I’ve mentioned on our NBA podcast several times that I believe DvP (Defense versus Position) data is somewhat misleading. I’ve gotten asked a bunch of times what I mean by that, so I figured it was time for a post on that very topic.
So why is DvP data misleading? There is one big reason: it’s not salary-adjusted.
For example, if a team gives up 30 DraftKings points to Russell Westbrook and another gives up 29 to Trey Burke, which one is more impressive? The answer is obviously the former – Westbrook’s expectation is much higher on a nightly basis than Burke’s. However, the latter team would have a better DvP in this instance because it’s purely about how many points they gave up. As you can tell, NBA DFS is much more nuanced than that because of the salary cap.
Instead, the data would be much more useful if it was salary-adjusted instead of just raw points per game. Thankfully here at Fantasy Labs we have Plus/Minus data in our Trends section, so we can easily search out how teams are performing against each position in relation to their salary.
Below, I’m going to dump a bunch of charts I made – one for each position. The first column will be a team’s points allowed per game to a position (pulled from RotoGrinders), the second column will be the rank according to that data, the third column will be a team’s Plus/Minus allowed to that position, the fourth column will be the rank according to that data, and the final column I’m calling “Rank Difference.”
All I’m doing there is subtracting the DvP raw rank from the Plus/Minus rank – essentially what it will tell you is the “value” you’ll get on a team by using their Plus/Minus data instead of the raw DvP data. For example, the Wizards are allowing the eighth-least DK points per game to PGs (very good), but they’re actually allowing the 24th-most DK points per game adjusted for the salary of the PGs (very bad). There’s a huge discrepancy there and you can find a lot of value by targeting PGs versus the Wizards because most people use DvP data instead of Plus/Minus data.
Alright, let’s look at the charts.
Point Guards
Shooting Guards
Small Forwards
Power Forwards
Centers
There are a bunch of huge discrepancies with every position, as you can tell by the above charts. I think this is hugely valuable for DFS players — how many times have you been picking between two players on DraftKings and been swayed by the pretty green or scary red numbers next to their names? People do that often, and as detailed in this article, sometimes they’re misled in a big way.
As always, good luck to you in your contests and Merry Christmas.
