FanDuel and Factoids
Note: kicktosscatch does not currently sell lineups
As of late, I have been experimenting with a hyper-focused stars and scrubs strategy. The thought is that as long as I was able to hit 3 out of the top 5, that would secure enough points to almost guarantee money. A couple of lineups were able to succeed, but I feel as if the lineups themselves are too hit or miss for people to effectively build off of.
That’s why I started this morning off with some math. I wanted to figure out the opportunity cost of playing two 11k players in a roster.
The median price for a player, a $50,000 budget split between 9 spots, is 5,555.555. This means that Giannis and Jokic are literally worth two players, or that any player in that price range needs to score more than half of the average of Giannis and Jokic.
When Jokic busts, you’ve wasted 1/5 of your money, and while that might not matter to those who make thousands of lineups. It does matter for an article series that is trying to promote the best process on lineup construction.
Today’s Strategy: Focus on beating FanDuel’s pricing. The lower someone’s price, the higher chance they have the beat that price by several times. The hope here is that we have zero busts. If a player does bust that means we lose in both worlds by going too far in the middle. We lose the advantage and floor of the more expensive players, and still had the worst possible effect of a paydown option.
Lineup 1:
Giannis is absent tonight, increasing the value of Holiday and Middleton
KAT’s play has improved, but he’s still an inconsistent shooter and horrible on defense.
Ricky Rubio has the ball in his hands all of the time. Sometimes that becomes too much power for Rubio and he forces a low percentage mid-range jumper.
Anthony Edwards has a chance to shoot his way into ROTY with Melo being possibly out for the rest of the season. Edwards gets enough opportunity to score 30+ points on less than 50% shooting.
DeRozan is likely to score in the 40+ FanDuel point range against the Hornets. DeRozan isn’t fully reliant on his shooting to score FanDuel points as he can both grab boards and grab assists.
Playing both Keldon Johnson and Rudy Gay is pushing it. I’d recommend playing one or the other.
Thaddeus Young is the best play of today.
Allen is a great player, and I’m glad he’s getting an increased opportunity in Cleveland. With that being said, can the Cavaliers figure out a trade for Drummond already? They’ve been in negotiations for a month at this point, and it’s getting unfair to the player.
Lineup 2:
With Melo out, Gordan should become a valuable asset for fantasy and DFS. It’s important for us to track who steps up in the coming weeks so that we can be ahead of the curve. Hayward won’t always be this cheap.
I’m so happy that Caris Lavert is okay. With his price being exactly at the average, he only needs to score his average (32.75) to pay up to his price.
