experiment wasn’t quite as good as last week, however, we did still produce winning GPP lineups 50% of the time this week.
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. And finally, I will publish results of our Lineup Construction series.
As a reminder, we are currently gathering selections and publishing the NBA Industry Consensus articles and NBA Consensus Lineup Construction 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 consensus picks and sample lineups for the day.
On to the grades!
Week in Review
Monday (March 14)
Monday night a consisted of a solid nine-game slate of NBA action. The experts had a down night with no experts receiving a DailyOverlay score above 5.0.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus finished strong with a 3rd place ranking out of 12 experts graded but only registered a DailyOverlay score of 3.81 for the day.
A+ – Ricky Rubio, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Shelvin Mack, Kyle Lowry
F – JaMychal Green, Tobias Harris
Top Experts of the Day
#1) RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down (Score: 4.44) came in first with eight out of 16 selections receiving a grade of “B” or better. Their top plays of the night included some Consensus plays such as Kyle Lowry, Russell Westbrook, Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry. They also got an “A+” out of Kemba Walker who was only selected by one other expert.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-pack (Score: 4.33) pulls into second place on Monday with two “A+” grades from Shelvin Mack and Russell Westbrook out of six selections.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Kemba Walker (RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down, DailyRoto)
A+ – Chandler Parsons (DailyRoto, FanSided)
A+ – Enes Kanter (FanSided)
Tuesday (March 15)
Tuesday night featured a six-game slate of NBA action. The experts perform much better than Monday with six experts and the Industry Consensus picks receiving a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 or better.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks were solid finishing in a tie for 6th place out of 12 experts graded with a DailyOverlay score of 5.00.
A+ – DeMarcus Cousins, Carl Landry, Paul George, Bismack Biyombo, Thaddeus Young, Bojan Bogdanovic
F – None
Top Experts of the Day
#1) Scout Fantasy (Score: 7.00) tops the list with six out of 10 selections receiving an “A+” grade including a mix of players on the Consensus list and off the list with DJ Augustin, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, DeMarcus Cousins, Carl Landry and Bismack Biyombo.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-pack (Score: 6.83) comes in second place for the second consecutive day with all six selection receiving a grade of “B” or higher. The top selection included Bojan Bogdanovic, Carl Landry, and DeMarcus Cousins.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Giannis Antetokounmpo (DailyRoto, FanSided, Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Nik Stauskas (FanSided)
A+ – DJ Augustin (Scout Fantasy)
Wednesday (March 16)
Wednesday night consisted of a solid nine-game slate NBA action. The experts had a very strong night with seven experts receiving a DailyOverlay score over 5.0, plus the Industry Consensus. It was a boom or bust night with a lot of “A+” and “F” grades on a high-scoring night in the NBA.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus had a solid day finishing in 5th place out of 12 experts graded with an excellent DailyOverlay score of 6.10.
A+ – Anthony Davis, Victor Oladipo, Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, Andre Drummond, John Wall, Ricky Rubio, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Zach LaVine, Brandon Jennings, Lance Stephenson, Enes Kanter, Nicolas Batum, JJ Redick
F – Jrue Holiday, Dwight Howard, Evan Fournier, Taj Gibson, Nikola Mirotic, E’Twuaun Moore
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 8.6) put up a huge score to take home first place on Wednesday with 11 out of 14 selections receiving an “A+” grade. Some of their key selections included Darren Collison, Briante Weber, Victor Oladipo, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kevin Love, Al Horford and Kevin Durant.
#2) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 7.40) also had a great night with seven out of 10 selections receiving an “A+”. Their picks included Consensus plays such as Brandon Jennings, Ricky Rubio, Nicolas Batum and Anthony Davis but also included and off the board pick of Matt Barnes.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Darren Collison (DailyFantasySportsRankings, Moxyball-MoxyList)
A+ – Briante Weber (DailyFantasySportsRankings, FanSided)
A+ – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (DailyFantasySportsRankings, DailyRoto)
A+ – Tobias Harris (DailyFantasySportsRankings, FanSided)
A+ – Kevin Love (DailyFantasySportsRankings, RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks)
A+ – Al Horford (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – JaMychal Green (RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks)
A+ – Kyrie Irving (Moxyball-MoxyList, DFSOnDemand)
A+ – Michael Beasley (FantasyAlarm, FanSided)
A+ – Gorgui Dieng (FantasyAlarm, FanSided
A+ – Matt Barnes (FantasyTeamAdvice, FanSided)
A+ – Marvin Williams (FanSided)
Friday (March 18)
Friday night consisted of a light eight-game slate of NBA games. Friday turned out to be an average night for the DFS NBA experts with five experts reaching a DailyOverlay score of 5.0 or greater.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus picks finished in the middle of the pack with a 6th place ranking out of 12 experts, posting a DailyOverlay score of 4.73.
