Value is a widely used term in any daily fantasy sports, but in NBA daily fantasy it’s much easier to actually assign numbers to a player’s value based on their salary. For people who tend to think more mathematically, NBA is the perfect sport because of this factor. In this article, you’ll see a breakdown of the two different methods of calculating potential value as well as some of the uses of value calculations in your NBA lineup building.
For up-to-the-minute news, analysis and lineups, download the DK Live app, as news, injury reports and betting lines can change throughout the day. Value also unexpectedly can open up due to late lineup changes and late injury news, making it important to stay up to the minute with the DK Live app or DK Live desktop until lineups lock.
Value Multipliers
The easiest way to consider calculating NBA value is to set goals for each player based on their salary. For example, you may want “X” player to score “Y” points based on “Z” salary. NBA stats are uniform among all positions (unlike in a sport like baseball where pitchers and hitters are scored differently or even football where players accumulate different point for various yardage). This allows you to create a uniform value formula across all players on your eight-man DraftKings roster. There are two multipliers you can use to calculate value as well, and they both lead to the same target score of 300 fantasy points.
DK Value Calculation #1: 4X+10
The first way to calculate value is a little more useful in head-to-head or 50-50 style contests where you don’t necessarily need players with a really high ceiling, but rather you need guys with a low floor. The constant of 10 fantasy points above serves as the quickest way to account for that floor. Value is then calculated with the following formula, for example:
Value = ((Salary/1,000) x 4) + 10
Player: Stephen Curry
Salary: $10,000
Value= ((10,000/1000) x 4) + 10 = (1000 × 4) +10 = 50 fantasy points
So for Steph Curry in a head-to-head or 50/50 game, you should ask yourself: “Can he realistically score 50 fantasy points tonight?”
DK Value Calculation #1: 6X
This second way of calculating value is better served in tournaments since we remove the floor of 10 fantasy points as the constant and use a straight multiplier of 6X salary. This ends up increasing the score needed by some of the more expensive players and decreasing the value needed from cheaper players, although you should still hope for more than 6X from a minimum-priced play. Here’s an example of that calculation:
Value = ((Salary/1,000) x 6)
Player: Stephen Curry
Salary: $10,000
Value= ((10,000/1,000) x 6) = (1,000 × 6) = 60 fantasy points
So, if you’re rostering Stephen Curry in a tournament game, you want to ask yourself: “Can he realistically score 60 fantasy points tonight?”
Use these formulas to help build better NBA daily fantasy lineups each and every night. One last tip, if you look at a player’s recent game log you can compare his recent performances with the expected value needed. If a player has been exceeding value consistently, you’re off to a good start in creating your daily NBA lineup!