NBA Playoff Best Ball: The Dance by Underdog Fantasy
Strategic Lineups to help you excel in the biggest NBA Playoff Fantasy Contest
We are just over a week away from the start of the 2022 NBA Playoffs, and it’s hard to not start getting excited! One of my favorite ways to get action on the NBA Playoffs is through Underdog Fantasy’s Playoff Best Ball drafts.
Currently, Underdog is offering a huge playoff contest called The Dance, where the buy-in is $10 and the top prize is $30,000. Just making the Finals guarantees you a 10X return on your money and a $100 payout.
Here is the link to the official rules for The Dance. I’m not going to spend too much time here going through the basics, so I would advise making yourself comfortable with the general strategy around the Best Ball format. Here is a really good intro video from Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) of Underdog Fantasy. Additionally, here’s another really good podcast talking general strategy from the guys over at Establish The Run NBA.
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What I want to focus on today, is how to immediately start drafting “super-teams” on Underdog Fantasy. Don’t waste time firing off dead teams into the tournament and wasting time going through the reps to figure out how ADP and lineup construction works.
Before I jump right in, I want to highlight the biggest difference between NBA and NFL Best Ball drafts. In the NFL, variance is crazy high! The NFL Playoffs consist of a series of one-and-done games where a Gabriel Davis 4 TD explosion game is well within the range of outcomes. Not so much in the NBA. These teams play best-of-seven series where over a long sample size, the cream is going to rise to the top. DO NOT waste roster spots on guys that don’t have a high ceiling. Every player you draft should be capable of having a Top 3-4 score on their team over the course of a playoff series.
Without further ado, here is how I am attacking the #1 through #6 slots that you randomly get assigned at the start of an Underdog Fantasy draft. The individual flowcharts should help visualize the strategy that I have included with each team below.
Milwaukee Bucks
Worth Drafting: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis
1.1 Giannis. If you can’t get Giannis in the first round, there’s really no reason to draft the Bucks. A world where the Bucks make the Finals and Giannis isn’t the leading scorer in the series isn’t a world that I want to live in. Occasionally, he will drop to the 1.2 but never past that.
2/3 turn: Choose one of Holiday or Middleton, and then pick either Steph Curry or Ja Morant as your WCF stud.
4/5 turn: If you chose Ja, then pick Jaren Jackson Jr. If you chose Curry + Holiday, choose Draymond Green. If Curry + Middleton, draft Klay Thompson. If you want to finish your GSW stack, then choose both, otherwise I don’t hate Demar Derozan or Karl-Anthony Towns here.
6/7 turn: If no big man yet, draft Lopez. Otherwise, take Portis and finish off your Milwaukee stack. Desmond Bane, Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, and Nikola Vucevic are all fine here depending how you did in the first few rounds.
Notes: If you don’t get Giannis, then you should fade the Bucks. An extra way to leverage into a Bucks fade is picking players from a team you think will beat the Bucks in the 2nd round. Plenty of options below.
Philadelphia 76ers
Worth Drafting: Joel Embiid, James Harden, Tobias Harris, Tyrese Maxey
1.2 Embiid. This will be a common theme for a lot of the studs, but if you can’t get the elite guy in the first two rounds, it doesn’t make sense to target this team. Embiid regularly falls in the 1.2 to 1.4 range.
2nd/3rd Round: If you are hitching your wagon to Philly, then you have to get Harden in the 2nd. Good chance those are only two players that matter if Philly makes the Finals. I like to double down on the East in the 3rd round and take Jimmy Butler or Jaylen Brown.
4th/5th Round: Time to pick a WCF team. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are possible here. So are Draymond and Klay.
6/7 Round: If you picked Jimmy, try to pair him with Kyle Lowry or Tyler Herro here. If you went Jaylen, try to pair him with Marcus Smart or Al Horford. If you missed both Warriors in Round 4/5, there’s bailout GSW options here too in Poole and Wiggins.
Notes: If Philly doesn’t make the Finals, your lineup is dead. If they do make the Finals, there’s a good chance Embiid is the only big in your lineup that matters. I’m okay finishing Embiid drafts with only 1 big on my roster.
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Phoenix Suns
Worth Drafting: Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton, Chris Paul, Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, Cam Johnson, Javale McGee, Cameron Payne
1st/2nd Round: There’s multiple ways this can end up going for the Suns, but the most likely scenario is you land only Booker in Round 1 or you get Ayton and Paul with your first two picks. Sometimes you’ll be able to pair up Booker but not always.
