We truly believe here at FantasyLabs that we have the most unique tools and data available to DFS users. However, we also realize that those tools and data are only as awesome and helpful as our ability to effectively communicate how to use everything. As such, we will continually listen to feedback of what you need and try our best to teach our subscribers how to use all of the cool things we have to offer.

With this in mind, we’ve begun a “Trend of the Day” series. Every weekday we’ll walk our subscribers through an important trend for that day’s slate of games.

At the time of this writing, there are four games that have a spread of 10 points or higher. As a result, one of the themes of the day is going to be blowout risk. With 11 games on tap tonight, there are plenty of pivots available if you want to look elsewhere. Still, if you decide you’re going to complete avoid these games altogether, that means ruling out Curry, Durant, Westbrook, and CP3 right off the bat, which is pretty scary. Let’s see how these teams have performed in similar situations this season.

Trend: Favored By 10+ Points

Step 1: Vegas Filters > Spread > Set “-19 to -10”

On a very general level, including players from all salary levels across all NBA teams, there is a very, very marginal positive value returned. How meaningful is the data to us at this point? Probably not very, honestly. But let’s make a note of this as we move forward.

 

Step 2: Team Filters > Team > Select “GSW, LAC, OKC, SAS”

 

 

Here, we narrow it down to the specific teams we are interested in. The Warriors, Clippers, and Thunder all have negative Plus/Minus scores at the team level, while the Spurs surprisingly check in at +0.53. The sample sizes are not the same, as some teams have played in more games where they are favored by 10+ points – the Warriors lead the way with 689 player matches and the Thunder have the fewest matches. After narrowing down the results to include only these four teams, the Plus/Minus has gone down:

 

Step 3: Projection Filters > Proj Minutes > Set “20 to 39”

 

 

The problem with the last result set is that it included every player on the four teams, including end of bench types. What we’re truly interested in is the starters and key bench players from the involved teams. We can select these guys by filtering out anyone who is projected to play under 20 minutes. Good news, we are back in the green:

 

Interestingly, if you look at the results team by team, the Clippers are still posting a negative Plus/Minus at -0.19, while the other three teams are all over +1.00.

Step 4: Team Filters > Team > Select Teams Individually.

Step 5: Player Filters > Player Name > Sort By “Count”

 

Warriors

 

Unfortunately, we have over 50 games worth of data that tells us Steph is not going to be a great play when the Warriors are heavy favorites. Even worse – in most of Steph’s 54 games, he has cost less than his current $10,700 price tag on DraftKings. At that price, he is implied to score 47.93 points. Looking at the “Average Pts” column, we can see that Steph has “only” scored 44.72 fantasy points when GSW is 10-plus point favorites.

Dray and Klay are also very expensive compared to their average price over the past two years on DraftKings. While they both have solid Plus/Minus scores in the screenshot above, when you factor in their current price points, Klay comes out about even and Dray actually moves to -2.03, since he is implied to score 40.11 due to his $9,000 salary.

Until price points come down for Curry, Green, and Thompson, they’re probably not going to be great plays when Golden State is heavily favored. The “Average Pts” column is telling us there is just not a lot of room for profit right now.

Clippers

 

There’s probably not a ton of upside with Chris Paul either. DeAndre Jordan is interesting though because his current price is in line with his average price and the results have been positive over 32 games. Also of note, Blake Griffin played in 28 of those games, so we can even boost Jordan’s expectations up a little further due to Blake’s absence from the lineup tonight.

Thunder

 

Westbrook has monster numbers in this result set. My first reaction was that the numbers were probably inflated because most of the games would have been last season when Durant is out. Actually, Durant did play in 20 of these games. Also, the Thunder weren’t listed as heavy favorites too often without KD last season, which means most of those games are excluded from this query.

Spurs

 

Unsurprisingly, Tim Duncan hasn’t fared well when the Spurs are 10-plus point favorites. Somewhat surprisingly though, Leonard, Parker, and Aldridge are all currently in the green. Pop has a pretty quick hook, so I still think the risk is increased with San Antonio more than most teams around the league, but so far, most of their regular starters have been usable.

One thing I do want to note about the matches in this trend – Upside scores are very low. Only Waiters and Mills have posted an Upside of 10% or higher, while several players are at 0%. It may be hard to find an extremely high ceiling among these four teams tonight.