At least 90% of the analysis you’ll read about NFL DFS discusses picking the right players. Almost all of it will ignore game selection.
The easiest and fastest way to increase your ROI is through game selection. It’s a complicated topic because everyone reading this should have different goals. The overwhelming majority of people should be playing DFS football for pure fun. A small percentage can treat DFS as a side job, looking to generate a modest amount of extra income. And a tiny, infinitesimal percentage of the player pool is trying to play for a living.
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I know that everyone wants to take $20 and turn it into $1 million. They are perfectly fine with having a negative expectation through the season, exclusively playing the extreme top-heavy massive-field tournaments. And quite frankly there’s nothing wrong with that. Again, most people should be playing for fun.
But this article is for people who are interested in giving themselves a positive expectation each week. That means adding cash games*, smaller field tournaments and spending time each week identifying the contests you want to play. It often ignores the “lottery style” extreme large-field GPPs.
At least 90% of the analysis you’ll read about NBA DFS discusses picking the right players. Almost all of it will ignore game selection. The easiest and fastest way to increase your ROI is through game selection. It’s a complicated topic because everyone reading this should have different goals. We are excited to bring you our LOL DFS Game Theory article. This piece of content is created to help breakdown each slate and label our plays into four, very easy to follow, categories. These are: Cash, Safe GPP/Upside, Low owned GPP, and Fades. Utilizing this piece of content, along with DFS Karma’s E-sports Projection.
If you want more on game selection, I spent two chapters in my e-book talking about it. In-season subscribers to Establish The Run get the book for free here.
*Cash games refer to any contest in which roughly 50% of the field gets paid out, such as head-to-heads, double ups and 50/50s.
IF YOU WANT TO PLAY $100 IN A WEEK ON DRAFTKINGS
* 20 different GPP lineups in the $1 First Down for $20 total: This is a preferred low-stakes GPP to target since it’s 20-max, not 150-max. Only building 20 GPP lineups also gives us the option of hand-building them or using an optimizer.
* Three different GPP lineups in the $8 Engage Eight for $24 total: This is a 3-max tournament that pays 2x for a min-cash and has flat payouts up top. In other words an 80th percentile lineup wins $16. And 10th place prize ($1,000) is 10% of 1st place ($10,000). The 3-max nature allows us to hand-craft our favorite three tournament teams. And with a field size of under 15,000 entries, we won’t need the actual perfect lineup to win.
* Use your cash lineup to create 39 $1 H2H games for $39 total: Create the head-to-head contests yourself. Be sure to click the box that limits the number of times one person can play against you to one. If you notice any “pros” or good players regularly scooping your games, add them to your block list. You can do this by going to Account Information, Preferences, Head-to-Head Settings.
Note that if you want to reduce variance, you can play more head-to-heads instead of double-ups. Head-to-head results aren’t binary, some weeks you’ll win 60% and others 30% and others 90%. Double up results are typically either win them all or lose them all.
Here’s a graph of my NFL H2H results so you can visualize what it looks like to grind a lot of them. These graphs come from RotoTracker, a DFS results tracking platform.
And here are my NFL H2H results by buy-in level so you can get an idea on realistic ROIs.
* Use your cash lineup in the $2, $5 and $10 Single Entry Double Up for $17 total: Anytime we can find massive-field cash games that are single entry, they are going to be good games. We should avoid the multi-entry double ups, which allow the best players to put in 150 of their cash lineup and lower our expected value. These single entry fields are around 9,000 entries and we know there aren’t 9,000 solid cash players in the ecosystem.
IF YOU WANT TO PLAY $500 IN A WEEK ON DRAFTKINGS
* All of the above for $100 total.
* Use the same 20 GPP lineups you used in the $1 First Down and add them to the $3 Play-Action for $60 total. This is another 20-max tournament with the max 15.89% rake, but it gives us a big ceiling should we run into the nuts – and it also has flat payouts. First place is $50K and 10th is $5000. We now have a total of $4 on each of our 20-max lineups.
* Use the same three GPP lineups you used in the $8 Engage Eight in the $20 Hard Count for a $60 total. This is a 5-max tournament with 2x min-cash. It’s slightly more top heavy than we’d prefer with only $1K to 10th and $25K to 1st. But it’s the best of the lower-stakes 5- or 3-max contests.
* One new GPP lineup in the $50 Red Zone for $50 total. By moving up to the $50 level, we lower the rake from the 15-16% level down to 11.99%. We also find a smaller field (4,545 entries) and many of our opponents will simply put their cash lineup in. That creates leverage for us by hand-building a GPP team we like and really attacking that $25K first-place prize.
* Use your cash lineup to create 40 $2 and 40 $3 head-to-head contests for $200 total. Use the same process described above to register these games. So we now have a total of 119 low-stakes head-to-head games, which will be some of our most +EV action. It also smooths out variance due to the non-binary outcome of high-volume head-to-head action.
* Use your cash lineup in the three $5 10x boosters and three $5 Triple Ups for $30 total. While our cash lineup will almost never win a GPP with more than 1,000 entries, it can easily finish as a top-5% lineup in a week. By entering some of the multiplier contests, we find some softer opponents and also give our cash lineup a bit of a ceiling. In the event we have an elite cash lineup, we’ll make $195 on our $30 investment.
