NBA DFS Strategy: Cash Game vs. GPP Roster Construction

It’s like Christmas Eve of NBA DFS as on Tuesday we have the Sixers vs. the Celtics and the Warriors take on the Thunder on opening night.  But rather than focus only on who to plug into your rosters tomorrow, today I’d like to take some time to talk about full-season strategy.  My main focus will be on roster construction for both your cash games and GPPs on the two major sites that I play on – Fanduel and Draftkings.  With late swap back in effect on DK and the new “drop your lowest score” rule on FD, savvy DFS players are going to adjust quickly to these changes so you’re going to need to take them into account if you’re going to maintain an edge on the field.

Cash Games vs. GPP Strategy for NBA DFS

I often get asked, “what makes a player a cash play vs. a GPP play?”  The answer is different for different players, but the easiest answer for me is “the amount of confidence you have in that player reaching their floor.”  For cash games, we want players with floors, who are less likely to bust than others while it’s ceilings that we are chasing in GPPs.  That is a universal NBA DFS philosophy, but here’s how it applies specifically to NBA DFS.

So what are we looking for in cash game plays? The number one answer is minutes. More minutes on the floor almost always equals more fantasy points.  If a player is not projected to get 30+ minutes, I’m not likely to use them in a cash game lineup, it’s that simple. But minutes aren’t the only thing we’re looking for as there are plenty of players around the league who play big minutes without doing much while they’re out on the floor.

Usage is the other major stat we’re looking for when finding cash game plays.  Usage is a stat that measures how many possessions were used by each player while they’re on the floor. Every time a player ends his team’s possession with a shot attempt, free throw attempts or a turnover that possession counts towards his usage rate.  The simplest way to say it is that it shows us how involved a player is in their team’s offense. The league average is around 20% so we are looking for usage rates higher than that. James Harden last year led the league with a 35% usage rate which leads me to my next point…

Cash game lineups in NBA are usually built around superstars. Superstars are the best of both worlds because they normally play big minutes and have massive usage rates. With salary cap restraints, however, we can usually only squeeze one or two superstars into our cash lineups any given night.  When picking the right superstar to build around we usually looking for one that has a good matchup AND is likely to play their full allotment of minutes (trying to avoid blowouts if possible).

In order to fit in the top plays, you always need to find value plays. Often times it can come in the form of a backup who’s starting for an injured teammate.  But not all value plays are created equal, just make sure that the player you’re plugging in is going to get minutes AND usage since you’re counting on them not to fail in that spot with your hard earned dollars.

So what makes a guy a good GPP play? Well, first of all, most superstars that you build your cash games around are also great GPP plays because they usually have a solid floor AND a high ceiling. But my favorite players to target for GPPs are usually guys who are priced in the mid-tier between the values and high-priced studs. Players in the 8-9k range can often get overlooked when DFS players are making “stars and scrubs” lineups and many of these players still have very high ceilings of their own.  Whether it’s a streaky shooter who can get hot and drop 30+ real-life points (like a Klay Thompson type) or a defensive-minded stat stuffer (think Draymond Green or Paul Milsap) who can rack up blocks and steals like crazy (both worth 3 points each on FD by the way), GPP plays are guys who have massive ceilings on any given night but do it less often than the top tier players (which is why their often priced down a few thousand below them).

Draftkings Cash Game Strategy

Building cash game lineups on Draftkings can sometimes be easier than on Fanduel because of multi-position eligibility and the utility spot. The nice thing about DK is that if there’s value that opens up at a certain position, you can use that utility spot to lock in that value and still play your favorite high-priced player at the same position.

One of the most successful strategies that I’ve used when building DK cash lineups is the use of the utility spot for a second center.  In my experience, centers are often priced down on Draftkings and they are usually really solid cash plays due to their high floors.  Most centers rely on rebounding for a large chunk of their fantasy output, and rebounds are one of the most predictable fantasy stats in NBA DFS.  Sure, early foul trouble can be an issue when rostering big men, but their scoring output is usually more reliable due to the number of high percentage shots they take.  Easy baskets and boards are what make centers my favorite cash plays. And if you have a few PF/C eligible player on the slate, I wouldn’t hesitate at all to play 3 or even 4 big men in your PF, C, F, and UTILITY slots.

Some players will tell you they are looking 5x value from players in cash games (meaning if player X costs 5k to roster, they need to put up 25 DK points). Personally, I don’t think there’s a magic number you need to hit and I’ve never been able to figure exactly what algorithm is used to calculate whether or not your player gets a little fire icon or a snowflake.

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Fanduel Cash Game Strategy

Fanduel has added an interesting little wrinkle this year with their decision to drop your lowest score and only count the score of 8 of the 9 players you roster.  For cash games, I’m going to be punting like crazy. We were already looking for value plays so we can jam in studs before, and now knowing that we can get away with one bad play I think it’s going to be absolutely mandatory to punt at least one spot in your cash game builds.

In fact, I think it’s very likely I’ll be going with a “double punt” approach most nights in cash. If Fanduel continues to keep the minimum price of a player at 3500, then punting with two sub 4k players is going to give you around 7.5k left for the other 7 spots on your roster. That’s going to allow you to easily fit in two 10-11k studs and possibly even a third if there’s another value out there.  I’ll be curious to see how this plays out, but I’ll be aggressively punting early and often this season to lock in as many high-end plays as I can.

GPP Strategy (both sites)

I mentioned what type of player I am looking for in GPPs earlier, but one thing I didn’t discuss yet is one of my favorite strategies – game stacking. NBA DFS has correlated plays just like any other DFS sport. Do you stack up an offense in baseball? Stack quarterbacks with receivers in football? Why wouldn’t you want to stack a few players from the same game in NBA DFS then?  It’s only logical that if a game has a high total and close spread (the games we like the most in any DFS sport) then we should want several pieces from it as they could be some of the highest raw scorers on the slate.

Game stacking can be tricky, though. You don’t want too many pieces from the same game unless it’s a really small slate (like 3 games or less).  The trick is getting the right pieces from each side right. Golden State is playing Oklahoma City tomorrow, but it’s not possible to fit Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Paul George and Russell Westbrook in a lineup though, nor is likely the optimal build. However, it would make a lot of sense to stack Steph Curry and Paul George together from that game and hope that they are the ones who have the biggest games from their team.  Every slate is different and the more games that are on a slate, the less exposure you’re likely going to want to just one game.

Well, I hope you this helpful and that you’re as excited as I am for the beginning of the NBA season. Best of luck to you in your contests, no go build some winning lineups!  Thanks for reading and as always I love to hear your feedback in the comments or by hitting me up on twitter @ThunderDanDFS.