An intro to Daily Fantasy Sports for Detroit Pistons fans

Daily Fantasy Sports is somewhat of a new phenomena and Detroit Pistons fans will get a daily column on gamedays to see how their team stacks up.

New for Detroit Pistons gamedays will be a column that takes a look at how the Pistons and their opponents fair in Daily Fantasy Sports.

The relatively new way to play fantasy basketball has several different websites but we’ll focus on DraftKings and FanDuel. In this story, we’ll dive into scoring, the difference between tournaments (GPP’s) and cash games, and a little bit into strategies and value plays.

With a new rule for the 2019-20 season, playing DFS got easier. Teams are now required to announce their starting lineups 30 minutes before tip-off, as opposed to 10 minutes before which would leave fantasy players scrambling to adjust their lineups at the last minute. Though late scratches are bound to still happen.

Let’s take a look at the difference between tournaments and cash games. Tournaments are more difficult to win money because only 25 percent, or less, of people will cash out. Be sure to check how many places are paid and entries there are before entering the contest. Cash games, or double-doubles, allow you to double your entry fee and 50 percent of participants double their money. A healthy mix is spending 75 percent of your total entry fees on double-doubles to ensure you at least break even.

There are other contests and multipliers that you can explore too. The most important thing is to enter single entry contests. This allows fantasy players to only submit one lineup per account, whereas the sharks will swim in the multi-entry contests in which they can afford to play a variety of different lineups.

Scoring

DraftKings and FanDuel have slightly different scoring and roster construction, which we’ll get to in a minute. Here’s a look at the similar scoring categories.

Category | DK | FD

Points | 1 | 1
Rebounds | 1.25 | 1.2
Assists | 1.5 | 1.5
Steals | 2 | 3
Blocks | 2 | 3
Turnovers | -0.5 | -1

DraftKings also gives value bonuses for 3-pointers made (0.5 bonus), double-doubles (1.5) and triple-doubles (3).

Roster construction

Pricing and matchups are something to dive into on a game-by-game basis. The pricing between the two sites varies and sometimes there are deals to be had on a specific player on either site at any given time. Both websites are a little different with how you roster players.

DraftKings: PG, SG, SF, PF, C, G, F, UTIL
FanDuel: PG, PG, SG, SG, SF, SF, PF, PF, C

With basketball becoming more and more positionless, DraftKings is a little friendlier in slotting players at multiple positions. On FanDuel, you can only get a player at one specific position, but it’s nice that they give you two per position (except for center). This is why pricing varies depending on which site you play.

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Some players like to play on both sites and others stick to one. If you’re just starting out, I recommend starting on one site and sticking to that until you figure out the odds and ins.

Building rosters can be tricky. Yes, hitting on the high-priced players is important, but getting the value plays is most important. There will be a lot of talk of hitting value, which for NBA contests is hitting 5x, or five times the players salary. Players such as Giannis Antetokounmpo are often priced above $10,000, so hitting value would require 50 fantasy points.

Load management has become incredibly valuable for DFS players. That’s where you can find cheap players that will exceed value. For Instance, with John Wall and now Isaiah Thomas hurt for the Washington Wizards, old friend Ish Smith likely becomes the de facto starting point guard. If he’s priced around $5,000, the odds he reaches at least 25 fantasy points is high because of a high usage rate and a bump in minutes.

Selecting players in cash games should target players with high floors, even if that means low ceilings. Still check the injury lists and target value plays. Reading literature ahead of time isn’t a bad idea, either, especially if you’re starting out for the first time. Use them as guides, not gospel.

DFS and the Detroit Pistons

It’s easy to figure out that Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond will be the two most expensive Pistons on a nightly basis. Drummond is often more valuable, depending on pricing, than Griffin because of his ability to rack up double-doubles and 20-20 games. Of course, the double-double bonus on DraftKings helps.

Last year, Smith was incredibly valuable as the backup point guard. As Derrick Rose transitions into the same role, with an emphasis on pushing the pace, he will be valuable but his pricepoint may become too high. Tim Frazier could become a value play if either Reggie Jackson or Rose sit a game.

We’ll dive more into these possibilities on a nightly basis. This is our how-to for DFS guide for your reference. Cheers to the season being here!