Posts Tagged ‘handicapping’

Thank You Fantasy Basketball Daily Readers

Mar 7, 2011 Blog

I have enjoyed writing the Fantasy Basketball Daily blog this season and wanted to say thank you to all the visitors who have been reading.  I have had some things going on during the last couple of weeks that have really knocked me out of my usual flow with basketball and I don’t expect to get things back to normal for at least another week.  At this point, with only a few meaningless weeks left in the regular season, I feel it’s probably best for me to end the blog for the 2010-2011 season, rather than try to figure out all the information that I’ve missed out on lately.  I look forward to cranking the blog back up full time when NBA training camps open in October!

I also have a few other projects planned for the summer which revolve around fantasy baseball.  As many of you guys know, I play a lot of daily fantasy cash games and I intend on doing some heavy playing this baseball season.  I have restarted my blog at FantasySportsHandicapping.com  for fantasy baseball season, where I will publish my thoughts and strategies for beating the daily games, my daily results and bankroll progression, as well as a few fantasy picks each day.  I can’t promise that it will be an everyday blog, but it should be an interesting read if you are involved in the daily fantasy scene. 

Thank you again to all the Fantasy Basketball Daily readers and I hope to see you over at the baseball blog, FantasySportsHandicapping.com,  for the summer and back here at Fantasy Basketball Daily for the 2011-2012 NBA season!

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Friday Fantasy Basketball Tournament Picks, Lineups and Injuries (1/21/11)

Jan 21, 2011 Blog

Fanduel.com is having a $2500 Fantasy Basketball Tournament tonight and I figured it might be a good feature here on FBD to post a pregame article for the weekly Friday tournament.  I have tried to pick out a sleeper from each NBA game for tonight’s tourney and also provide some lineup and injury news.  To qualify for the sleeper list, a player must be priced at less than $7000.

If you haven’t heard of Fanduel.com, it’s a site that offers one day fantasy basketball games played for real cash.    Fantasy owners draft a new team for each day’s NBA action and play either a head-to-head match against another owner or enter their team in a multiplayer tournament style contest.  You can play for as little as $5 or as much as $100.  Ther are also some very large payouts on the multiplayer tournaments.  Registration at Fanduel.com is free and you can deposit funds with Paypal or a credit card.

 

Cheap Sleeper Picks for Friday’s Tournament:

Greg Monroe (DET, $5600) – Ben Wallace continues to be sidelined and Monroe will get the start.  He’s capable of a double-double.

Read the rest of this entry »

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NBA Fantasy Betting Matchups (3/3/10)

Mar 3, 2010 Blog

Here are tonight’s Lines, Odds, Handicapping Matchups and Game Previews for your daily draft cash game contests.  Good luck tonight with your games. 

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Fantasy Sports Betting Previews (2/23/10)

Feb 23, 2010 Blog

Tonight’s NBA Fantasy Previews and Game Matchups:

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The Key NBA Handicapping and Fantasy Analysis Statistic: Possessions (8/27/09)

Aug 26, 2009 Picks

Handicapping NBA games and playing fantasy basketball are very closely related and having a good grasp of one definitely improves the other.  One of my favorite stats for making my NBA handicapping game picks AND setting my daily fantasy cash game rosters is the ‘possession’.  The Possession statistic measures the ‘quantity’ of opportunities that a team gets to score points.  All stats flow from this concept.

Possession is defined with the basic formula:  Possessions=FGA+TO+(.4 x FTA)-OREB.  Sometimes you will see .44 x FTA used but I normally just use .4 to make the math easier and quicker as I review the boxscores.  Some also prefer to discount the entire possessions number by multiplying it by .96.  I stick with the above formula. 

To determine the number of possessions for the entire game, simply do the formula for each team and then add the number of possessions together and divide by 2.

Last season one of  the teams with the highest number of possessions per game was Golden State.  Plugging in their season numbers you get 7055 FGA + 1201 TO + (.4 x 2392) – 953 OREB = 8355/82 games = ~101 possessions per game.   The scores of their games tended to be relatively high.

One of the slowest teams was the Detroit Pistons, who are known for their tough defense.  Plugging in their numbers you get 6559 FGA + 973 TO + (.4 x 1849 FTA) – 949 OREB = 7397/82 games = ~89 possessions per game. The scores of their games tended to be relatively low.

If you were considering a totals bet, the possession figures should be the first statistic you look at.  Once you understand possessions, you can see why Warriors games usually have higher totals numbers than Pistons games.  The real trick is to determine where to put the line when you have a matchup of the Warriors versus the Pistons. 

It should also be clear how a knowledge of the possessions statistic can help you with daily fantasy decisions.  If you have to choose between two players, one playing against Golden State and one playing against Detroit, the roster decision becomes really easy given the possessions statistic and all the extra opportunities the fantasy player will have with Golden State as the opponent.  This becomes really helpful in daily cash game fantasy contests with a salary cap.  Many times the two players you are considering may have similar salaries, but the matchups make one player a much better deal than the other.

The possessions statistic is an important one, but sometimes can be misleading since it only measures quantity of opportunity.  In the next post of this series I will take a look at qualifying the possessions statistic with the statistic of ‘efficiency’ using Offensive Ratings and Defensive Ratings.  While Possessions measure ‘quantity’ of scoring opportunities, Off/Def Ratings measure ‘quality’ of scoring opportunities.

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