After 12-plus hours of NBA basketball Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we’re presented with only a pair of games Tuesday, as the vast majority of the team will get a breather in preparation for a big Wednesday slate. Regardless, the DFS grind marches on and so do the game-by-game breakdowns.
Vegas odds are derived from DraftKings Sportsbook. All totals from the time of writing are posted. With that said, some games will not have totals posted if there is outstanding injury news.
(Make sure to check out all of the great FTN NBA offerings and fantastic NBA Tools, including our FTN NBA Odds Tracker and daily FTN NBA DFS cheat sheets!)
Oklahoma City Thunder @ Denver Nuggets (-9.5, 220.5 total)
Pace: OKC (11th), DEN (25th)
Defensive rating: OKC (18th), DEN (25th)
$8,700 for on a full slate would have me questioning whether I want to pursue him in cash or single-entry formats, but a two-game slate makes this an easy decision. Averaging 25.2 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists over his last five games, SGA steps into a game against a defense that ranks 29th against scorers and 21st against primary ball handlers (per advanced DvP), making him a phenomenal target.
The rest of the Thunder team are appealing options when hunting for value on this slate, as the Nuggets are currently a bottom-six team in defensive rating. makes for the best point-per-dollar option here, even against , as is set to miss his third consecutive game. Over his last two starts, Roby has averaged 12.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in just under 25 minutes per game — all extremely serviceable for $4,100 on a two-game slate. The absence of Horford should also continue to open up more rebounding opportunities for , and . Of the three, Dort and Bazley present similar security in terms of playing time, as they should both fall in the 26- to 30-minute range. Diallo profiles more as a tournament option.
Because of the slate size, becomes a perfectly viable play at $4,300, but it’d be irresponsible to expect 30 minutes from the veteran. His floor is low, but he provides enough offense where he could get there at his price.
On the other side of this game, it’s almost impossible to get away from Jokic on a two-game slate, despite the hefty price. He’s leading the NBA in touches per game while posting a 28.7% usage rate, 43.8% assist rate and 19.4% rebounding rate all en route to logging 1.64 DK points per minute. He’s the only stud to spend up for, and a player I strongly advise fitting into your lineups.
It makes sense to pair him with given the fact that a staple in their offense is the dribble hand-off together, but he carries more volatility than someone like SGA on the other side of the game. Even with the volatility, his $7,300 price tag is hard to pass up.
Of the value options on Denver, makes the most sense. His minutes are incredibly secure for his price and while his production can be frustrating, the playing time alone makes him a viable option at $4,400 on such a thin slate. P.J. Dozier can be approached with the same rationale, as he’s topped 22 minutes in three consecutive games. While he’ll never be a high-usage player, you don’t need much at only $3,900.
The forwards are the difficult position to dissect for the Nuggets, even with out. Because and essentially split 48 minutes, they’re two I would prefer to avoid on this slate. should continue to soak up a lot of Porter’s voided minutes and at $5,700, he makes sense with his ceiling, but his floor is low.
New Orleans Pelicans @ Utah Jazz (-6, 217.5 total)
Ds Games
Pace: NOP (26th), UTA (24th)
Defensive rating: NOP (17th), UTA (6th)
Dfs Games Game
After a shift in their starting lineup last game, the Pelicans could see yet another shift Tuesday with on track to return to the lineup. This would almost certainly spell an end to ’s one-game stint as the starting point guard, but he’s certainly solidified a spot in the rotation. Should Ball return, Alexander-Walker becomes nothing more than a GPP play at his elevated price ($5,400) considering the fact that moving back to 18-22 minutes would be well within the range of outcomes.
While his popularity is sure to take a massive hit, ’s ($9,100) and ’s ($7,900) shouldn’t. Ingram holds the higher usage rate (29.3% to 28.6%) and production clip (1.18 to 1.12 DKP/min), but the $1,200 price difference makes Williamson the better option. This, in turn, makes Ingram an elite tournament play with ownership likely going to Williamson, Jokic, Gilgeous-Alexander and Murray all surrounding his price.
Ball and would both be OK plays, but I can’t call them anything more than that given their volatility and the options elsewhere at the position. lost his starting spot last game, but still makes for a fine value option given his ability to rack up peripheral production.
Dfs College Bowl Games
On the flip side of the ball, the Jazz should be one of the higher-owned teams on the slate for once, it just took a two-game slate for this to be the case. remains questionable for the game, which would mean more opportunity for should he sit again. His $6,500 price may cause a bit of sticker-shock, but his 26% usage rate and 1.28 DKP/min production clip sans Ingles makes him worth the price.
is hard to argue with on this slate given the fact that he’s the team-leader in usage rate (31.8% without Ingles) and should lead the team in touches. It’s also impossible to write-off on a two-game slate, especially in a game against a team that presents a ton of size to oppose him in Williamson and . His $7,600 feels a touch cheap, making him my second-favorite center on the slate behind Jokic. If you want to get different, running a two-center build with the two anchors your lineup in a way that many may not do. He may see a few extra minutes as well as continues to work through some soreness in his right knee.
Best Dfs Games To Play
Outside of those three, and are viable because of the slate size, but Bogdanovic’s one-dimensional game makes him more of a GPP play than a cash play, while Conley will be harder to justify with only a touch more expensive. Regardless, his minutes are secure and he’s a good bet for 10-15 shot attempts per game.