Steps for Beginning Daily Fantasy Basketball
Season-long fantasy basketball and daily fantasy basketball have several characteristics. You shouldn’t have any trouble adjusting to the daily version of the hobby if you’ve already participated in season-long competitions. But in some ways, it’s a whole new and distinct game.
Daily fantasy tournaments have the advantage of requiring far less time and effort than season-long leagues, which is one of its key benefits.
The quantity of money you can win in such a short amount of time is another benefit. They are also easily accessible because there are many daily fantasy sites that are free to join and offer a wide variety of different competitions.
This page’s goal is to provide starting point advice.
We accomplish that by outlining the mechanics of these daily competitions and comparing them to the season-long version. We also provide some beginner-friendly strategy pointers.
Basketball Daily Fantasy Points Scoring
Learning how points are scored in daily fantasy basketball is the first objective. It closely resembles the season-long version of the sport in this regard. Although the grading systems on various websites vary, they all have some similarities. The first piece of information you need when playing any game is how to win; in fantasy basketball, participants triumph by outscoring rivals.
Similar to other fantasy sports, points are closely correlated with each week’s success of your players. The players on the floor receive points for almost all of their actions in daily fantasy basketball, including points scored, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and turnovers.
Super Tip
Chasing minutes is an essential component of an effective approach in this activity, which we’ll discuss in more detail later. Having players in the lineup who spend a lot of time on the court makes a significant difference in the final score of every game because players receive points for practically everything they do.
The actual score system for the website(s) you want to play at should be checked, however below are a few samples from two well-known websites.
- A player receives one point for each point that is scored.
- Each 3-point attempt earns a bonus of 1.5 points.
- 1.25 points are awarded for a rebound.
- 1.5 points are awarded for an assist.
- A theft earns you two points.
- It is worth two points to block.
- A turnover results in a score of -0.5.
- Double-doubles are worth 1.5 points each.
- Triple-doubles earn three points.
- A 3-point field goal carries a 3-point value.
- A 2-point field goal carries a 2-point value.
- Free throws are worth one point each.
- The value of a rebound is 1.2 points.
- Assisted points are worth +1.5.
- Steals and blocks each earn two points.
- Reversals result in a -1 point.
Although grading guidelines on other websites may differ significantly from ours, they generally follow the same general guidelines. Please educate yourself with the scoring regulations before playing, regardless of where you play, as this will effect your lineup planning and draft strategy.
Salaries & Lineups
Participants attend a draft at the start of the season in the majority of fantasy sports that last an entire season. When it is their turn in the draft, the managers choose players, and once a player is chosen, he is taken out of the group of available players. Speed is a crucial component of daily fantasy basketball, thus that element of the game alters. You and your rival can select the same players.
You and your opponent might even use the identical starting lineup.
The astute players may believe that there will be many ties because most people will pick all of the great players each week. The pay cap enters the picture here, though. You are given an in-game budget—a wage cap—with which to pick players, which adds some intrigue.
Based on their success in previous games and anticipated performance in upcoming games, the website calculates a salary to each participant. To acquire the most output for your money is your main objective. Finding value is what that is known as, and we’ll talk more about it in the part after this.
Recognize that in no way does the amount of your pay cap correspond to actual money. Similar to Monopoly money, it’s an artificial restriction designed to keep the game exciting. As a result, you and your opponent have the same pay cap, regardless of the contest’s buy-in. You cannot pay additional real money to increase your salary.
Depending on the site, your team may receive anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000 in compensation.
The restrictions for how many players you can draft and at what positions vary amongst the sites. Here is an illustration of what your roster must look like at one location.
- Point guards, two
- Shooting Guards, two
- Small forwards, two
- Power forwards twice
- one center
Another illustration, this time from a different website.
- guard, point
- Guard with a gun
- tiny forward
- Driven forward
- Center
- Guard
- Forward
- Utility
As usual, other websites will offer various lineups depending on their own scoring criteria. But they are all quite comparable.
