late swaps

I'm not going to proclaim to be an expert on how to manage lineups on daily fantasy sites offering the ability to make late swaps.

What is a late swap? Your daily site goes one of two ways:

• Your lineup is locked at the start of the first game's tip/pitch/kickoff, or
• Your lineup can be modified for players whose games haven't started yet.

There are a small handful of sites (Draftkings/Starstreet) offering late swaps. To the casual daily player, this seems like a wonderful way to make sure your lineup isn't ruined by a late scratch, whether it's due to injury or coach-player squabbles, or who-knows-what.

Unfortunately, for the same casual player, unless you are sitting around actively scouting player news throughout the entire slate of that day's games, you are at a serious disadvantage for those who are.

Additionally, it's another advantage to craft your lineup in a way that fits any possible late swaps. If you're not setting your initial lineup with this in mind, you're creating potential handicaps for your team before the games even start.

For example. Let's say you're thinking of using Carlos Boozer on a late swap site. He is prone to late scratches. If his game starts later than the first game of the day, then you would want to slot him into a roster position that makes the most sense for a swap. This means you want to put him into a UTILITY slot, and not specifically PF or F.

This is a simplistic example, and I think there's more to it. I just haven't had the time or need to really get involved with the concept, since I also don't have time to sit and watch player news all night after spending an hour or more setting my original lineup.

Because of this, I will likely be avoiding playing NBA regularly at sites that do late swaps. I don't want to play at a disadvantage that is as important as this one.

Draftstreet Ironman

Does anyone else find it odd that there is no mention of the Draftstreet Ironman promo over at Rotogrinders.com?

The Ironman challenge is simple. Draftstreet is providing a $10,000 pool of money that will be split among players who participate in $11 or more in contests of three people or more, for 29 out of the 30 available days of NBA contests in December.

I find all kinds of promo information at Rotogrinders.com, but I see no mention of it, even within the user forums.

New Pattern?

I'm going to make sure I don't go 17 days between posts again. I'm horrible.

I have been able to spend time playing 99% of my stuff at Daily Joust over the past few weeks. And, I must be the luckiest guy ever. I swear I have won 90% of days this month. Yeah, it's only the 12th... but it's been a fine run.

Hockey has been surprising. I don't really know much about the sport. I have some data that I use, and it's apparently the right data. I just won the 2nd NHL Crusader in two weeks tonight. It's been a fun ride, as I've been doing pretty well in my head-to-head's.

In other news. I started listening to db730's RotoGrinders podcast. It blows my mind that there's enough to talk about for 30 minutes every weekday, but he's found a way to materialize just that. I highly recommend it if you're a player of any variety of daily fantasy sports. Check it here.

Wednesday (Feb 13th) is another huge NBA day. With only two games Thurdsay, followed by the All-Star break, this is the last reasonable day of fantasy hoops before the break. And! It's also the $7500 All-star Joust on Daily Joust. I've earned four entries, and have been looking forward to this one since late 2012. I'm so excited about it, I've already set my lineup for it. Barring injuries, I'm not changing it!!!

Good luck to all Wednesday, and enjoy the break!

WORK IS KILLING ME

Sorry everyone. It's been 17 days since a post here. But, I'm back!!

Player Rater Player of the Day:

KEVIN DURANT

Again, this guy is just ablaze. Ensure he's in your lineups today, at any price!!

The last few weeks of the season? Pretty interesting stuff! To recap:

Jeremy Lin. Where are you? You came up really short last time out at home against the Nuggets, who, by the way, don't really defend guards well. That's two stinkers in your past two games, Jeremy.

Dorell Wright. You should be released.

Ricky Rubio. You're cheap, and I don't need 30 FP's per day from you. But man, c'mon!! Complaining about being benched the other day when you've been shooting 21% from the floor? Think about that for a second, Rick.