A+ – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Russell Westbrook, CJ McCollum, Karl-Anthony Towns, Michael Beasley, DeMarcus Cousins, Stephen Curry, James Harden
F – Anthony Davis, Darren Collison, Alex Len
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DFSOnDemand (Score: 6.50) top the list for Friday with two “A+” and two “B” grades out of their four selections with Michael Beasley and Tyson Chandler leading the way.
#2) RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks (Score: 5.67) grabs second place with four “A+” grades out of nine total selections. Their top selections included only one Consensus play, Russell Westbrook while they hit on three off the board picks with Harrison Barnes, Marcus Morris and Dirk Nowitzki.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Harrison Barnes (RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks)
A+ – Marcus Morris (RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks)
A+ – Dirk Nowitzki (RotoGrinders Expert Tourney Picks, Moxyball-MoxyList)
A+ – Kyle Lowry (FantasyAlarm)
A+ – Klay Thompson (FantasyAlarm)
A+ – Victor Oladipo (FanSided)
A+ – Lou Williams (FanSided)
A+ – Hollis Thompson (FanSided, Scout Fantasy)
A+ – David Lee (FanSided)
A+ – Tristan Thompson (FanSided)
A+ – Channing Frye (FanSided)
A+ – Tyson Chandler (DFSOnDemand, FanSided)
Overall Leaderboard
We have now completed 21 weeks of the NBA season. You can view the full NBA Overall Standings here.
* Scout Fantasy (Score: 5.24) completed their second week of grading and their currently overall score would put them in the top spot in the overall standings. We’ll put them in the top spot with an asterisk for now to see if they can prove themselves to be consistently near the top of the standings over the next couple of weeks.
#1) RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down (Score: 4.97) continues to remain at the top of the overall standings of the experts that we have been grading all season. Their picks finished in first place on Monday and third on Tuesday this week.
#2) DailyRoto (Score: 4.94) continues to keep pace with the NBA Grind Down and remains right on their tail just 0.03 points behind with just a few weeks of grading to go. While their picks did not crack the top two any particular day this week, they were in the top five every day to show their consistency.
#3) FakePigskin (Score: 4.70) did not have any selections this week so they hold at their same score from last week which is still good enough for third place overall. They still have numerous sites hot on their trail including DailyOverlay – Double Stuffed, DailyOverlay – Industry Consensus and Moxyball – MoxyList.
The Daily Overlay Industry Consensus picks (Score: 4.65) finished near the middle of the pack all week but did increase their overall score to continue to close the gap on third place. Overall, the Consensus picks remain in 6th place in the overall standings if you include newcomer, Scout Fantasy. We’ll see if the Industry Consensus picks can finish strong to continue to creep up the Overall Leaderboard before season’s end.
Let’s see which experts can make the grade this week in the NBA!
Consensus Lineup Construction Review
We were unable to duplicate last week’s excellent showing but did continue to produce strong GPP lineups this week cashing 50% of the time on both FanDuel and DraftKings.
Here is a list of the “rules” we are following when constructing lineups:
- We will make two separate lineups for each site (FanDuel and DraftKings), one for Cash games and one for GPP tournaments.
- For Cash games, we will build our entire lineup from the Consensus list using any player listed regardless of what tier they are in.
- For GPP games, we are allowed to choose up to two players that are not on the Consensus list.
- We can modify any lineup as we see fit for any late-breaking news updates that open up good options even if they are not on the Consensus list.
The results of those lineups will be provided in this section each week.
Weekly Results
FanDuel
| Day | Cash Score | Cash Place | Profit(Loss) | GPP Score | GPP Place | Profit(Loss) | Picks By |
| Monday | 253.1 | 72/100 | ($1.00) | 303.4 | 3,332/117,647 | $2.00 | Stephen |
| Tuesday | 297.5 | 34/100 | $0.80 | 293.9 | 31,997/117,647 | ($1.00) | Stephen |
| Wednesday | 226.2 | 98/100 | ($1.00) | 325.4 | 3,260/117,647 | $3.00 | Stephen |
| Friday | 248.9 | 95/100 | ($1.00) | 233.3 | 88,235/117,647 | ($1.00) | Stephen |
| Total | 256.4(avg) | ($2.20) | 289.0(avg) | $3.00 |
Stephen had more success in GPP tournaments this week on FanDuel cashing in two out of four days for a nice $3.00 profit (75% ROI). Cash game plays weren’t as good only cashing one time for a net loss in Cash games for the week. Overall, Stephen turned in a small profit for the week.
