How is NBA DFS different from other sports?

Welcome to another version of NBA DFS 101. If you haven’t already, I recommended checking out my article on the three key stats for NBA DFS.

Many of you may be coming over into the NBA DFS world from other sports, and are just starting off here. This article will break down some of the differences between NBA DFS and other popular DFS sports and will also cover some ways you can treat NBA DFS the same as others.

(Check out our DFS glossary for a quick look at the game’s vocabulary.)

The similarities

Vegas

The biggest similarity you’ll find between NBA DFS and basically any other sport is how important Vegas and betting odds are to the game. There is a reason why the Vegas sportsbooks are still in business — typically, they are accurate with their lines and betting odds, so we can use these markets to influence certain decisions, while obviously picking times to go against them as well (just like any other sport).

Leverage

Another similarity between NBA DFS and other sports is that despite the NBA being the sport with the least amount of variance and most projectability, we should continue to look for ownership leverage spots in GPPs. While you might decide to play the ownership game a little less in NBA than in other sports, there is still plenty of ways to gain leverage and differentiate lineups. One way is direct pivots, coming from a team full of GPP players, we will look to provide great pivot plays, but learning when to pivot off chalk and when to eat that chalk is crucial to NBA DFS. It is difficult to break down how I like to do this on a general basis because it changes from slate-to-slate, but if you go into your process understanding that looking for leverage and pivots is important, you’ll find yourself in a good spot more often than not. And again, we will be here every slate to breakdown how we analyze these decisions in more specific scenarios.

The differences

Injury news

The first difference many are going to notice, and potentially be overwhelmed by, is the amount of injury news in the NBA. I’ve played NBA DFS full-time for the last two years and cannot remember many days without a relevant injury or piece of news that alters the slate in some way. This can be frustrating for some, but it provides an advantage for those who know how to react and adjust to this ever-changing landscape. Knowing that there can be injury updates any second leading until lock is important, so you can be prepared to make changes. There truly is no other sport where we can be unsure of a player’s game status minutes up until their game, and this happens regularly.

Stacking

I would say two of the only DFS sports more popular than NBA are NFL and MLB, so if you’re new and coming over from those sports, you’re probably quite used to having “stacks” in your lineup be a necessity. However, in NBA DFS, that is not the case whatsoever. While you can stack or even game stack in NBA DFS, there are plenty of times where stacking is actually sub-optimal as there are only so many points to go around, and there isn’t a reliable amount of “shared fantasy points” i.e. touchdown passes, RBIs, etc. Obviously, there will be situations where stacking a team is more than viable — for example, if a team is short-handed and will only have eight available players. There are several ways where “stacking” is viable in NBA DFS, but it is not essential like in other sports. Another example aside from the ones above is stacking two or three players from opposite teams that are in the same game. If the game stays close you are likely to see these players have a solid chance to hit their ceiling in minutes, which will lead to good things. Knowing when these types of strategies are viable is important, but stacks can work very differently in NBA than in other popular fantasy sports than involved stacking.

Overall, stacking is always possible in NBA DFS and there are certain scenarios (typically with short rosters) where it is optimal, but NBA is not like MLB and NFL, where stacking in tournaments is a must.

Variance

If you play DFS enough, you’ll hear a lot about variance, and you’ll probably hear that other sports like NFL and especially MLB are much more high-variance sports than NBA DFS. That’s 100% true, and this loops us back to the “similarities” sections. So while it is important to treat leverage the same, the variance in NBA is very different compared to other sports. This is important to understand from a tournament perspective as well as cash games. In cash games, there will often be very few builds that could be considered “optimal.” In tournaments, it is important to understand variance because if you find yourself sticking to a strict rule of blindly fading chalk just because of their ownership, you’ll typically have less success with those fades than you will in other sports. If you still decide to stick to that rule, and hope that when variance does go your way it comes in a big way, that’s totally acceptable. You should just understand the way the NBA works when making that decision.