When Do NBA DFS Projections Update? (Stokastic Sims)

NBA DFS is a game of information, and the lineups that hold up on the night slates are usually built on the newest number at 9 p.m., not the best projection at 9 a.m. A starter gets ruled out during warmups, a backup's usage spikes, the field piles onto the obvious replacement, and the edge belongs to whoever saw all three move first. That is why "when do NBA DFS projections update?" is the most useful question a new Stokastic member asks, and it has a real answer.

Here is the short version, and then the feature that separates our data rhythm from a static optimizer: the numbers start moving early, they keep moving all day as news breaks, and in NBA the ownership projections keep updating even after lock. Hold onto that last part. It is the whole reason late swap works here, and we come back to it.

In Summary

• Point Projections Start Updating Early In The Day, earlier than most of the industry, so you get a real read before lineups lock.
• They Keep Refreshing Through Lock as injuries, confirmed lineups, and odds moves come in. Every Sims page carries a "last updated" stamp so you can see how fresh the numbers are.
• NBA Ownership Projections Keep Updating After Lock, which is what makes real late swap possible instead of guesswork.
• Re-Run The Sim When A Projection Or Your Contest Pool Size Changes — And Re-Run Your Late Swap When Ownership Updates After Lock. You Do Not Need To Re-Run For Your Own ROI Boosts, Exposure Caps, Or Filters, Which You Apply At The End once you are close to final.
• The Stokastic NBA Sims package puts every update — point projections and post-lock ownership — in one place.

Watch The Video

We break down how NBA ownership projections shift with breaking news in our NBA DFS ownership strategy video: Watch on YouTube.

When NBA DFS Projections Start Updating

A morning projection you never revisit is a missed edge. Stokastic runs point projections like a live wire: they begin updating early in the day, well before the slate locks, earlier than a lot of the industry. As we covered in office hours, we update point projections earlier in the day than a lot of sites and attach the stat details behind each number, so you can see the case behind it.

Why does an early read matter for a slate that locks at 7 p.m.? Because the early number is your baseline. When news hits at 6:45, you want to know how far a player moved from where he opened, not just where he landed. An early projection gives you that reference point, and the reference point is where leverage is born.

Projections Keep Updating As News Breaks

The early number is the start, not the finish. Through the day the projections keep refreshing on real events: a starter ruled out, a confirmed lineup, a late rest or load-management call, a line that moves on the game total. Each of those changes who sees minutes, and minutes are the engine of every NBA counting stat. Change the minutes and you change the projection, the value, and the ownership all at once.

This is also why one player's news is never one player's problem. News on one player does not just move that player: it shifts minutes and ownership across his whole team and ripples into the rest of the slate, a dynamic we walk through in the NBA DFS ownership video linked above. The replacement's projection climbs, the field chases him, and his ownership climbs with it. Those effects show up in the updated projections and ownership as the numbers refresh, so you re-run instead of redrawing the board by hand.

Every update is stamped. The Sims pages show a "last updated" time so you always know whether you are looking at this minute's numbers or an hour-old snapshot. That stamp speaks to the two questions members ask most, "when's the next projections update?" and "will there be one more before lock?" It will not predict the next refresh, but it tells you exactly when the current numbers landed, so if a player's status just changed you can see whether the projection already caught it or the next refresh still has to. You watch the clock on the page instead of waiting on faith.

The Ownership Update That Makes Late Swap Work

Point projections updating all day is only part of the workflow. The part most of the industry does not do is this: in NBA, ownership projections keep updating after the early games lock.

That single feature is the difference between real late swap and a coin flip. If you are still learning how to read that number, our NBA DFS ownership projections guide covers how the field-share read shapes a build. Late swap means re-optimizing your remaining, unlocked lineup spots once early games are in the books. To do it well you have to grade those spots against what the field actually holds now, not against a pre-lock ownership guess that is already stale. As one of our staff put it in office hours, "I am not really sure how you can play late swap dfs with stale ownership projections." Read on its own, that line names the trap precisely: any tool that freezes ownership at lock leaves you swapping blind.

The workflow is simple. When the early NBA games lock, open the late swap tool, load your entered lineups, and re-run. The sim re-grades your unlocked spots with current projections and post-lock ownership, so a swap you make at 9 p.m. is judged on 9 p.m. reality. It matters most in NBA, where late news like a rest call, an injury update, or a confirmed lineup change can swing the back half of the slate hard. Our full NBA DFS late swap guide walks that tool step by step.

A Late-Swap Night, Walked Through

Here is the kind of scenario I keep coming back to, because one illustrative night shows the whole rhythm. Say a starting center gets ruled out shortly before the late games. His backup, the sort of value piece that sits around $4,800 on DraftKings, is suddenly the play of the night. Early in the day the tool surfaces that backup at 8% projected ownership. The moment the news breaks, the post-lock update pushes him toward 34% owned as the field piles onto the obvious replacement. If your ownership froze at lock you never see that move: you swap into a player you still think is a leverage play at 8% while he is actually chalk at 34%.

