Underdog Fantasy has become wildly popular due to their massive Best Ball contests as well as their Pick ‘em games, but their daily snake drafts are another incredibly fun option for fantasy drafters. Their NBA drafts (or Battle Royale as they call it format) are incredibly simple, and they give you a shot at 4 or 5 figure winnings every single day.
All you have to do is draft 6 players from the games taking place that night in the NBA in a traditional snake draft against 5 other users. No positional requirements. No salary cap. Your team of 6 players competes against every other team of 6 drafted that day in that tournament for your share of the prize pool, which typically pays out approximately 20% of the field with 20-25% going to first place.
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Underdog offers a variety of options each day with single entry, double entry and multi entry contests available. Their player scoring is also incredibly simple:
Below are the additional details and rules provided by Underdog for their general Battle Royale contests, as well as their Daily NBA specific contests:
Let’s dive into the strategy for today’s contests. Much of the strategy for today is driven by the incredible Daily NBA Projections from the RotoGrinders team. If you’d like to subscribe to the full set of projections for every player and team, head to RotoGrinders NBA Premium , which includes fantasy point projections and daily fantasy ownership projections for sites like DraftKings, Fanduel, and Yahoo, as well as LineupHQ Optimizer access and much, much more.
Underdog Fantasy Daily NBA Battle Royale Contest Strategy for February 17th, 2022
Top Options
This last slate before the all-star break is sort of unique in that we have very clear tiers at the top. We have the big 3 – Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo – that are a very big step ahead of the rest of the player pool. After them, we also have a relatively clear second tier, made up of the two heat studs – Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo – along with Kyle Kuzma as he shoulders a massive burden for the Wizards. After this top 6, guys like LaMelo Ball get somewhat close, but it’s extremely wide open.
Undervalued and Overvalued Players
Reggie Jackson – The Clippers are still fairly deep with bodies, but they’re now without Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Norman Powell. They get a matchup with the lowly Rockets, and Reggie has been sporting a monster usage rate of late while playing big minutes. He’s not a name most people gravitate to, and that keeps him extremely undervalued in our drafts.
CJ McCollum – Given what we’ve seen from the Pels since trading for CJ, we have already flipped CJ over both Brandon Ingram and Jonas Valanciunas in our rankings. He has taken the reigns of the Pels offense with the highest usage rate on the team, and he’s playing huge minutes in close games. He should definitely be higher than Ingram and JoVal, but also he’s simply a back of top 10 overall option tonight.
Spencer Dinwiddie – Few players lost more fantasy relevance than Dinwiddie at the trade deadline. We basically have to throw out what we thought about him previously, as he’s now a backup point guard that plays about 18-24 minutes per night. And he’s not even going to command a huge usage rate on the 2nd unit, as he’ll sub in early enough to play half his minutes with Luka, and then Jalen Brunson will sub in for Luka to pick up a lot of the 2nd unit usage. Even at the back end of drafts, we can take shots on guys that could benefit from injury situations to have big ceilings before clicking on Dinwiddie.
Injuries and Situations to Monitor
Jimmy Butler – Per usual, Jimmy is questionable to play. He has been playing through the questionable tag for a while now, but it’s always possible he sits for a little extra pre-all star break rest. He’s an elite option if he plays, and Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry make for incredible values if Jimmy sits.
Christian Wood / Kevin Porter Jr. – Both of the Rockets core guys missed last night’s game with an illness, and they nearly beat the Suns. Dennis Schroder took over the ball handling and played 38 minutes (44 fantasy points), while young big Alperen Sengun showed off his upside with 48 fantasy points in 28 minutes. Both would be excellent options if these two miss again.
Good luck!
