DFS Basketball 101: SportsTradex Overview

This article is part of our DFS Basketball 101 series.

Games

Pick'Em – SportsTradex provides matchups consisting of two teams and three players on each side. Players determine which matchup they like the best and make their selection. The team with the most winning matchups will win the contest.

Pick'Em Duds - This is a new game that SportsTradex just launched this week. Pick'Em format, but you are trying to pick the players who will perform the best based on negative categories.

Basketball (Duds) Scoring

- Missed Field Goal: 1
- Missed Free Throw: 2
- Personal Foul: 2.5
- Turnover: 3

Survivor - Multiple day contest that is based on the pick'em format.

The winner of a Survivor Contest is defined by the user(s) that made the required number of correct picks in all predefined rounds. If no one makes the required number of correct picks in all predefined rounds, then the winner(s) is the contestant(s) that made the highest total of correct picks in the contest. The winner of a Pick'em Contest is defined as the user that made the highest total number of correct picks.

Standings are generated based on the total number of correct picks for each user in a contest. If the winner of the contest had five correct picks and the person with the next most correct picks had four, the person with five correct picks would win the first place prize and the person with four correct picks would win the second place prize.

Trading Contests

All contestants are given a fixed amount of Sports Tradex dollars (virtual currency) upon signing up for a contest. Upon entering a contest, all trades within that contest are made with this virtual currency. No actual real money is traded in the contest. The goal of the contest is to accumulate as much virtual money as possible. Contestants will be ranked based on their Sports Tradex virtual account balance at the end of the contest. Prizes will be awarded based on a stated payout chart for each contest.

Contestants will buy and sell contenders (teams, players or fantasy teams) using virtual currency in the game. The contender or team (treated like a stock) that wins the event will have a final Sports Tradex dollar value per share, determined by the contest description (generally $100).

SportsTradex currently has an Olympic hockey trading freeroll contest that you can enter now.

Scoring

The scoring format on SportsTradex is simple and straightforward. The one thing I noticed right away is the premium placed on assists, so I will lean towards point guard heavy matchups when making my picks.

- Points – 1
- Rebounds – 1
- Assists – 1.5
- Blocks – 2
- Steals – 2
- Turnovers - (-0.5)

Basketball (Duds)

- Missed Field Goal: 1
- Missed Free Throw: 2
- Personal Foul: 2.5
- Turnover: 3

Strategy

I started playing on SportsTradex on Tuesday of this week, beginning with their Survivor contests. The contest took place from Tuesday through Thursday. They start the multi-day Survivor contests on days where the NBA slate is light. Here are the matchups from Tuesday.

Tuesday had five matchups, and I had to pick my best two to advance on to Wednesday.

Matchup #1

Kevin Martin/Paul George/Ryan Kelly vs. Jodie Meeks/Klay Thompson/Paul Millsap

I took the Meeks/Thompson/Millsap combo because it gave me more balance. Meeks got injured early and my night was toast.

Matchup #2

Al Jefferson/Carlos Boozer/David West vs. David Lee/Kyle Korver/Ricky Rubio

I went with the first group here because Jefferson was one of the best projected players for the night. Also, Lee was a question mark going into the game, and I tend to fade matchups with shooting guards because they are inconsistent. (Korver).

Matchup #3

Kevin Love/Marcus Morris/Ramon Sessions vs. Andrew Bogut/Goran Dragic/Lance Stephenson

I had the matchup favoring the Bogut group, but it was close. I like to take the group with more balance, rather than a group with a superstar and two lower-tier players.

Matchup #4

George Hill/Gerald Henderson/Jordan Hill vs. Gerald Green/Jeff Teague/Taj Gibson

I like the second group in this matchup more based on balance, but it was not in my top two.

Matchup #5

Andre Iguodala/Joakim Noah/Roy Hibbert vs. Jimmy Butler/Ronny Turiaf/Stephen Curry

Curry was the best player of the six in this group, but Turiaf was too risky even with his playing time increase. I liked the first group, but it was pretty close.

Wednesday

There was a full slate of NBA action on Wednesday, so these were Pick'Em daily games. I had to pick a total of eight matchups out of the ten total matchups.

Matchup #1

Anderson Varejao/DeMar DeRozan/Goran Dragic vs. Darren Collison/Jae Crowder/Kevin Durant

This was one of the matchups I liked the best, as the first group was loaded, and although the second group had Durant, there were also two other players that were much lower projected. One of the strategies I started to employ was taking a more balanced team, versus a team with one superstar and two lesser players.

Matchup #2

LeBron James/Thabo Sefolosha/Wesley Matthews vs. Chandler Parsons/DeMarcus Cousins/Josh Smith

This was a very close matchup and I was leaning towards the second group, but I decided to pass on picking this one.

Matchup #3

LaMarcus Aldridge/Michael Carter-Williams/Ty Lawson vs. Anthony Davis/Carmelo Anthony/Nene Hillario

I was slightly leaning towards the first group, but it ended up being one of the closest matchups on the board and I passed on it.

Matchup #4

DeAndre Jordan/Dwight Howard/Zach Randolph vs. Chris Bosh/Dirk Nowitzki/Kyle Lowry

This was one of my top plays for the night, as I loved the first matchup because it contains three players that were all frontcourt players, which generally leads to more consistency.

Matchup #5

Blake Griffin/Courtney Lee/Damian Lillard vs. James Harden/JJ Hickson/Spencer Hawes

Griffin is one of the more consistent daily fantasy basketball players, whereas Harden can be very up and down. Throw in Lillard, who is also a staple player, and I went with the first group as one of my strongest plays.

Matchup #6

JJ Redick/Paul Millsap/Victor Oladipo vs. Brandon Jennings/Kyle Korver/Ricky Rubio

I leaned toward the second group because there was two point guards, as opposed to the two shooting guards in the first group. Point guards are more consistent on a daily basis, in comparison to the shooting guard position.

Matchup #7

Mario Chalmers/Nikola Vucevic/Robert Sacre vs. Eric Gordon/Iman Shumpert/Terrance Ross

This matchup was not very attractive on either side, but Shumpert was by far the lowest projected player, so I leaned slightly towards the first group.

Matchup #8

Jeff Teague/Rajon Rondo/Reggie Jackson vs. Chandler Frye/Tristan Thompson/Tyson Chandler

I loved the first group here that contained three point guards, as opposed to three mid-tier players in the second group.

Matchup #9

Ersan Ilyasova/John Wall/Thaddeus Young vs. Kevin Martin/Randy Foye/Tim Duncan

This matchup was just about dead even, so I did not make a pick here.

Matchup #10

Luol Deng/Terrance Jones/Tony Parker vs. Brandon Knight/Jeff Green/Marc Gasol

I had the first group outscoring the second group by over 20 fantasy points. My mistake was having too low of a projection on Jeff Green, who was playing against Philadelphia.

Results

SportsTradexx also released a roster export feature this week and I used it on Wednesday to quickly enter several contests. It is one of the better export features I have seen in daily fantasy gaming. After building my bankroll on Wednesday by winning all of my 50/50 double ups, I had a little extra money to play with on Friday night and I decided to enter a $12 qualifier for the $16,000 Tournament on February 28th. SportsTradex runs daily qualifiers starting as low as $12.