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 communicate effectively 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, our “Trend of the Day” series features articles each weekday that walk subscribers through an important trend for that day’s slate of games, created with our Trends tool.
NBA Trend of the Day: Bigs vs. Denver (Recent)
In DFS, once we’ve identified a team’s weakness, we sometimes log that information as some static truth. Teams, especially bad ones, experience a lot of turnover throughout a typical season — coaches, philosophies, and even the players themselves change. With that in mind, I’m going to put one of these NBA DFS truisms to the test.
Dating back to last season, I’ve loved playing power forwards and centers against the Denver Nuggets — who hasn’t? Admittedly, I haven’t dug into the numbers recently and instead I’ve been relying on the Bigs vs. Denver truism. Looking at their team ratings on the year, though, the Nuggets collectively rank 10th in opponent rebounds allowed, 15th in points in the paint allowed, and 19th in pace.
Memphis, a team that has provided a lot of value lately, is awaiting a matchup with the Nuggets tonight, so this is a good time to setup a trend. Let’s look at what kind of value opposing bigs have had when facing Denver lately.
Step 1: Team Filters > Opposing Team > Set “Denver Nuggets”
Over the past couple of seasons, players of all positions have added about one fantasy point per game to their totals when playing against the Nuggets. Next, let’s look at power forwards and centers specifically.
Step 2: Player Filters > Position > Select “PF, C”
Looking at the breakdown by position, we see that point guards, shooting guards, and power forwards have actually added the most value against Denver:
Looking at just power forwards and centers, we do lose about a tenth of a point from Plus/Minus, but the results are still fairly positive.
Step 3: Projections > Proj Minutes > Set “20 or more”
Rotation players who are expected to see 20 or more minutes against Denver have actually scored +2.26 in Plus/Minus. Comparing the last two filters really demonstrates how important it is to filter out end-of-bench players from your results. By doing so, we eliminated about 45 percent of the results and increased the Plus/Minus significantly.
Step 4: Time Filters > NBA Season > Set “2015-2016”
The results across the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 NBA Seasons have been similar — there is only a difference of 0.2 in Plus/Minus between them.
Step 5: Time Filters > Month > Set “January, February, March”
You can really use your discretion here based on how recent you want the results to be. I went with the months of January, February, and March, which include 41 Nuggets games.
Looking at only the last three months, we can see that the Plus/Minus is actually higher than ever. Power forwards and centers who face the Nuggets are scoring 3.33 more fantasy points per game as long as they are projected to log more than 20 minutes. Of the 89 matches, seven players have exceeded 50 fantasy points:
Conclusion
Don’t make the mistake of thinking NBA DFS truisms last forever. Once you’ve identified a team’s weakness, setup a trend so that you can keep an eye on the results. In this case, however, the Nuggets are looking ripe for the picking.
