Rankings
Strategy
Tournament Playbook
2022 Picks
Cheat Sheets
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.
If you haven’t yet signed up for Underdog Fantasy, you can use Promo Code ‘SPIKE’ to receive a 100% Deposit Match on any deposit up to $100.
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 3rd, 2022
Top Options
The top tier is a bit different tonight, which makes for a fun first couple rounds of drafts. All 3 of Dejounte Murray, Steph Curry and Anthony Davis are viable candidates for the first overall pick. They project extremely close and all have immense upside. After them, the market has gone back a bit on Chris Paul and Devin Booker, but they’re comfortably in the 2nd tier again tonight, and the 2nd tier is pretty big after that top 3. From Paul all the way down to Bam Adebayo in our rankings is a pretty tight grouping of projections and upside, but there’s a tier break after that.
Undervalued and Overvalued Players
OG Anunoby – OG has been undervalued for a while, but he just hasn’t quite made the list here. As some of our favorite values get priced up, OG still lags way behind at a criminally low ADP, especially for a smaller slate like tonight. He’s not a super high usage player, but he plays a ton of minutes for the Raptors and has elite steals/blocks upside which is super valuable in Underdog scoring.
Derrick White – Derrick White might be my favorite pick of the day. He is undervalued in our projections even with Dejounte in, and he has the contingent value of massively increased upside if Dejounte misses. The Spurs
Russell Westbrook – I think RWB definitely provides upside today assuming Lebron sits, but the Underdog projections are still too bullish on him. He sits 3rd overall there, but he’s still just 9th overall in our projections and rankings. Even last night without Lebron, he didn’t put up a huge fantasy game against the Blazers dreadful defense, and he had just a 20% usage rate.
Injuries and Situations to Monitor
Jimmy Butler – Yes, Jimmy is questionable AGAIN. Yes, he is a strong value himself if he plays. And yes, it is a boost to Bam Adebayo if Jimmy does not play.
Dejounte Murray – Dejounte actually occupies the top spot in our rankings making him an incredibly strong pick today, but his questionable status definitely throws a wrench into the slate. If he were to miss, Derrick White could be the main beneficiary, and Keldon Johnson would likely pick up more usage as well. Jakob Poeltl is already ruled out for the Spurs, and Doug McDermott is questionable as well, so there’s a lot of production to go around here in the absence of Murray.
Trae Young – Trae missed last game which allowed Delon Wright to get the start. Trae will likely be a bit overvalued if ruled in, but there’s value here if he were to miss again. Delon has exhibited upside in the past, while Bogdan Bogdanovic and Kevin Huerter make for strong late round picks as the higher usage players on the team, alongside De’Andre Hunter.
Lebron James – 2nd night of a back to back for the Lakers, and with Lebron missing last night the assumption is that he’ll miss again. Anthony Davis was a usage monster without Lebron, and despite his terrible season Russell Westbrook regains some of his old upside in a larger role.
Cade Cunningham – Cade has been one of the most undervalued players in drafts for weeks now, but he left last game with a hip pointer and is questionable to play tonight. I doubt the Pistons push their young franchise cornerstone, but if he were to play he’d certainly be undervalued at his current draft cost. In Cade’s absence, there still isn’t much to love here, but Jerami Grant did return last game and would have to take on more usage here.
Good luck!
