How projected NBA ownership by contest works

Projected ownership is the share of lineups in a contest that we expect to roster a player. It comes from the ownership model of STAT-API, one value per player per contest, before the slate locks.

The page opens on the NBA main slate of the day, on DraftKings and on FanDuel. Two switches open its contests: the operator, and GPP or CASH, the biggest GPP or the biggest cash game at an entry fee of $25 or less. The arrows step one day.

Each row shows the projected fantasy points and minutes beside the ownership. After the games, the same row shows the actual points, the minutes played and the actual ownership of the contest beside the projections, so one view compares them, and a shade marks how close each projection came. The actual ownership of the night's biggest contest at $25 or less is free; of any other contest it is part of Pro.

The same player is owned differently from contest to contest: a cash game, a small field and a large GPP each get their own projection.

Contests with the same terms (entry fee, field size, entries per user, prize pool) get the same projected ownership, and the page says how many share it. Qualifiers are left out. Without Pro, the 10 most-owned players are free in the 5 biggest contests of the slate, with their projected points, minutes and ownership, and Download CSV saves them. Pro opens the cash games and every other contest, every player, every slate and the full CSV. "Get this data", the API request behind the view, is part of Pro.

The numbers

Own%

The share of lineups in the contest that we project to roster the player. A DraftKings NBA lineup has 8 players and a FanDuel one 9, so the Own% of a contest add up to 800% on DraftKings and 900% on FanDuel.

Proj

The fantasy points we project for the player, on the operator's scoring.

Min

The minutes we project the player to play.

Act Pts, Act Min, Act Own%

After the game: the fantasy points the player scored, the minutes the player played and the share of lineups in the contest that rostered the player.

The shades

How close the projection came, from dark green (closest) through gray to dark red (furthest). Points: within 10%, 20%, 35% or 50% of the projection (of at least 10 points). Minutes: within 2, 4, 7 or 10 minutes. Ownership: within 2, 5, 10 or 15 percentage points. Anything further is dark red.

Floor – Ceiling

The projection's range: its floor is the 15th percentile of the outcomes our model projects, its ceiling the 85th. The dot is the projection.

Value

Projected points per $1,000 of salary.

Top 3 Own%

The Own% of the three most-owned players of the contest together.

Across contests

The open operator's GPP and cash contests and its next-biggest prize pools, 5 contests side by side, one Own% per cell. A darker cell is a higher value.