RADIO
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.
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Saturday, November 13
Night for underdogs as New Orleans, Detroit, and Indiana pull off winning efforts, while Cleveland comes back from 19 points down to defeat Boston and Los Angeles Clippers win another one (it's been seven straight already)
Tons of action and unexpected Ws from teams facing tough matchups on Saturday. The Pelicans finally got things right while welcoming Brandon Ingram back, Indiana edged Philadelphia (still without Joel Embiid) by five points, Detroit found a way to beat Toronto, and the Cavaliers completed a delightful 19-point comeback that Boston is still trying to find an explanation for.
When it comes to actual heavyweights, the Clippers molly-whopped Minny's ass with a 27-point trouncing of the Wolves, and Miami was pretty solid in defeating Utah and tying the record of Salt Lake City's residents at 8-5 with 13 games already on the rearview mirror of the 2021-22 basketball season. The most impressive thing about this win for Miami was--probably--the fact that no player finished the day as a top-25 play on DK's slate of games while Donovan Mitchell was a top-10 player for the losing Jazz.
- Pascal Siakam led the slate yesterday to the tune of a 54-FP tally that came from a 25-12-7-1 packed dub-dub in a game that saw the forward-playing-center hit 64.3% of his 14 FGA and go 5-of-9 from the charity stripe. Not even that was good enough to beat the bottom-dweller Pistons, though.
- Interestingly enough, the top-4 players in DK to appear on Saturday's games all ended eating a sound L with their respective teams. Ja Morant fell one board short of a trip-dub (22-9-10-1), Tobias Harris led the 76ers with a 36.3 USG% (32-11-3) and Mo Bamba came back to his early-season exploits yet shot just 35.3% from the field (14-17-3-1-3 with 2 triples).
- Evan Mobley helped the Cavs defeat Boston with a top-10 finish and 42 DKFP thanks to a near-dub-dub of 19 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 dime. All-across-the-board contrib by the rook, who was fundamental to pull off the comeback and played 40 minutes with no turnovers and just one personal foul to his name.
- Out-of-left-fieldish performance by Isaiah Hartenstein coming off the pine for the Clips and putting up a 12-12-4 line with 3 blocks in 25 minutes of playing time. The 1.58 FP/min mark was so good that it actually ranked as the second most-efficient value among players with 25+ minutes of playing time.
- Killian Hayes manned the point with gusto for Motown and put together a fantastically spicy 13-7-10 outing while shooting 57.1% on a low-volume 7 FGA, going 2-for-2 on freebies. This is the Hayes Detroit surely wants to nurture next to Cade Cunningham as the Pistons backcourt of the future.
- Justise Winslow was one of the most buzz-generating offseason acquisitions when he joined the Clips, and he was very valuable yesterday after averaging just 9.5 MPG through the baby season. Winslow played 21 minutes off the pine and although he could only shoot 33.3% on 9 FGA he was good for a nice 7-8-4-2-1 line. Don't go crazy about him, but stash some shares of the man just in case if you can afford to grab them.
- Very disappointing game by Karl-Anthony Towns in 32 minutes of playing time putting up an 8-8-4-2-1 line while shooting a putrid 27.3% on just 11 FGA. The usage rate cratered to a measly 15.7 percent, Minnesota could do anything against the Clippers, and the upside of all men involved in this game was heavily rocked.
- Jayson Tatum scored 21 points for Boston but as is always the case due to his iso-limitations that's all he did (aside from turning the ball over 6 times...) in the marvelous Cavs' comeback game. On some similar vibes, O.G. Anunoby scored 17 pops but that helped none as the rest of OG's line fell to a low 2-0-1-1 with 4 TOs.
- Al Horford stayed out for Boston while Grant Williams took on starting duties... Michael Porter Jr., of course, has been announced out for Sunday and we expect him to keep missing game after game for a while... Chris Duarte and Killian Hayes both got banged up, left the court, but ultimately returned... Jalen Suggs, Chris Boucher, and Danny Green weren't as lucky leaving their games early and never returning.
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