Daily Fantasy Basketball Strategies

The NBA basketball season equals another money making opportunity with daily fantasy basketball games.

For those that follow the NBA and play in year-long fantasy basketball pools, the transition to playing daily fantasy NBA basketball games should be a slam dunk with the opportunity to make serious money.

Our Daily Fantasy Basketball Strategy Guide below will help you fine tune your picks and help you win no matter which type of fantasy basketball contest you enter.

So get ready to pick your fantasy teams and start counting the money because daily fantasy basketball is easy money.

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Know the Fantasy Scoring System

Whether you play fantasy basketball at DraftKings, it is important to look over the scoring rules for the fantasy league you want to join. Some have a basic scoring system that focuses on points, assists, steals, blocks, etc..., but some sites will have deductions as well - loss of fantasy points for turnovers, missed shots or missed field goals, etc... Picking a fantasy basketball player who will dish out 10 assists but turn the ball over 7 times may not be salary cap money well spent.

Know Your Opponent

If you choose to play someone in a head to head matchup at your favorite daily fantasy site, it helps to know the tendencies of certain players. Everyone approaches their team in their own unique ways. Some will pick a balanced team that nets them fantasy points in all categories. Some fantasy players will concentrate on the categories that will net them the greatest amount of points. Both strategies can be correct but can back fire as well.

If you pick a team that is focused only on scoring points, a bad shooting night for that NBA player can sink your team’s night. Consequently, picking a balanced team could leave you short in how many fantasy points you score in a particular night.

If you play the same opponent fairly regularly you can determine their tendencies. If you play them in low money or free games, you can learn their patterns - who they pick regularly and what type of system they use. Once you’re comfortable, then you can start to challenge them to bigger fantasy fee games to take advantage of your opponent’s tendencies.

Choose game nights that offer Fantasy value

Certain NBA teams are high scoring teams and don’t pay attention to defense. When two of these teams meet it can be a fantasy bonanza. High scorers see their numbers rise and rebounders can see their points inflate with the amount of shots being taken. If you know a team is high scoring and playing another high scoring NBA team, it can be a good strategy to load up on players from both sides to take advantage of the excess fantasy points.

Subsequently, if a high scoring team is playing a good defensive team, it may mean you need to look elsewhere for fantasy points. Having a high scorer bottled up by a defense can cause missed shots, turnovers and low points for an otherwise top NBA fantasy stud. Other opponents may not see that and may still pick that particular player and thus be vulnerable to you if you choose a player from another game that has more fantasy upside.

Know the Type of Fantasy Games Offered

All the big Daily Fantasy sports sites offer their own unique games for fantasy NBA basketball. There are salary cap games, no cap games, snake drafts fantasy games, etc... - all of which have different strategies for them.

In a salary cap game it’s important to make sure you pick not only the top stars for the night, but you need to find the diamonds in the rough in the lower salary scale so that you can round out your team and still score big fantasy points. Players coming off injuries or rookies that just started to get playing time may have lower salary cap values until the fantasy site raises the value to where it should be.

In a snake draft, making your own rankings for players will help you gain an edge on competitors. Decide who you believe are the top NBA players and eliminate players from the ranking list that you feel are bad plays for the night or may not play due to injury. By pre-ranking the players accordingly, you may get to take advantage of another fantasy opponent who will just use the website default rankings as his choices.

Where there is no salary cap, your own scouting is what will win or lose the night. Will this player have more fantasy points than that player? Who will have a better shooting night? Pick the right guys and you are on your way to NBA fantasy basketball riches.

The NBA schedule matters In Fantasy Basketball

Pay attention to previous schedules of players that you are looking at selecting for your NBA fantasy team.

Questions to consider

Are they flying from one coast to another? - Jet lag happens to even star athletes and it’s not uncommon for teams flying from one coast to another to get slaughtered their first game after flying across the country.

Are they playing back to back? - Some NBA players, especially older ones, are slower the second night of a back to back schedule because they can’t handle the tiring schedule of playing 2 nights in a row.

How many minutes did the player play last night? - If a player played the night before, how many minutes did they play? Did he foul out early? Did he play a double overtime game? All these factors could be significant for the next game. A coach may reduce a player’s minutes because of what happened the night before.

Is this the end of a long road trip? - Towards the end of a road trip players can start to look ahead to heading home and can mail it in on the last night. If it’s a bad team, then it may be more common than a good team, but sometimes picking players or your fantasy NBA basketball team can mean watching how they play a few games before the end of the road trip.

First game back from a long road trip? - Most gamblers believe that returning home from a long road trip can boost a team and they perform better. This, however, is not always the case. Some teams get off-court distractions when they arrive back and this can tire them out for the first game back. Check for past history as to how a team or player has performed their first game back home from a long road trip.

Check Injury Reports / NBA Team Sites

Read up on the latest news on a player: are they injured?, have they been benched?, has the coach made comments at the daily press conference stating that they need to increase/decrease a certain players minutes? All these bits of information are out there for daily fantasy NBA players to absorb and utilize in choosing their fantasy team for the night.

Follow teams on Twitter or Facebook for some up to the minute news as well as maybe checking out a particular player's Twitter page. You don’t need to actually join Twitter to get this info - simply look over their tweets for the day to see if there is any valuable info out there.

Playing daily fantasy basketball for money is fun, but can also be very lucrative if you develop a strategy and seek out some simple information to help you beat your opponents to make some real money!