Hello, everyone. Welcome to our new NBA DFS Lineups reviews, which will look at the previous night’s Showdown slate — what lineups won and what the field did, looking for any kind of pattern or edge we can use in our lineups for future slates. As an MME player, I have a special interest in how those that entered 150 lineups fared, so there will be a focus on that. Please reach out here or on Twitter with any questions or ideas.
NBA DFS Lineups Rewind for DraftKings | Lakers vs. Nuggets Game 3
Last night in the NBA Showdown $1 million Shootaround Special ($200,000 to first, $20 to enter). Congrats to the seven lucky players that split first place and took home $60,714 each. There were four 150-maxers but also two players who entered five NBA DFS lineups or fewer. The winning lineup scored 270.75 and won by 3.75 points:
As usual, the winning lineup looks suboptimal pre-lock but makes sense at the end of the night. Looking at ceiling projections, I could only roster one of the four stars last night at Captain. Because of this, it seemed extraordinarily likely that three of the four stars would be in the winning lineup since you could not fit all four without going to a low-priced Captain with a low ceiling. That was the extent of the correct moves I made last night as I faded Grant and had more than a little of one P.J. Dozier.
Putting Jamal Murray at Captain allowed the winners to take the more expensive and lower-owned LeBron James over Anthony Davis as well as Nikola Jokic and two value plays (Torrey Craig and Monte Morris) and Jerami Grant. Grant projected poorly for his $6,600 price tag, and this was reflected in his ownership at 7.3%. The only player that saw the floor with lower ownership was Markieff Morris (4.64%).
Boom of the night goes to Murray ($14,100 Captain at 17.6%, $9,400 Utility at 49.4%), who went for 6.5x, while bust goes to Davis ($17,400 Captain at 21.4%, $11,600 Utility at 57.1%), who went for 2.7x. Dozier ($1,400 Utility) did not see the floor at 23% ownership.
This GPP did not fill as there were 58,178 entries from 20,840 unique players, while DraftKings had made room for 58,823. Three-thousand sixty-four players (5.3%) made money. Sixty-one lineups were reserved and not played. Over 21% of entries played a non-star at Captain.
The 150-Maxers
Sixty-nine 150-maxers made up 17.8% of the field. Eighteen made money, with four taking first and two in eighth. Twelve cashed fewer than 25 NBA DFS lineups, while one cashed none (train) and one cashed one, which is amazing considering they used 20 players in their pool. But they required Davis at Captain or Utility, which was their downfall.
From experience I can tell you that while 150-maxers as a group did well last night, it is not common to see four in first place.
The most popular lineup was played 1,830 times, carrying a team ownership (TO%) of 243.1%:
It did not cash. In fact, the top five NBA DFS lineups played were all duped at least 968 times, with TO% ranging from 248.2% – 282.2%.
Let’s look at some data from a few recent Showdown slates and how last night fits in:
Last night fell in the range of the previous slates on this list. We had a winning salary of $49,700, TO% of 158.6% and an expensive, owned Captain. Of the 58,178 entries played last night, 47,460 had a TO% of 200% or more. That is 81% of the field. Salary-wise, the field was a bit sharper than normal but not by much, as the top two salaries used were $49,700 and $49,900 with $50,000 right behind.
Just looking at the previous slates, a team salary of $50,000 has never won, yet 16.2% of the field went there.
Showdown slates come with high variance and can drain your bankroll quickly, especially If you want the chance to take first place, as you will need to play lineups that are suboptimal. If you want to min cash, maybe you can play it safe, but if you want to win, you must take salary and ownership into account and enter some ugly-looking contrarian NBA DFS lineups.
Going down the rabbit hole in Lineup Study and reviewing Showdown slates can be a rewarding exercise but also endless, so I think I will stop here. Your main goal in a top-heavy, large Showdown GPP should be to enter a unique lineup, but that is a big ask in NBA compared to NFL and not likely, so let’s shoot for as few dupes as possible. This should lead you to consider projected ownership and salary used, obviously.
Cheap Captain?
How often does a cheap Captain show up in a winning GPP lineup, especially in the playoffs? If you do use a low-owned, cheap captain to fit in stars, how different will your lineup be compared to others who did the same thing? Your low-owned Captain must go off as well as all the stars and your other piece of value. It is possible but highly unlikely. If the four stars last night all got there, how much is left for your punt Captain? If you are playing an expensive Captain, you better think about a max salary cap to get a bit different. What good is winning if you split first with hundreds of others?
This is becoming cliché, but your Showdown lineups should tell a story. Last night, the story was Davis failing and Grant having a ceiling game. He broke through the ceiling according to my projections. You want the story your lineups tell to not be potential best sellers (200-plus TO%). You want stories you might not have thought of but make sense, like overpriced Grant crushing. Also make sure your story makes sense as far as who your Captain is and who are in the Utility spots. This will be especially important tonight. I have not looked at the slate yet, but look at your lineups and ask yourself: “If my Captain goes off, what does that mean most likely happened to other players in the game?” Then make groups to exclude certain players or groups of players based on who your Captain is.
Use projected ownership and salary constraints to make sure your lineups conform to previous winning NBA DFS lineups. Every slate is different of course, but our sample size is growing, and it will be interesting to see if we get any outlier winners the rest of the way.
That’s all for today, going forward we will look at team stack usage (5-1 Nuggets stack won last night) and go wherever else this takes us.
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