Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Friday, April 16

Antonio Losada looks back at yesterday's slate of games and comments on fantasy basketball risers, fallers and takeaways from the games played then and there.

Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from the games played during last night's slate. These viewpoints can be both positive and negative and will hopefully help to provide insight into different roster moves you should consider making based on trends and statistical nuggets from around the Association.

Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time.

Without further ado, let's get right into the latest slate of games from the 2021 season and try to figure out how to take advantage of what we saw transpire.

Friday, April 16

Julius Randle ties his career-best streak of 30+ point-games with three such performances in a row and New York gets its fifth consecutive W to sleep just 0.5 games behind Boston for the no. 5 seed 

Both New York and Dallas are fighting to avoid the play-in tourney in their respective conferences, and the Knicks got the better of their matchup on Friday to get their winning streak up to five in a row. New York also took advantage of Boston's night off to make a push toward the no. 5 seed currently occupied by the Celtics, cutting the distance in half to just 0.5 games behind the Cs with both Eastern teams playing tonight.

New York can very well thank Randle, who dropped a massive 44 pops on Dallas on Friday to match his season-high scoring mark (Feb. 15 vs Atlanta) which he was able to pair with 10 boards, 7 dimes, a steal, and a block. The minutes were overly high at 41, but that didn't make Randle any less efficient as his total 74 DKFP on the day allowed him to reach 1.8 FP/min on the night.

• As good as Randle was, Nikola Jokic was the actual most efficient fantasy player on Friday. The Joker finished his game with 65 FP... in 27 minutes! The efficiency was bonkers, sitting at 2.34 FP/min for the Euro thanks to a neat 29-16-7-2 stuffed dub-dub on just 12 shots, 9 freebies (8 made) and a rather low 24% usage rate. Denver might be without Jamal Murray, but so far they are truly not missing him.
• Another Euro, Luka Doncic, might have lost yesterday's game and not dropped another buzzer-beating shot, but he was a nightmare for the Knicks with a ridiculous 22-8-19 line. Yes, 19 dimes, which is the fifth time this has happened this season, and just the second performance of at least 20 points and 19 assists (Russ had a 35-14-21 game on Mar. 29).

• Speaking of high-volume lines... what about Rudy Gobert's 23 rebounds against Indiana? Not only did he pull down those boards, but Gob also scored 13 points for a dub-dub and added 4 blocks to that on top of a steal and a dime. A masterful performance by the DPOY contender and no. 1 player on the no. 1 team this season.
• Paul Watson has played for the Raps 26 times this season, but he didn't reach even a low 9 minutes before Mar. 3. From that point on, Watson has been part of Raps' lineups 12 times and he started his first game for the franchise yesterday. That was just the start (no pun intended) as by the game's end Watson had cooked himself a great 30-4-1-1-1 stuffed line hitting a slate-leading 8 treys while keeping up a 77 shooting percent from the floor on 31 FGA, going 2-for-2 from the line too. Watson is rostered in just 1% of Yahoo leagues, but it's too hard to know where he'll be ROS given Toronto is still fighting for a play-in/postseason berth.

• Two Pistons still going wildly under the radar with 80% of the season in the books: Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart. Both are locked into starting spots nightly, the former dropped an 18-7-2-1-1-1 line on OKC yesterday and is rostered in just 42% of leagues, and the latter logged a monster 15-21-3 line with 2 blocks and is part of just 20% of rosters in Yahoo leagues. If you can add both guys from the WW, go do so. These two rooks are for real.
• A lot of other youngins were good on Friday's slate while still not widely rostered in Yahoo leagues: Naji Marshall (16-11-6 with a 1% rostership), Yuta Watanabe (21-6-2, 0%), Jarred Vanderbilt (9-14-1-2-1, 2%), Vernon Carey Jr. (21-6, 0%), Killian Hayes (9-4-7-5-1, 20%), and Daniel Gafford (18-7 with 4 blocks, 17%) among them.

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