DraftKings
| Day | Cash Score | Cash Place | Profit(Loss) | GPP Score | GPP Place | Profit(Loss) | Picks By |
| Monday | 254.00 | 60/100 | ($2.00) | 199.75 | 32,810/35,294 | ($1.00) | Brad |
| Tuesday | 309.25 | 10/100 | $1.60 | 290.50 | 5,115/29,411 | $1.00 | Matt |
| Wednesday | 204.25 | 97/100 | ($2.00) | 302.50 | 649/29,411 | $4.00 | Brad |
| Friday | 239.50 | 81/100 | ($2.00) | 245.25 | 15,159/23,529 | ($1.00) | Matt |
| Total | 251.8(avg) | ($4.40) | 259.5(avg) | $3.00 |
Similar story on DraftKings where Matt and Brad were able to cash once each in GPP tournaments for a $3.00 profit but was only able to cash one day in Cash leagues. Overall, a small loss on DraftKings for the week.
Overall Results
Below you will see a grid of our results since we changed our process to the new rules where we have more flexibility on who we select from the Industry Consensus list each day.
Our GPP results have been strong since switching to the new process that allows us to go “off the board” for a couple of our lineup spots. We will look to improve on our Cash game ROI during the final weeks of the NBA season.
The overall ROI went down this week but is still 31.27% thanks to the strong GPP winnings.
| FanDuel | Cash Entry Fees | Cash Tot Winnings | Cash ROI | GPP Entry Fees | GPP Tot Winnings | GPP ROI | Tot Entry Fees | Tot Winnings | Tot ROI |
| Brad | $2.00 | $3.60 | 80.00% | $1.00 | $2.00 | 100.00% | $3.00 | $5.60 | 86.67% |
| Stephen | $16.00 | $12.60 | -21.25% | $18.00 | $22.77 | 26.50% | $34.00 | $35.37 | 4.03% |
| FD Overall | $18.00 | $16.20 | -10.00% | $19.00 | $24.77 | 30.37% | $37.00 | $40.97 | 10.73% |
| DraftKings | |||||||||
| Brad | $16.00 | $10.80 | -32.50% | $8.00 | $41.00 | 412.50% | $24.00 | $51.80 | 115.83% |
| Matt | $18.00 | $18.00 | 0.00% | $13.00 | $10.00 | -23.08% | $31.00 | $28.00 | -9.68% |
| DK Overall | $34.00 | $28.80 | -15.29% | $21.00 | $51.00 | 142.86% | $55.00 | $79.80 | 45.09% |
| Overall | $52.00 | $45.00 | -13.46% | $40.00 | $75.77 | 89.43% | $92.00 | $120.77 | 31.27% |
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 had a hypothesis at DailyOverlay that we could utilize the Industry Consensus list to help predict ownership percentages with the assumption being that players who were selected by more experts would likely be higher owned picks in Cash and GPP tournaments.
Below is the current table showing the data we have tracked over the last three weeks. Results are using DraftKings Double-Up or 50/50s for Cash and large field multi-entry tournaments for GPP. The Count column shows the number of times a player was selected by the experts for a given day. The Total column shows the number of occurrences that a player was selected that many times. 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.
| Count | Cash% | GPP% | Total |
| 11 | 71.63% | 46.27% | 3 |
| 10 | 60.50% | 33.45% | 4 |
| 9 | 49.49% | 27.72% | 10 |
| 8 | 38.04% | 22.00% | 19 |
| 7 | 29.52% | 19.96% | 45 |
| 6 | 24.43% | 17.96% | 52 |
| 5 | 18.22% | 15.59% | 81 |
| 4 | 14.76% | 12.99% | 101 |
| 3 | 10.72% | 10.83% | 132 |
| 2 | 8.51% | 9.16% | 201 |
| 1 | 4.05% | 5.66% | 378 |
Our original hypothesis looks to be correct, showing that we can use the Industry Consensus list as a tool to help predict ownership percentages. I will look to continue to track this over the remainder of the season and provide some deeper analysis when we have more data.
