Last Updated on August 20, 2026 4:35 pm by Keston Paul | Published: August 20, 2026

Auction Drafts are fun, and personally, I wish every draft could be an auction. It offers more unique ways to build a team and it also gives everyone a fairly “equal” shot at every player on the board, depending on your willingness to spend and your ability to manage your finances.

You will see some platforms refer to this as a “Salary Cap Draft,” but that is the same thing as an “Auction Draft,” and the latter is honestly the more accurate description in most cases. Some leagues might have an actual “salary cap,” but typically, no “money” is involved after an Auction Draft unless the league uses FAAB.

The Mechanics: How it Works

Come on. We don’t just jump into things, right? You need to understand the “how” first, since this is a very different experience compared to a normal snake draft.

Nomination: Usually there is a nomination order, but that doesn’t really mean much. When it is their turn, each manager can nominate a player — any player — for everyone to bid on. There are no outlines here; you can nominate the best player on the board or the 85th-best player on the board. Anyone.

Bidding: After a player has been nominated, there is a timer counting down, during which everyone (with adequate funds) can bid. If you bid during the final seconds of the timer — typically under five seconds or so — a few more seconds are added to allow other managers time to respond to the new bid. That happens until no one challenges a bid anymore.

Winning and Deduction: Congrats, you have won a bid. The price is deducted from your budget, and the player is added to your roster.

Repeat: Everything above is repeated until everyone’s roster is filled.

As you might already be imagining, the Auction process is longer than that of a snake draft, but as stated before, it also gives everyone a chance at every player within reason based on their willingness to spend and the constraints of their remaining budget. It takes a combination of savvy budget management and psychological warfare against your fellow managers.

Preparation

What is your budget? The default is usually $200, but for some leagues, it could be $100, $150, $250, $300, $500 or $1000. Anything the league commissioner wants, really. The higher the budget, the higher the average cost of players, and the prices of the elite tier of options also skyrocket.

What is your league size? Like the budget, the number of teams in your league will also impact the potential prices. More teams means a larger pool of spenders. In a 16-team draft with a $200 budget, up to $3200 can be spent. In a 10-team draft with a $200 budget, up to $2000 can be spent. In the latter example, the budget among all the teams will dry up faster. In the 16-team draft, you are more likely to get “stragglers” who still have a lot of budget in the middle rounds, while some teams have already spent a lot.

What is your league’s experience level? Managers who are new to Auction Drafts tend to be more impatient and blow their budget fast. The experienced manager is likely to “pick their moments” much better.

Are there any other relevant nuances? If you are in a weekly lineup league rather than a standard league with daily lineup changes, then your bench works like an “extra stash area,” and you might be pushed toward strategies that pool most of your budget into your starters.

Who is likely to be undervalued or overvalued? Have target price ranges for players. Identifying key targets before the draft will allow you to make better decisions about spending your budget. Perhaps you have a 50-50 decision on continuing to bid up a nomination for a player you really want, but they are becoming expensive and a similar archetype is still available. You can pull out of the bidding war to try to get the similar archetype at a cheaper value with your opponents’ reduced budgets making it harder for them to compete. On the other hand, if an archetype you need is the last player in that tier, maybe you will be a bit more willing to go a bit over your perceived value of that player to secure them, within reason.

Try a mock draft if you are new to Auction Drafts. You don’t have to complete the mock draft, but go through a few nominations to get a feel of the room. Where are the buttons? How does the timer work? Where is the rundown of every team’s remaining budget? You should know all of that.

Team-Building Structures

The asking price isn’t too high! Want full access to this Auction Strategy Guide with Preparation, Team-Building Structures, Execution and more? You’ll need to have an Ethos 360, All-Sport or NBA FantasyPass membership. Click here to learn more and sign up!(opens in new tab) Premium Access Required

---

📢 Want More? 📢

---

  Join our Discord:  Click Here to Join!

📡 Download the SportsEthos App to get real-time alerts and updates:

Get the SportsEthos App (iOS App Store) Get the SportsEthos App (Google Play)

  Follow us on Twitter/X: @aaronbruski(opens in new tab) @EthosFantasyNBA(opens in new tab)
  Follow us on Bluesky: @ethosfantasynba.bsky.social(opens in new tab)

🏆 Join our premium community built on integrity, competition, and winning. Let’s crush this season together.

Get the NBA FantasyPass!

 

Join the SportsEthos team! Fill out an application by clicking here!(opens in new tab)