Hump Day it was! Insert sexual metaphor here. Or, you could just say it was the kind of day where a lot of us just couldn’t get over the hump. Whatever your pleasure, it was an interesting sweat from my side. I can insert my results here. I was in with $16 last night and out with $14. I will try and track Keith here, too, in a short blurb. Comments here or in Slack would also be great to hear/see how your own sweat went.

I had 3 guys in the late games. Jamal Crawford, JJ Redick, and DeAndre Jordan. I was set to start rocketing up some leaderboards……….and DeAndre decided to take the first half off. Thanks, putz. I still cashed in a lot of places (including my 5050s) and avoided a total loss. I will get into how someday (contest selection), but sheesh it was a hard row to hoe. I even went so far as to tweet DeAndre’s twitter account to ask him to do something. I’m sure he listened, too, because he did have a better second half. Regression to the mean, my azz. He saw my tweet at halftime and felt guilty. We’re tight like that now. Anyway, on to the Morning Briefing……

Fall in, soldiers!! This process isn’t intended to take long. It’s a skim, if you will. You are starting your research by quickly glancing over the day’s slate and gathering your early intel. Our goal is to give you a head start on today’s action. Keith and I will be back later with picks and analysis for the slate for our VIP Insiders, as well as provide answers to questions as much as possible in the VIP Slack channels.

Daily Fantasy Players are priced by many factors. Some of the key factors are the teams’ seasonal averages in points scored and the pace at which they play. We can assume if a team is expected to score more points than they usually do, players from that team are in a better than usual spot to succeed. We can also assume if a team is expected to play at a faster pace than usual, their players are in a better than usual spot to succeed.

VEGAS LINES – It honestly all starts here. 200 is the standard for a game in which we can expect fantasy goodness to appear. But, a lot more factors come into play, too. We don’t try to predict blowouts, but red spreads indicate the possibility.

Road Team Home Team Favorite Spread Total Tip-Off Golden State Warriors (50-5) at Orlando Magic (25-30) GS -8 222 7:00 PM Milwaukee Bucks (24-33) at Boston Celtics (33-25) BOS -8 217.5 7:30 PM Oklahoma City Thunder (40-16) at New Orleans Pelicans (22-34) OKC -5 222 8:00 PM Brooklyn Nets (15-42) at Phoenix Suns (14-43) BKN -1.5 208.5 9:00 PM Houston Rockets (28-29) at Portland Trail Blazers (30-27) POR -4.5 222 10:00 PM San Antonio Spurs (47-9) at Utah Jazz (28-28) TBD TBD TBD 10:30 PM

Third night in a row we are treated to a slate with every game over the magical 200 total we look for. When 208.5 is your lowest total on board…..wow.

POINTED UP! – The teams with green numbers for +/- PPG (Points Per Game) are expected to outperform their seasonal scoring averages per Vegas. Teams with red are expected to under-perform.

Team Offense Opponent Team Total PPG Total +/- Utah Jazz SA TBD 98.4 TBD San Antonio Spurs UTA TBD 105.2 TBD Portland Trail Blazers HOU 113.3 103.5 9.8 Brooklyn Nets PHO 105 96.6 8.4 Orlando Magic GS 107 100.1 6.9 Boston Celtics MIL 112.8 106.1 6.7 Milwaukee Bucks BOS 104.8 98.6 6.2 New Orleans Pelicans OKC 108.5 102.4 6.1 Oklahoma City Thunder NO 113.5 109.6 3.9 Houston Rockets POR 108.8 105.4 3.3 Phoenix Suns BKN 103.5 100.4 3.1 Golden State Warriors ORL 115 115 0

Just remember, this is opportunity, not gospel. I’m not fading Golden State based on this table…..nor should you w/o looking deeper before deciding.

PACED UP! – Similar to being pointed up, the teams in green should be playing faster than normal while the teams in red should be playing slower. More possessions might mean more opportunity to score points.

Team Offense Opponent Pace Proj. Pace Pace +/- Orlando Magic GS 96.9 101.2 4.3 Milwaukee Bucks BOS 96.5 99.9 3.4 Brooklyn Nets PHO 96.7 99.1 2.4 Portland Trail Blazers HOU 97.6 99.3 1.7 New Orleans Pelicans OKC 98.5 99.8 1.3 Oklahoma City Thunder NO 99.3 99.8 0.5 Houston Rockets POR 99.7 99.3 -0.4 Golden State Warriors ORL 102.3 101.2 -1.1 Phoenix Suns BKN 100.4 99.1 -1.3 Boston Celtics MIL 101.4 99.9 -1.5 Utah Jazz SA 93.2 91.6 -1.6 San Antonio Spurs UTA 96.4 91.6 -4.8

There is no line on the SAS/UTA game. But, I shouldn’t have spoken about all the games being over 200. This one would surprise me if it was when the line finally comes out……not that this stat means much standing alone. You use this information in conjunction with other things you see during your research.

TOTAL FANTASY POINTS ALLOWED & DvP RANKINGS – This graphic provides a quick glance at how strong or weak a defensive team plays overall, as well as against a specific position. We are looking for green numbers and trying to avoid red numbers, and we are looking to roster a player from the OPPONENT’s team in the 2nd column. Example, the POR PF is, theoretically, in great spot.

Team Defense Opponent TotalFPA vs. PG vs. SG vs. SF vs. PF vs. C Houston Rockets Portland 27 16 22 29 30 17 Phoenix Suns Brooklyn 26 29 29 30 12 7 Brooklyn Nets Phoenix 23 28 20 22 20 21 Milwaukee Bucks Boston 22 8 26 24 23 11 New Orleans Pelicans Oklahoma City 21 14 25 12 16 29 Orlando Magic Golden State 17 21 5 21 17 9 Golden State Warriors Orlando 16 26 11 13 13 23 Boston Celtics Milwaukee 13 1 7 19 26 26 Portland Trail Blazers Houston 12 17 18 5 21 20 Oklahoma City Thunder New Orleans 9 19 23 9 5 4 Utah Jazz San Antonio 2 9 3 2 1 3 San Antonio Spurs Utah 1 5 1 1 6 5



Another easy thing to watch is exhaustion control. Many coaches will rest players on the 2nd half of consecutive games. Basketball can take it’s toll and coaches need to keep their players fresh when they can. Players playing back to back games become prime targets for rest or limited minutes, obviously hurting their fantasy production and value to us. We further watch for situations like 3 games in 4 nights or the dreaded 4 games in 5 nights. We also watch traveling teams with particular interest.

BACK 2 BACKS! – Graphic containing teams we should watch for limited minutes and/or rest days. Maybe hard to see the colors, but yellow is caution, orange is a little more caution, and red is just crazy.

Team B2B 2of3 3of4 4of5 Atlanta Boston Brooklyn Yes Charlotte Chicago Cleveland Dallas Denver Yes Detroit Golden State Yes Yes Yes Houston Yes Indiana L.A. Clippers L.A. Lakers Memphis Miami Milwaukee Minnesota New Orleans Yes New York Oklahoma City Yes Orlando Yes Philadelphia Yes Phoenix Portland Yes Sacramento Yes San Antonio Yes Toronto Utah Yes Washington Yes