2nd/3rd Round: Drafting solo Booker is really challenging, so I’ll focus on this path in the article. By betting on him, you want to lean into the chaos in the East and really pack your bags. If Jayson Tatum or Kevin Durant fall, those would be my preferred choices because you can pair them with Brown or Irving. If not you are looking at Harden with no Embiid, Kyrie with no Durant, or Holiday/Middleton with no Giannis. Not ideal spots. I don’t mind paying up for Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, just so I have the top two studs from an East team that can make the Finals.
4th/5th Round: Lots of options here now. If you went Nets, grab Andre Drummond, if you went Heat, probably grab Tyler Herro. I also prefer getting Demar Derozan as my 2nd East team instead of picking Bridges, but there’s paths where you can get both.
6/7 turn: This is where I would focus on finishing up your Suns stack with Johnson, Crowder or both. If only one, you can get McGee or Payne later, and keep strengthening whatever path you took with the East teams now.
Notes: You’ll see the list of players worth drafting is really long for the Suns, and this is mainly due to the fact that it’s impossible to finish a draft with all three of their best players. More than likely you will leave the first round with one or two of their top 3, and need to funnel in a couple more in the late rounds.
Boston Celtics
Worth Drafting: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Al Horford, Robert Williams III
First Round: Tatum. Celtics are one of the most fun teams to draft around in this tournament, so let’s get wild with it.
2nd/3rd Round: It’s really wide open with how you start here in the 2nd round. Sometimes Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic fall here and they would be my priority. Otherwise Paul/Ayton or Morant/Curry are all viable options. In the 3rd round you have to grab Jaylen if you started with Tatum. The only path to the Celtics making the Finals comes on the back of their two studs.
4th/5th Round: If Ja, then go with JJJ in the 4th. If Curry then go Draymond/Thompson in the 5th. There’s also a crazy world where you take Jaylen in the 2nd and pick Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert at the 3/4 turn. I don’t hate it.
6/7 turn: Again, if you start with Tatum and Brown, then you are banking on the Celtics making the Finals. If they do that, I love betting on a healthy Robert Williams III being available. This is my preferred choice here, given that you have already selected a big that will get you points in the early rounds (plenty of options listed above). I would use the 6th round to fill in your WCF teams.
Notes: Given how easy it is to manage both Tatum and Brown in drafts, there will be a lot of teams like this that you will be battling if they make it to the Finals. Try to think through ways to make your lineup different than others. Williams with no Horford, or paying up for Gobert/Mitchell are my two favorite choices.
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Jokic/Doncic Super-teams
You want to get crazy? Let’s get crazy.
1/2 Turn: Draft both Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic. This all but guarantees that you will advance out of Round 1, since you’ll have two of the likely top 5 scorers on your roster. Best case scenario is Mavs/Nuggets don’t matchup in Round 1 and you squeak both through to Round 2.
3/4 Turn: Absolutely have to hammer ECF teams during the next six rounds. Butler and Bam is my preferred combo here. There’s also a scenario where Holiday and Middleton makes sense. Remember when I said you don’t want a Bucks Finals team without Giannis? Well if they play the Mavericks or Nuggets, there won’t be many teams that have Giannis + Luka/Jokic so landing one of them with the other two Bucks studs won’t kill you.
5/6 turn & 7th Round: This is when the Toronto Raptors finally enter the chat. You can take Pascal Siakam here with a third Heat player of Herro or Lowry, and then grab Fred VanVleet or Scottie Barnes in the 7th Round. This is already a bet on chaos, so might as well double down on chaos and end your draft with two loaded East stacks + Jokic and Luka.
Notes: Because Luka and Jokic have such an outsized scoring advantage over the other players on their respective teams, I’m okay with totally punting on Mavericks and Nuggets until the end of the Draft. Picking Jalen Brunson or Spencer Dinwiddie and hoping one of them loses their mind in the Finals is fun. Picking Jamal Murray to pair with Jokic in the Finals is also a crazy good upside bet. Lots of ways to still make these teams profitable.
If you’ve made it this far in the article, then I know you are an NBA maniac. Hopefully, by now you are also ready to call in sick for the rest of the week and max enter into Underdog Fantasy NBA Playoff drafts! If you aren’t already a paid subscriber to Show Me The Data, I recommend you doing that now.
Later this week, I’ll be posting my personal rankings that I am using for my Underdog Fantasy drafts. Additionally, I will be posting private contests all next week where you can compete amongst other SMTD members to win NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day moments. And of course, you already know that SMTD is the best source out there for MR Play projections and NBA Playoff Flash Challenge speculation. Come aboard for what is lining up to be an exciting next few months in The Association!