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NBA Daily Games Review: Trust Tracker

In last Thursday's blog post, I introduced a new series of posts in which I will assess the accuracy of the recommendations I make in our Daily Games Cheat Sheet articles.

In that post, I explained the p/K metric (points per thousand dollars spent), and I set the basic frameworks for what qualifies as a great, good, or bad recommendation.

On a normal night with a full slate of games (roughly 10 or more), you will need to score between 240 - 250 points to win a 50-50 league on DraftKings. With that goal in mind, any player with a p/K at or above 4.8 is an above-average value. Players with a p/K between 4.0-4.8 will keep a team competitive. Players with a p/K below 4.0 are disappointing, and being below 3.5 is harmful to your roster.

But that is for nights with a full slate of games. On slower nights (between four and seven games), the score required to win a 50-50 league typically falls below 240, and can, at times, fall to as low as 200. On those nights, holding myself to the 4.8 and 4.0 p/K standards are unobtainable and unnecessary, and so we must adjust our expectations accordingly.

While there is always variation from contest to contest, the scores required to win on any given night are usually very closely grouped, regardless of entry cost. The last time, I wrote the Daily Games Cheat Sheet, Thursday, October 30, the scores required to win most contests were between 200-210 (84% of the 240-250 range). As such, I will proportionally decrease expectations for this analysis:

  • Scores above 4.0 p/K are helpful
  • Scores between 3.4 and 4.0 p/K keep a roster competitive
  • Scores below 2.9 p/K are harmful

In last Thursday's article, I recommended 14 players for use:

  • Nine players (64% of those recommended) recorded p/K values above 4.0.
  • Six players (43%) recorded p/K values above 4.8.
  • Three players (21%) recorded p/K values between 3.4-4.0.
  • Two players (14%) recorded p/K values below 2.9.
  • The best recommendation was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who recorded a p/K of 7.1. He registered the 10th highest p/K in the league last Thursday night.
  • The worst was Russell Westbrook, who left the game after only nine minutes due to an injury, and he only managed 0.9 p/K.
  • The second worst recommendation was Elfrid Payton, who was just garden-variety ineffective in a competitive game and doesn't give me the "but he got injured" excuse, and he totaled only 2.7 p/K.

Overall, 85 percent of my recommendations were of competitive value or better, 64 percent were actively helpful, and 2 percent were damaging.

The team that I entered last Thursday on DraftKings was created using only players highlighted in my Thursday article. It scored 193.5 points for an overall p/K of 3.87.

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