NBA DFS DraftKings Showdown Review | NBA Finals Game 1 Heat-Lakers

Wednesday night we were treated to a DFS rarity in an NBA Showdown slate, especially one with 102,284 entries: A solo winner with a single bullet. Let’s take a look at the DraftKings Showdown winners and losers, characteristics of lineups in the NBA Finals Game 1 and see if it can provide us with a framework to make lower-owned lineups that maintain a ceiling and give you a chance to take one of these NBA DFS GPPs down with as few duplicates as possible.

NBA DFS DraftKings Showdown Review | Heat vs. Lakers NBA Finals Game 1

Wednesday night in the DraftKings NBA Showdown $2.25 Million Fantasy BBall Millionaire ($1 million to first, $25 to enter):

First, let’s list out some facts about the game 1 slate.

Total Entries: 102,284

Unique Players: 37,978

Profitable Players: 6,147 (16.2%)

Profitable Lineups: 20,366 (19.9%)

Rake: $307,100

Game 1 Showdown of the NBA Finals had an amazing result. Congratulations to newly minted, pre-tax millionaire, BigSean813. He turned $25 into $1.25 million if we include the value of his live (?) final entry in Tampa on Feb. 7.

BigSean813 won by 0.5 points. He had 2.9%-owned Kendrick Nunn like all the other contenders. What set him apart from the six who tied for second place was that he had Anthony Davis Captain and they had LeBron James Captain.

The winning lineup used a salary of $49,000 and had a team ownership percentage (TO%) of 164.1%. After reviewing the past 40 slates, I restricted my optimizer to creating teams with a salary of $49,000 and $49,700 and Team Ownership (TO%) of 160% – 207%. Of course, I played no Nunn and made no money, but I count predicting the range of team salary and ownership a DFS win. If you MME, it is so important to look at past slates and set constraints on your lineup calculator of choice so that the lineups produced fit within the ranges of past winning lineups.

The six second-place finishers received $33,666.66 on their $25 entry fee with lineups using $49,600 and TO% of 168%:

Team Salary and Ownership

Let’s look at the edge to be had confining our lineups by salary and TO% can provide. The average salary for a winning GPP team over the last 40 slates has been $49,573 with an average TO% of 190.1%. In fact, a salary of over $49,600 has only won twice in the last 17 slates. Lowest team salary over the last 40 slates is $48,300, but it is an outlier. Remove it and we have a minimum of $48,900. Only a small portion, 8.3%, of lineups entered into the contest used less salary than $48,900. Far more, 59.7%, used team salary of $49,700 or more. So, just by making sure our lineups conform to salary rules, we have a good chance of having the edge on 68% of the field in these Showdown slates.

TO%-wise, the range in the last 40 slates has been 153.4% to 246.8%. The two highest-owned lineups contained outlier cheap captains. Let’s remove the five chalkiest and five most contrarian lineups from our sample and we get a range of 162% – 212.8%. Of course, TO% is more slate dependent than salary, and we are dealing with projections, but with a little research and using that big brain of yours, you can look at the range of projected ownership you are getting and compare to past slates to think about a max ownership cap for your lineups.

The highest-owned lineup in this slate had TO% of 216.8%, was played 69 times and did not cash:

It is obviously a subpar lineup based on what we know about team salary and ownership. A salary below $48,900 had won 1 of the last 40 slates. The winning lineup in this GPP was a full 52.7 percentage points less owned. A significant number of the field, 68.2%, played lineups chalkier than the winner.

The 150-Maxers

There is not much of anything to report here. There were 109 150-maxers accounting for 16% of the field, 10 made money, including taking second twice, an eighth and a 10th. Forty-four out of 109 cashed 25 lineups or fewer, and three of 109 cashed no lineups at all. We did have three 150-maxers play trains (150 entries of same lineup), and they all min cashed, which is not something I have seen before I don’t think.

If you are planning to MME tonight, give thought to team salary and team ownership as well as stack type. A five-man team stack has won just four of the last 40 slates.