What is up Karma Nation! Welcome to the our NBA Sim Sports article. If you are finding us for the first time if you are new and finally getting into Sim Sports degen life like the rest of us, welcome! As everyone knows we are on day 8 of no NBA and I assume you all are going as crazy as me being locked up in the house with no sports to watch. The DFS sites have been working hard to find a way to stay a float while finding us some fun games for us to play and keep us busy. They found a gem with Sim Sports and it’s a lot of fun. Over 90,000 entries in the past 2 slates and I’m expecting it to reach over 100,000 entries soon. Fanduel is just handing out free money to keep us all happy and I’m extremely grateful for that. We might see paid contests soon in the future if it keeps seeing this type of interest so keep it up.
How it works
The contest may seem a little confusing at first, Sim Sports? What’s that, are we getting some NBA2k games going on and betting on those? No, that’s not the case here. This is how it all works:
- Players will be randomly assigned stats from a game they played during the 2019-2020 season
- Only players who have scored fantasy points in at least 15 games will be included in the pool. The Opponent Matchups in each slate are irrelevant for the simulations.
- Only games where players scored more than 0 points will be available to be assigned stats. No need to worry about DNPs.
- Scores will be slowly revealed throughout the night. We still want you all to have a little bit of a sweat.
- Games assigned will be viewable on this landing page in the Games Assigned Section below.
- Winners will receive site credit and potentially other prizes each night and entry will be 100% Free!
Find official rules HERE
Where is the Edge?
At first glance you have to ask yourself where is the edge in a contest like this? It’s completely random so there shouldn’t be an edge, but like table games there is a definitely an edge behind this contest. The main way to look at this is from a ceiling perspective. What players can possibly give me the most fantasy points. Now let’s take a look at the lineup that can give you the highest score for tonight. Wait hold on Joey, how the hell do you know what the highest scoring lineup for tonight will be? Well, since we already know what each player’s ceiling is because all of these games have already happened, we can pick the lineup that can give you the most total points. Will this end up being the highest scoring lineup for the night, no but this is the lineup that has the potential to score the most points.
Let’s first see who the highest scorer at each position:
PG: Trae Young 72.6 (7.26x)
SG: D‘Angelo Russell 82.3 (10.97x)
SF: OG Anunoby 65.9 (14.3x)
PF: Bam Adebayo 70.3 (8.57x)
C: Karl Anthony Towns 83 (7.83x)
Next let’s take a look at each top value play:
PG: Shaquille Harrison 14.5x and Aaron Holiday 12.8x
SG: Jordan McRae 13.3x and Terrence Davis 13.3x
SF: Jae Crowder 13x and OG Anunoby 14.3x
PF: Skal Labissiere 16.4x and Michael Proter Jr 13.3x
C: Aaron Baynes 15.4x and Chris Boucher 13.2x
I’m not giving you a player pool for this. I’m just giving out data so everyone knows the risks of each play and which plays make more sense and which plays are you capping your ceiling. This is all random number generated plays but you should at least be putting yourself in the best situation to cash.
Best Possible Lineup
Let’s take a look at the ceiling lineup for tonight. There is an extremely low probability it hits but we can calculate the max amount of points able to score for tonight’s slate. I think it’s just a fun thing to look at.
PG: Ricky Rubio (68.1 fantasy points), Jamel Murray (67.8 fantasy points)
SG: Zach Lavine (73.9 fantasy points), D’Angelo Russel (82.3 fantasy points),
SF: OG Anunoby (65.9 fantasy points), Jae Crowder (64.1 fantasy points)
PF: Bam Adebayo (70.3 fantasy points), Skal Labissiere (58.9 fantasy points)
C: Nikola Jokic (80.5 fantasy points)
If every player hits their potential ceiling then they will score a total of 631.8 fantasy points!
Selecting Your Studs
Point Guards
Tonight we have Trae Young to pay up for and then we have a $2,300 salary dip. Is he worth his salary?B
Trae Young ($10,000): Trae Young has the highest ceiling for a PG tonight with 72.6. He is the only point guard tonight with a ceiling higher than 70. There are 3 other point guards that have higher than 60 point ceiling (Kemba Walker, Jamal Murray, and Ricky Rubio) so you are getting the highest ceiling on the slate by far. He has 12 games of 60 fantasy points which is 6x value and 19%. He has a 41% chance to hit 5x value, while that’s lower than most of the points guards you can select tonight that doesn’t mean he is not as safe as the other guys. When paying for someone this expensive it’s not always about 5x value, only Kawhi reached 5x value more than him with players that are $8500 or more.
Shooting Guards
Bradley Beal ($9,900) vs Jimmy Butler ($8,900): Beal is the top SG on the slate and I prefer playing him over Butler if you can. While Butler has a higher ceiling value of 7.1x compared to 6.9x for Beal. Beal has the higher raw ceiling of 69.2 vs 63.7. I mean that’s what we should assume with Beal being more expensive. Another thing I love about Beal over Butler is has a higher 5x%, 39.5% vs 37.82%, and a higher 6x%, 13.8% vs 11.4%.
Small Forward
Pascal Siakam ($8,500): Siakam has learned a lot from Kawhi in his time as a teammate. One of those is consistent. He ranks second among studs in Standard Deviation with 9.80. He has an average of 41.05 so 65% percent of outcomes will be within 9.8 of 41.05 which is extremely consistent for a player this high in salary. He also has the highest ceiling among small forwards with 62.7. He has a 5x% of 44.11% a 6x% of 15.5% and a 7x% of 3%.
Power Forwards
Kawhi Leonard ($9,400): Kawhi is the safest play to pay up for on the slate. If you are going for safety there is no reason to fade him tonight. (Since all of this is random everyone is technically fadable though) Kawhi has the highest floor on the slate. He has never scored less than 31 fantasy points. He also has the highest 5x% for a stud at 52.7%. This means he will score over 47 52.7% of the time. Which is higher than anyone over $8000, this is what I consider a stud. As well as the lowest Standard Deviation of the studs, with 9.33. This means that 65% of the time he will score within 9.33 of his average points. His average is 47.63 so that means 65% of the time he will score between 38.3 and 56.93 which is 4.11x and 6.5x.
Centers
Center is a deep position each and every night, you can find high ceilings at every price tier. It’s tough to decide.
Karl Anthony Towns ($10,000) vs Nikola Jokic ($9,600): Towns and Jokic have similar ceilings; 83 vs 80.5 fantasy points. Where Jokic beats Towns out is 5x% 6x% and 7x%. I love looking at these for Sim Sports. Jokic will hit 5x (41.09% vs 37.73%) 4% more than KAT, 6x (16.40% vs 11.54%) 5% more, and 7x 2% (4.17% vs 1.86%) more. So with KAT you are getting the higher ceiling but Jokic is more likely to pay off his salary than KAT. So based on this I’m playing Jokic over KAT.
