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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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Sunday, April 18
With less than a month to go, it's time to embrace the weird: Terry Rozier leads Sunday's slate while Kevin Huerter is the lone player with 40+ minutes (in no-OT games)
You know how it goes in basketball. The deeper we get into the regular season, the more chances there are for superstars to get some rest, load manage, and see their minutes cut to get fresh into the postseason. That's why the likes of Terry Rozier can put on 39-minute games and 69-FP performances, such as he did on Sunday. Rozier led Charlotte to a W against Portland and in doing so he put up a massive 34-8-10-2-1 stuffed dub-dub that included scoring 7 triples, the most (tied with Landry Shamet) in yesterday's slate.
While Julius Randle (47) and Zion Williamson (42) both surpassed the 40-minute mark, both needed extra time to get there as the Knicks and Pels went to OT. Only Kevin Huerter, from the Hawks, logged more than 40 "real" minutes on the day. That's not a crazy thing to see happen, as players are logging fewer minutes on a yearly basis, but even then there is a very real chance teams start to take heavier care of their assets in order to have them in full form come postseason time.
- The Knicks have won six games in a row, the same as the Celtics, and they are just 0.5 games from each other. The Hawks have also the same record as Boston, so all three teams in the no. 4-to-6 seeds are as packed as it gets. Julius Randle was the main reason New York won on Sunday, as he had a great 33-5-10-5 game. It's been four games in a row for Randle scoring 32+ points.
- Chris Boucher is a fascinating big man. Bouch played 36 minutes yesterday, and all he did was round up a 31-12-2-1-1 line while scoring 6 triples and keeping up a neat 63 shooting percentage from the floor on a good 16 FGA. Not many biggies can hit long-rangers with such prowess as Boucher.
- Neither Paul George nor Kawhi Leonard played even 27 full minutes, and although both started and finished in the top-20, their upside is going to be quite cut ROS knowing how the two of them operate when it comes to load-managing. That's not entirely bad for us fantasy GMs: Marcus Morris, Ivica Zuba, and Reggie Jackson (the other three main starters) are all going to have ample chances to thrive going forward, so you better check your WW!
- Speaking of load management and missing time... Kevin Durant lasted just four minutes on the court for Brooklyn on Sunday before leaving the game with a thigh contusion. It seems like he won't miss much time--if anything at all--but if there is a team not risking it ROS that's the Nets. Harden is about to come back, so it's not that Brooklyn will need all of KD, Harden, and Irving to keep winning games so they'll most probably use some reserves on larger roles for the next few days.
- Landry Shamet was fantastic for the Nets coming off the bench: 40 FP for him on the day thanks to a 30-2-3 line scoring 7 three-pointers while taking 15 FGA and going 3-of-4 from the free-throw line. With KD banged up and James Harden still to come back, Shamet might log heavy minutes during the next few days. PJ Washington was the better reserve on Sunday, though, with 45 FP translated from a 23-8-0-1-4, 5 treys, and a 1.29 FP/min mark.
- Aleksej Pokusevski missed the last week of games, but he finally returned yesterday for the Thunder to face Toronto. See, if you're not into Poku's bandwagon yet, you better jump into it right now. Poku put up an across-the-board contrib yesterday to the tune of an 8-7-5 with 6 (!!!) blocks starting at SF and playing 29 minutes. The rookie is still available in 75% of Yahoo leagues, so I'd advise getting some shares of Poku ROS in the slightest of deep leagues out there.
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