At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available. We also realize that those tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability o communicate their functionality and worth to you. With this in mind, our “Trend of the Day” series features articles that walk subscribers through an important trend each weekday, created by our Trends tool. Also, shortly after you create a trend, you will be able to see it under the “My Trends” column in our Player Model tool. The biggest challenge with late-season NBA DFS comes in trying to predict which players will actually be on the floor and for how long. In Game 82 of the season, we know a handful of players are going to be rested, while others may only play limited minutes. but there is one player we can project to play heavy minutes with a fairly high level of confidence:
NBA Trend of the Day: All About Kobe Bryant
Tonight, of course, will be Kobe’s swan song, the last game of his career. He has become one of the most inefficient players in the NBA in his age-37 season, but he is going to have all the usage and minutes he can handle tonight. In Game 82, that is worth something. Let’s get right into it and setup the following trend for DraftKings:
Step 1: Time Filters > NBA Season > “2015-2016 Season” Step 2: Player Filters > Player Name > “Kobe Bryant”
Kobe has actually been a pretty good value this season (per his positive Plus/Minus), relative to his price point on DraftKings. Throughout the season, there have been a handful of games where Bryant’s status was questionable leading up to the game and maybe he decided to “give it a go,” but we knew he probably wasn’t going to play many minutes that night. Again, we expect him to play heavy minutes tonight, so let’s filter out those games.
Step 3: Projections > Proj. Minutes > “30+”
When Kobe plays 30+ minutes, his average jumps up to a shade under 30 fantasy points per game. Unfortunately, the opponent is not going to help out tonight. The Jazz are fighting for their playoff lives and have also held opposing wings like Kobe to a -3.87 Opp Plus/Minus over the season. If you were to come up with the worst possible matchup for Kobe’s last game, this might be it. Still, we weren’t really expecting Kobe to be efficient in the first place. We know he’s probably going to miss a ton of shots and turn the ball over. The question is whether he can still score enough points to balance out the negatives and pay off his (relatively cheap) salary on DraftKings.
Step 4: Trends > Opp Pos +/- > “-9 to 0”
We do lose some production here, but Kobe has still posted a +2.58 Plus/Minus in 10 negative matchups this season, including a 35.5 fantasy-point game against the Spurs on 2/19, who boast an absurd -7.9 Opp Plus/Minus. To be fair, Kawhi did miss that game, but the Cavs (-2.04 Opp Plus/Minus) were fully healthy when Kobe scored 31 against them on 2/10.
Bonus: Undo Steps 2-4 Bonus: Trends > Bargain Rating > “97-100”
The reason why I chose to create this trend on DraftKings rather than FanDuel is because Kobe comes with a 97 percent Bargain Rating tonight on DraftKings, meaning that he is much, much cheaper there relative to the total salary cap. During the 2015-2016 season, players with a Bargain Rating of 97 or more on DraftKings have done very well for themselves:
Kobe is probably going to be a very popular play on DraftKings this evening. Still, there are only going to be so many players around the league who are guaranteed to play heavy minutes tonight and there is a lot of value in that. Through the use of our NBA Trends tool, we can see that Kobe has a lot going for him in his final matchup. While Kobe’s last game is a big deal, perhaps an even bigger story is that this article marks the last installment in the NBA Trend of the Day Series for the 2015-2016 season. We will still provide daily projection models as we get into the NBA Playoffs, but this series will close with the regular season. We hope that you have enjoyed following along with our staff as we’ve created custom trends tailored to each day’s matchup. We’ll see you next season and don’t forget to check out our MLB Trend of the Day Series in the meantime!
