What is NBA Best Ball?
In Best Ball contests, participants will draft a lineup via a live snake draft and contests will last multiple weeks of the season. After the draft there are no trades or roster management. Each week of the contest your highest scoring players are automatically your starting lineup and count toward your team’s overall fantasy point total (rosters and scoring summarized below). Overall contest payouts are based on the cumulative fantasy points scored by your starting lineup each week.
DraftKings NBA Best Ball – Sit & Go’s and Tournaments
Scoring
Lineup Requirements
Lineups will consist of 16 players and must include players from at least 2 different NBA teams. Each week you will have 7 starting players and 9 bench players. The roster positions are:
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Each week your highest scoring players are automatically counted towards the score of your starting lineup. Your non-starting players each week will make up your bench and their fantasy points will not count toward your team’s overall fantasy point total.
Who is available to draft?
The Player Pool will consist of all NBA players expected to be on the active roster for any team scheduled to play in the contest Game Set. This may also include players that are not on an NBA team at the time the player pool is created, but if these players are signed to a team, their teams will be updated and they will be eligible to receive fantasy points. If a player is traded they will be eligible to receive fantasy points for their new team.
When do the drafts start?
Best Ball drafts will begin once the contest fills the required number of entrants. There will be a 1 minute countdown period between the time the contest fills and the time the countdown begins for the first pick of the draft. The draft order is determined at random once the contest fills. You can withdraw from a Best Ball contest at any time before the contest fills.
How long does a draft take?
Best Ball drafts use fast draft settings, which means up to 30 seconds to make each pick. Fast drafts typically take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to complete.
What requirements are there for the draft?
In order to be eligible for prizes in the Best Ball contests you must either edit the pre-draft rankings, add a player to your queue during the draft, or make a manual draft pick during the draft. Failure to take at least one of the prior three actions will result in an invalid entry and you will not be eligible for prizes and your entry fee will be forfeited.
How do pre-draft rankings work?
You can create your own personalized ordering of a Best Ball player pool by editing the pre-draft rankings. Your last saved version of the pre-draft rankings are automatically imported for you as soon as a draft starts. You can edit your pre-draft rankings at any time and it will apply to every upcoming draft in the game set. If you do not edit the pre-draft rankings before a draft starts, you will use the default DraftKings player rankings.
How does Auto-Draft work?
If you do not make a pick before your pick clock expires, a player will be drafted by one of the following methods.
-DraftKings will pick the highest player from the queue.
-or-
-DraftKings will pick the highest-rated player from your pre-draft rankings.
Should a player fail to make two consecutive manual selections, DraftKings will automatically turn auto-draft on and this can be turned off at any time in the draft settings. Players who have auto-draft on will not receive any push notifications for that specific contest during the draft.
Note: DraftKings will not auto-draft more than 8Gs, 8Fs, or 3Cs for your team when auto-drafting from the pre-draft rankings. It is possible to exceed these limits when auto-drafting from the queue.
Contest Cancellations
If for any reason a draft does not finish before the contest goes live, the contest will be cancelled and all users will be refunded.
In order to ensure all drafts finish before the contest goes live, DraftKings will cancel and refund all unfilled contests one to two hours before the contest start time.
COVID-19 & Scheduling Changes
The policies in this section are meant to cover how DraftKings will deal with disruptions to the NBA season due to COVID-19 or any other extenuating circumstance. However, because of the unpredictability of the situation, DraftKings reserves the right to amend these policies based on how specific situations may play out.
Rescheduled Games
The Scoring Period each week for NBA contests is the date of the first game in the game set through the date of the last game in the game set.
In the event a game is suspended, any statistics generated before the game is suspended will count in the scoring period the game is started. Any statistics generated on a later date will count in the scoring period the game is picked back up.
In the event a game is postponed and rescheduled to a new date or time, the game will count for the scoring period in which it is played.
Due to schedule changes, it may be possible that not all teams end up playing the same number of games in the season.