Finding Worth
Finding value is how players succeed in daily fantasy basketball. You accomplish this in a season-long league by selecting players who ought to have been selected earlier but weren’t. You accomplish this in a daily contest by selecting players who will score more points in comparison to the amount of your wage cap that you must spend on them.
Players in daily fantasy basketball gauge value based on how much each point is worth. This can be calculated individually for each player as well as collectively for the entire squad. Most athletes do this twice: once when estimating their team’s weekly point total and once when analyzing the final standings.
If a fantasy basketball team gets 100 points while paying a salary cap of $50,000, for instance, you paid $50,000/100, or $500 per point. On the same wage cap, if your opponent scores 200 points, he only spent $250 each point. The most important consideration in choosing a player to pick is how many points you anticipate the player will score relative to his salary.
Here is one instance.
You want to choose Russell Westbrook for your squad because you truly like him.
You anticipate that he will receive 60 points, and his annual income is $12,000
For that player, you are paying $200 per point.
Brook Lopez appeals to you as well.
You predict that he will receive 50 points, despite the fact that he barely makes $8000 per year.
He represents a greater value because you just pay $160 each point for him.
Why not just select the guy with the highest expected point total at each position? The issue is that you are unable to do so because you lack the necessary funds. In the aforementioned illustration, Russell Westbrook consumes over 25% of the budget despite making up only 12.5% of your squad. Budgeting is still required for the other 8 participants.
How do players’ points become projected? How can one discover value? The goal of the game is to find the solutions to those questions. Let’s look at some of the methods you can use to accomplish this.
Observe The Games
One simple strategy is to watch basketball in person. Observe the games. Understand how each squad is predicted to perform versus its opposition.
The likelihood is that you already enjoy basketball; otherwise, why start? Daily fantasy basketball is a terrific method to increase your interest in the actual games, though, if you’re not already a fan or are only a casual fan. Naturally, you’ll start to pay closer attention to what’s going on in the game.
Employ The Vegas Lines
Observing the lines that the Las Vegas bookmakers are placing on the games is a crucial part of the “finding value” equation. They are experts. They are the best at predicting scores and handicapping games. Utilize their expertise to guide your own choices.
Create records
To keep track of their predictions for their players, many players maintain spreadsheets. They have columns for the team’s overall cost and the price per point for each player. After the game, they evaluate how well their team and players performed in comparison to their expectations.
You will become a more knowledgeable gamer if you keep track of these facts. We only get better at the skills we practice, and we only get better when we monitor and evaluate our progress. Want to improve your score projection skills? Monitor your outcomes.
Analyze the opposition
You should also have a peek at the game’s results on the website. With the help of the available contests, you may have a fair notion of the average score you need to achieve in order to succeed. You can use that to guide your choices and determine which competitions to enter. You can use it to help your team set a goal score.
Let’s say you choose a squad that you predict would score 200 points, but they only manage 140. You then enter a another competition, projecting 200 points for this new group, but they only score 140. Finally, you join a competition with a projected lineup score of 200 points, and you actually come quite near with 180 points.
Being able to see things in black and white might inspire. However, you may also examine every player in each of your lineups individually to determine where your reasoning is flawed.
But remember that predicting player scores isn’t a precise science anyway. Even the top handicappers consistently get it incorrect around half the time. However, the extra 5% to 10% of the time that they are correct makes a huge difference in how much money they are able to make.
Freerolls and low-cost competitions
Beginners are always advised to start with freerolls.
These are competitions with no entrance cost and cash awards.
The majority of big sites reward players who bring a lot of activity to the table with freerolls as well as give them to new players. Utilizing these is a risk-free method of playing the game.
Find competitions with modest buy-ins as well. We have participated in numerous $1 daily fantasy basketball tournaments. You may experiment with many different lineup methods without taking on a lot of risk when the entry cost is so minimal. Additionally, winning a few of these low-cost competitions is a terrific confidence booster.
