NBA DFS Strategy: Cash vs. GPP Roster Construction
If you clicked on this article, I’m going to make one assumption about you (and I know what they about when you ass-u-me things). I am going to assume that you want to be a better NBA DFS player. It’s often too easy to just read a few articles that say “play these guys” and then build a lineup and wonder why it doesn’t cash but it is a whole different beats to dive into NBA DFS Strategy.
Someone once told me “every lineup needs to tell a story,” which I thought was a pretty cool way to think about it. Whether it’s a GPP or Cash lineup, we need to think about WHY we are rostering certain players and what their floors and ceilings might be if their games play out one way or another. To me, understanding how to build rosters and what factors to consider during your process is one of the most important skills you can continually sharpen and evaluate as a DFS player.
"“Every lineup needs to tell a story…”"
Whether you’re primarily a cash game or GPP player you need to be able to “trust your own process” (somewhere Joel Embiid is smiling). I want to share with you my process for building cash and GPP lineups on FanDuel and Draftkings – the two sites where I play the majority of my volume in NBA DFS. I’m going to try to break it all down for you with the hope that you can take something away from this article that will improve your process and help you become a more consistent NBA DFS player.
NBA DFS Strategy: Identifying Players for Cash vs. GPP
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 first thing is the 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. We want ball hogs like Harden, Westbrook, and Giannis on our DFS teams because the easiest way to score fantasy points is to score real-life points.
NBA DFS Strategy: Identifying Players for Cash vs. GPP
So what makes a guy a good GPP play? Well, the first of all you can always play “cash players” in GPPs. I usually talk about how you don’t need to fade ALL the chalk in GPPs, just find the right mix of chalk and lower-owned plays. Most superstar players are cash and GPP-viable because they have high floors and high ceilings.
But in GPPs you have to be willing to take some risks on players that you’d be nervous to play in cash games. Either players who aren’t guaranteed minutes or players who rely more on peripheral stats for fantasy points than they do on scoring. These are the players that we see priced in the mid-tier, usually because of spotty production. It can be maddening at times to try to guess which night Kent Bazemore goes for 50 FanDuel points because he’s just as likely to end up 10.
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 40+ real-life points (like a Klay Thompson type) or a defensive-minded stat stuffer (think Draymond Green) 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).
NBA DFS Strategy: Building Cash Game Lineups
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). I will warn you that fading your favorite superstar because you fear a blowout might not be a good idea. I ran some numbers earlier this season and noticed that only about 5% of all NBA games last year ended with a difference of 20 points or more (my definition of a blowout). Maybe that stat is misleading because the bench players can tighten up a lopsided score late, but I do think blowouts happen less often than we’re willing to admit.
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 decent usage since you’re counting on them not to fail in that spot with your hard-earned dollars.
Sometimes the best play is not actually the player replacing the injured starter in the lineup but another starter or bench player who is going to absorb more usage. Using tools like Court IQ, a free tool on RotoGrinders is one way to get a good look at which players benefit from an injury to their teammate.
NBA DFS Strategy: Draftkings 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, but 5x is usually a good indicator they’re hitting their floor. 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, but you better have more fires than flakes if you want that lineup to cash in your double-ups.
NBA DFS Strategy: 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’ve been 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 continue to be absolutely mandatory to punt at least one spot in your cash game builds, especially with how quickly FanDuel has been to price up players after they have good performances.
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 know this “drop your lowest score” rule has caused a lot of players some headaches with late scratches, but I don’t think it’s likely we see the format change this season. And I like playing on FanDuel so I’m going to adapt my roster construction accordingly to try to maximize my chances of winning on a nightly basis.
NBA DFS Strategy: FanDuel and Draftkings GPP Roster Construction
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. 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.
My last piece of advice is to try to be contrarian without making bad plays. What the heck does that mean? Well, what I mean is that you don’t have to have 8 or 9 totally off-the-radar plays. It’s unlikely that all of your low-owned plays outscore some of the chalk.
You can actually be different by “flipping” your roster construction. If the chalk build seems to be “stars and scrubs” then build a balanced lineup with high upside plays from the 6-8k range. Dare to be different, but don’t be contrarian at all costs.
NBA DFS Strategy: Analyzing Your Results
I think one of the most important things you can do is look at your results every night. It’s too easy to dismiss a poor night on how badly someone played or just tilt your face off about how unlucky you are. You need to be constantly re-evaluating your process. If you play head-to-head contests, look and see who your opponent played when they beat you. Look at your own lineup and see which players failed to meet their salary-based expectations. Where did you go wrong?
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If you play GPPs, look at the winning lineup and see who they played. Did they game stack, go stars and scrubs, or make a balanced lineup? Then look at your own lineup. Did you put take too many risks? What was the ownership of your favorite GPP plays?
It can be time-consuming, but dig a little deeper into the box scores. Maybe Nikola Jokic busted and only scored 30 DK points but he also shot the ball 2-15 from the field. Or was he limited to 20 minutes due to foul trouble? Sometimes you made the right play and variance didn’t break your way. It’s important to stay with your process if you think it’s putting you on the right players even if you’re not always getting the right results.
Well, I hope you this helpful and that you continue to follow me this season for all your NBA DFS needs. 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.