Suspended, Cancelled or Shortened Seasons
Sit & Gos
In the event the NBA season is suspended, DraftKings will wait until the NBA makes a decision about restarting the season before a make a decision about the settlement of contests. If the NBA has not made a decision by July 22nd, DraftKings may choose to consider the season as final. DraftKings reserves the right to amend this date depending on the situation.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled or shortened before they play at least 4 full weeks, DraftKings will cancel and refund all contests.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled in the middle of the week (before all scheduled games have been played that week), none of that week’s stats will count.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled after they play at least 4 full weeks, DraftKings will pay out contests based on the standings after the last fully completed week.
Tournaments
In the event the NBA season is suspended, DraftKings will wait until the NBA makes a decision about restarting the season before a decision is made about the settlement of contests. If the NBA has not made a decision by July 22nd, DraftKings may choose to consider the season as final. DraftKings reserves the right to amend this date depending on the situation.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled or shortened before the end of Round 1, DraftKings will cancel and refund all contests.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled after Round 1 but before Round 2 is complete, none of the stats for Round 2 will count. All entries will split the equity from rounds 2-4 evenly.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled after Round 2 but before Round 3 is complete, none of the stats for Round 3 will count. All entries will split the equity from rounds 3-4 evenly.
In the event the NBA season is cancelled after Round 3 but before Round 4 is complete, none of the stats for Round 4 will count. All entries will split the equity from round 4 evenly.
Collusion
DraftKings has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to collusion. If DraftKings suspects there was collusion in a contest, the contest may be cancelled. The users suspected of collusion will not be refunded and may be permanently banned from DraftKings.
Collusion is any action or decision that is made between two or more users in a draft with the intention of gaining an unfair advantage over other users, or otherwise, in DraftKings sole discretion, may compromise the integrity of the contest.
Tournaments
Tournaments are Best Ball drafts that are played out over multiple rounds of contests. DraftKings tournaments are played out over 4 rounds.
Round 1: 4 weeks (3/10 – 3/21, 3/22 – 3/28, 3/29 – 4/4, 4/5 – 4/11)
Round 2: 1 week ( 4/12 – 4/18)
Round 3: 1 week (4/19 – 4/25)
Round 4: 1 double week (4/26 – 5/9)
At the end of each round, a specified number of entrants from each contest advances to the next round based on their placement in the contest standings. Each tournament will have specified contest sizes for each round, number of advancing entries per contest for each round, and maximum number of round 1 contests you can enter.
Advancing entries are randomly matched up against other advancing entries in rounds 2 through 4. If you have multiple entries advancing in a Tournament, DraftKings will avoid matching you up against yourself, whenever possible.
Advancing entries keep the same lineup they drafted during round 1. There is no redrafting between any rounds.
If there are not enough advancing entries to fill future round contests, there will be wild card entries that advance. Wild card entries are the entries that scored the highest fantasy points among the non-automatically advancing entries.
Example: There is a tournament with a maximum of 12,000 12-man round 1 contests, where the top finisher in each contest advances to round 2. Round 2 is made up of 1,000 12-man contests (12,000 total entries). If only 11,000 round 1 contests were to fill, only 11,000 entries would automatically advance. DraftKings would make up the additional 1,000 entries with wild card spots.
If there is a tie for an advancing entry or wild card spot, the advancing entry/wild card spot will be the one with the highest scoring single week in that round If still tied, it will be the entry with the second highest scoring week in that round. This process will continue through the lowest scoring week in the round. If still tied, the advancing entry will be the one with the overall highest scoring player in that round. If still tied, it will be the entry with the second overall highest scoring player in that round. This process will continue through the lowest scoring player in the round.
Scoring and Stat Corrections
Live scoring updates are strictly for the enjoyment of DraftKings’ customers. DraftKings’ official scoring validation process happens each week and begins once all games in a week are final. Once a week is finalized, the results will show up under the “Recent Interval” section of the overall standings.
On occasion, official scorers may issue a stat-correction after games have ended and the official scoring validation process for the week has completed. These corrections are rare, but can occur days after a game is played. Therefore, after the scoring validation process for the week is complete, the scoring for that week will not be changed regardless of any official statistics or scoring adjustments made by the leagues at later times or dates, and there will be no impact on that week’s scores or the overall standings. Conversely, if a correction needs to be made after a week is finalized due to a bug with the data feed or the finalization process, while extremely rare, the finalization process (including payment) may be reversed and redone in DraftKings’ sole and absolute discretion.