If you are already confident and anxious to start investing some money, don’t shy away from the bigger buy-in competitions. You can be extremely fortunate and succeed right away. Your level of risk tolerance will have a significant role.
Types of daily fantasy basketball tournaments
There are two types of daily fantasy sports competitions: cash games and tournaments. Although there are obvious changes, the language is borrowed from the poker industry. Which contests you enter will depend on your objectives.
How to Play Cash Games
Head-to-head competitions and 50/50 tournaments are both types of cash games. These can also be referred to as “double-ups.” That’s a bit misleading because winning one of these doesn’t really double your money. Here is a brief explanation of how they operate.
You enter a contest with another player (or multiple other players).
Assuming that everyone is average, you’ll win 50% of the time.
The prize for winning comes from the losing players.
The site takes a commission from the entry fees.
Here’s a simple example of a head-to-head contest and how it pays out.
You play a contest with one other player
The entry fee is $1.
Total of entry fees is $2.
The prize pool is $1.80.
If you win, you ALMOST double your money.
The other 20 is the site’s commission for hosting the contest.
In a 50/50 contest, you might be in a contest with 100 players. The players with scores landing in the top 50% win the money from the players in the bottom 50%, less the commission. So if you pay $1 to enter, so do all of your opponents. That means there’s $100 in the pot. The site pays the top 50 players $1.80 each, for a total payout of $90.
For players who aspire to make a living at this hobby, cash games are their bread and butter. These would-be professionals are counting on their skills at finding value being better than their opponents’.
It’s harder than one might think to make a profit with these games, though. The commission means that you have to win 55.56% of the time just to break even. Every 1% added to your win rate increases your ROI (return on investment) (return on investment).
Professional daily fantasy sports players look at these cash games as an investment with a positive ROI. They grind out small wins over the course of a season. They rely on compound interest to grow their bankroll to a point where they’re making a lot of money.
But almost all players also take advantage of the other type of contests available—tournaments.
How Tournaments Work
In tournaments, multiple players enter, but only the top 10% or 20% (or some other arbitrary number) get paid. You might spend $5 to enter a tournament with a large playing field of 1,000 players. You have the opportunity in that situation to win as much as $1,000 or $750 on that $5 buy-in.
The best kinds of tournaments to enter are those with guaranteed prize pools (GPPs) (GPPs). Most tournaments base their prize pool on the number of entrants multiplied by the entry fee. For example, if 1,000 people pay $5 to enter a contest, the prize pool is $5,000 less the site’s commission, or $4,500.
But in a tournament with a guaranteed prize pool, that prize amount is guaranteed even if too few players sign up. The website puts up the additional money for the prize pool. In the above example, if only 800 people buy in to the contest with the guaranteed prize pool, you’re basically playing for dead money. It’s like having 200 extra people sign up for the contest, all of whom score 0.
A guaranteed prize pool tournament with too few players is called an overlay situation. Your goal should be to get involved in overlays every chance you get.
The Importance of Chasing Minutes
During a basketball game, only 5 people from a team are on the court at any given time. Every time someone has possession, they almost always score something. The only hope of scoring a lot of points is to put players on the roster who are going to spend a lot of time on the court.
If you follow the Vegas lines as we recommended earlier, you can look for games that are expected to be close. Combine this with teams who don’t have a lot of players. In fact, if you can get starting players from teams that only have 8 or 9 available players, you can do very well. Injuries make a lot of players unavailable for certain teams in certain games, so targeting those teams helps line up players who will almost certainly get a lot of time on the court.
Summary
Daily fantasy basketball is an exciting and fun way to enjoy the sport of basketball as more of a participant than other spectators. You can also win money at it. Getting started involves learning the scoring system and projecting value for the players you line up.
Chasing minutes is the best strategy for daily fantasy basketball players. Since almost every possession results in a scoring opportunity, making sure that your players get a lot of playing time is a key to success.