I’m admittedly a huge NBA junkie and one of my favorite writers – meaning I read everything he puts out – is Kevin Pelton from ESPN. He also has chats that he does every Friday which I really enjoy and think it’s really tough to answer such complicated questions in thoughtful ways on the fly, as he does.
Anyway, one of the things he states often is that an NBA player’s trade value is essentially his on-court production minus his salary. For example, Kobe Bryant is the highest-paid player in the NBA, making $23.5 million this year. However, his Real Plus-Minus (RPM) is -3.53 this season, ranking 389th out of all NBA players who qualify for the stat (440). Of course, Kobe’s brand means a lot to the Lakers because of jersey sales, tickets, and so on – but the point is, if we’re judging Kobe’s trade value solely off the non-business side of things, he has very negative trade value. His salary far outweighs his on-court production.
On the other hand, Steph Curry will likely win his second straight MVP this year and obviously has tremendous trade value – his league-high RPM of +10.97 far outweighs his silly-low salary of $11.37 million this season. You can do this with any player and Pelton answers a lot of “who says no” questions this way – judge a player’s trade value with that formula and then we can agree on the value of a player, trade, or acquisition.
So how does this all relate to DFS, you ask? Well, this might be a tad abstract but I’ll do my best to flesh out my thoughts. Can we perhaps look at a player’s DFS value in the same way – not the same formula as above obviously, but using a formula like that? Would their salary – or even better, their Projected Plus/Minus – minus their ownership percentage (or projected ownership) be a good starting point to measure this?
I think so, although there’s an obvious, big caveat that you’ve probably already noticed and shouted at me through your computer screen: projecting ownership. And while no one is doing this in the industry right now (or at least well), I think good DFSers can have a solid idea of where a given player’s ownership will be on a given night, especially since NBA is such a daily sport and we can see these things trend constantly.
So let’s look at a real example and talk through it – Jeff Green tonight, perhaps.
With Marc Gasol out, Green’s usage is going to almost definitely increase, which will in turn make him an incredible value on tonight’s slate – he’s a sure-fire, easy cash-game play. His DraftKings salary of $5,700 will be much lower than his projected points, floor, and ceiling. That formula – projected points per $1,000 of salary, or however else you wanted to measure it (I like Projected Plus/Minus, obviously) is generally how the DFS industry measures a player’s “value.”
However, let’s say that Jeff Green is 100% owned in a large-field GPP. I know – that will literally never happen, but stay with me. If Green is 100% owned, there is no value to him, right? There could be some downside – if he explodes for 70 DK points and you don’t have him, you’re automatically done. So it’s not like there is zero value, just as Kobe still provides points, rebounds, assists and some value to the Lakers on the floor. However, the value of having him to win a GPP is nothing; if everyone has him, you’re essentially just eliminating the SF spot from DK and starting the tournament over again.
On the other side of things, it’s easy to see that if Green was only 1 or 2% owned in a large-field GPP, his value would be enormous. We know the definition of “value” in terms of projected points versus site salary, but there’s much more nuance to it because sites have salary caps. As a result, perhaps a better definition of value is like Pelton’s formula, or put as an actual DFS formula…
DFS Value = Projected Ownership – Projected Plus/Minus
This will be different in cash games, of course – you could argue that the higher the projected ownership, the more value in 50-50’s there is in owning a player. Or maybe not value, but the minimization of risk, which is obviously paramount in your cash-game lineups and you could argue is value in those contest formats. However, in GPPs, you do not want a player – no matter how “good” of a play he is or how “valuable” he is at his price point for the night – owned in nearly all lineups. In a contest where risk is inevitable, you only stand to lose value when a player increases in ownership.
I know this isn’t an exact science by any means – making it hard to give hard, solid examples of how to implement this in your lineups – but I think the thought process can be useful. It’s an art, if art had formulas. When making your selections in tournaments, think about the true value of a player – their ownership minus your/our projection. Value is a buzz word in DFS articles, but don’t get sucked into thinking about it on a purely simple level. Yes, a player’s on-site value may be their Projected Plus/Minus (projection above salary-based expectation), but their true value is combining that with their exposure. The former definition of value is useful in a vacuum, but we don’t play DFS in a vacuum. DFS is a competition with other users. The latter could potentially help you find true value and thus a true process to maximize your longterm winnings.