Watch what the re-run does with it. I load my entered lineups into the late swap tool once the early games lock, drop the freed-up salary onto that backup, and re-run. The sim re-grades the remaining spots against current projections and post-lock ownership, so the build is judged on the field that already knows about the injury instead of the stale one. The swap I settle on did not come from a hunch. It came from grading against numbers that kept updating after lock, the read a frozen tool cannot give you.

The row that matters is the middle one: the frozen number tells you to smash a player the whole field just landed on. You can track that shift with the "last updated" stamp as projections and ownership refresh through the day in the NBA DFS projections, ownership and stacks in the DataHub.

Do You Need To Re-Run The Sim When Numbers Update?

Fresh numbers are only useful if the sim actually reflects them, and that raises the practical question members ask right after "when do projections update?" The answer depends entirely on what changed. Some updates flow through the whole build and demand a re-run. Others are your own tweaks and can wait.

The distinction people miss is the ROI boost. Because a projection change and a boost both push a player's exposure, it feels like both should trigger a rebuild. They should not. A new projection or a different pool size changes the inputs the whole simulation depends on, so everything downstream has to run again. Your ROI boosts, caps, and filters are adjustments you layer on top of a finished run, so make them last, once you are close to final, and you will not redo the same work after every refresh. The rule of thumb we lean on: re-run whenever the projections, the ownership, or your contest pool size actually change, because everything downstream depends on those inputs; save your own boosts and caps for the end.

Quick tip: Build your player pool with ROI boosts (down to fade, up to force) rather than deleting players. That keeps the simulated field realistic while your exposures move, so a projection refresh does not force you to redo them.

How To Read The "Last Updated" Stamp

Treat the stamp as your freshness gate before you lock anything in. If a player's status just changed on the injury report, glance at the stamp: a time after that news means the projection already reflects it, and a time before means the next refresh is still coming. During the busy pre-lock window the numbers move fast, so the honest move on a close call is to wait for the stamp to tick past the news rather than lock on an hour-old value. The same stamp answers the early-slate question too: if you are looking for an ownership read on the early games, check that the ownership number updated after the last lineup news, not before it.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next NBA projections update? There is no single fixed clock; projections update through the day as news breaks. The "last updated" stamp on each Sims page tells you when the current numbers landed, and if a player's status just changed, the next refresh will carry it.

Will there be one more projections update before lock? There is no single fixed clock. Projections update through lock as news breaks, which is why the numbers you see right before tip can differ from the morning read, so check the "last updated" stamp before you finalize.

Will there be an ownership update for the early slate? Ownership updates through the day like the point projections, and in NBA it keeps updating after lock for late swap. For an early-games ownership read, confirm the stamp is later than the most recent lineup news.

Do I have to re-run the sim after every update? Only when a projection, an ownership update (which matters most for NBA late swap), or your contest pool size changes. Your own ROI boosts, exposure caps, and stack filters do not require a re-run, so apply those at the end.

Why did my player's ownership jump so much on one piece of news? Because news reshuffles minutes and usage across the slate, not just for the injured player. The obvious replacement gets chased by the field, and the Sims re-run that ripple so your build reflects it.

More on this:

• How To Use NBA DFS Projections To Build Better Lineups
• NBA DFS Projections: How To Build Better Lineups
• How To Use NBA DFS Ownership Projections On DraftKings
• NBA DFS Contrarian Strategy: Fade Chalk, Beat the Field
• What Is Exposure In DFS (And How Do You Set It)?

Play The Slate On Live Numbers

The thread that runs through all of this is a single idea: in NBA DFS, the freshest number gives you the edge, and a projection is only as good as the last time it moved. Boiled down, the member workflow is three moves: read the "last updated" stamp before you trust any number, re-run whenever the projections, ownership, or contest pool size change, and check post-lock ownership before every late swap. Stokastic starts the point projections early, keeps them refreshing as news breaks, and keeps ownership updating after lock — which most of the industry does not do — so those three moves run on live reality instead of a pre-lock snapshot.

Run your NBA lineups on numbers that keep updating through the slate. The Stokastic NBA Sims refresh point projections early and all day, keep NBA ownership live after lock for late swap, and grade your builds against a realistic field every time you re-run. Take 10% off your first Stokastic payment with code SIMSDATA10 → Start with Stokastic NBA

If you are new to the tool, the NBA DFS projections page shows how to read the grid, and the NBA DFS strategy guide covers how to turn those numbers into lineups. When the news hits at 6:45, you will already know where every number opened, and you will be the one acting on it first.

Ready to stop playing on stale data? Get 10% off your first Stokastic payment with code SIMSDATA10 and run every slate on projections and ownership that keep moving until you lock.