Daily fantasy basketball can be one of the most fun, and most dangerous of all the fantasy sports out there. While there are a ton of games for you to participate in on almost a nightly basis, it also means that you’ll likely have much more at risk than in other sports.
While the NFL has big games once, or maybe a twice a week, you can’t really overlook the fact that having options galore for NBA games comes with more risk, but a whole lot of reward as well. So, with that said, let’s go ahead and start things out by keeping it basic with the “how to” of daily fantasy basketball.
We’ll get a bit more in-depth as we go on, but we’ll first start it out with the whole concept of choosing a site, or multiple sites, as well as choosing the games that best fit your style of play.
Choosing a Daily Fantasy Site
With so many options out there, ranging from FanPicks, Fantasy Draft, Yahoo and many others, it can be tough to choose where you want to play. The first thing you’ll want to do is just take a step back and use a few minutes just to see what each site offers. The types of games, cost of the games and anything else you could imagine.
It’s all about a comfort level with your site, but you’re probably going to quickly find that the bulk of sites offer a little bit of everything. Even with that being factored in, just find a site, or 2-3 sites that you feel comfortable playing at. The look and feel will be important to quite a few people, while finding huge games with big prize pools is important to others.
It is worth noting that while choosing a daily fantasy site may not seem like strategy, it actually is. Playing on the bigger sites may be tougher at times, as it’ll feature more “professional” players, while the other sites are going to feature more players who just play for recreational purposes.
Evaluating Game Types
So, you want the big field events that give you a chance at winning the huge payday? Don’t we all! Well, fortunately most of the bigger sites are going to offer the biggest prize pools, simply due to the fact that they have the most players on their sites. Now, this doesn’t mean that the other sites won’t have big games that they offer on almost a nightly basis, but you’re going to need to do some research to see if the potential winnings are what you’re looking for.
There’s far more than just those big games with massive paydays, and you’d be wise from a strategy perspective to make sure that you are remembering that. In order to be a successful daily fantasy player who makes money on a nightly basis, you need to mix and match. There is so much variance in the big games, that playing heads up games (one vs. one) or big field double-ups is going to be smart and keep you grinding out a profit while you try to score a big win in the other games.
From there, you need to look at smaller tournaments, satellites and multipliers. The smaller tournaments will put you up against fewer players, but will give you a much better chance to win, and also win a nice payday as well. As for the satellites, these are a great way for you to win your way into a game that may be a bit out of your price range. For example, if there’s a huge midseason tournament with a $1,060 buy-in on DraftKings, you may be able to play a satellite for $100 or less that could get you into that huge game.
Last up is multiplier games, which will set you into a field somewhere around maybe 34 or 57 players. In these games, everyone will put in a certain dollar amount, but the top percentage of players will 10x their buy-in. These are pretty great, especially if you can find the best matchups and get consistency across your entire lineup.
What Game Type Is for You?
So now that we’ve talked about a few of the games you may find, it’s important to realize what the “right” game for you is. If you’re more of a grinder who can consistently build lineups that can beat out over half of your opponents, but don’t seem to be able to hit the big home run, go with the 50/50 or heads up games. These can still be incredibly profitable, and you can play as many of them on a nightly basis as you want. Heads up and 50/50 games are great for any player, but be aware, that if you are a player who likes to take more risk in your lineup, you’re probably build for guaranteed prize pool games.
The GPP’s, they’re called, are going to be those huge tournaments. You can put in $3 and potentially win $10k or $20k depending on the night. While it sounds great, it’s important to realize how many people you actually have to beat in order for that to happen. It’s tough, but many people are just built to find the best sleepers on a nightly basis, making them great GPP players. Just be aware, these games are going to be very hit-or-miss, so balance them up with other games across the site.
Research and Set Lineups
Researching is more than just finding teams who can score a lot of points and players who have done very well as of late. You need to check the matchups and find out which teams struggle against opposing point guards, and then look who they’re up against. For example, if the Oklahoma City Thunder are playing the Golden State Warriors and the Warriors were awful against point guards (not saying this is true), then you’d want to target Oklahoma City’s point guard that night. Researching can also include finding the players who are going to exceed their price tag as well.
Obviously you are going to find that some players who are incredibly high priced are great on paper, but using them may make filling out the rest of your lineup tough. Remember, you only get a certain amount of salary cap to spend on your entire team, so spend it wisely. If you can fit in the superstar thanks to a few sleepers with great matchups, then jump on it. But if not, you may want to look for great matchups and players who won’t break the bank at the bulk of your positions.
It’s all going to depend on the night, but that’s just part of the grind of daily fantasy sports.
Watching Injuries
So, you’ve built your lineup and you’re all set for tip-off, right? Wrong, the job isn’t quite done just yet. Whether you’re just monitoring the situations throughout the day or check the injury report in the final hour before the games lock, you need to make sure everyone on your roster is actually playing! You never want to run into a situation where a player or two in your roster is sitting out due to rest or an injury that wasn’t supposed to leave them sidelined.
On top of that, you’re going to be able to use late injury updates to possibly get sleepers in your lineup if you decide to change things up. Many people will actually just lock in a lineup or two and wait until the last hour or so before filling them out, after seeing all the updates come through the wire. This is all just part of the strategy to pay attention to. It’s a task at times, but once you set up your routine, you’re going to be rolling right along and setting up winning lineups on a nightly basis!
