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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, March 21
LaMelo Ball will most probably miss the rest of the season and close his rookie campaign with 41 games played, supposedly enough to snatch the ROY award
If you keep an eye on this column or the latest developments around the L, you know what happened on Sunday: LeBron James got injured against Atlanta, and although he shouldn't miss a lot of time, that sure sucked to watch go down. Now, to make things worse, we got another blow on Sunday as LaMelo sustained a wrist injury that we got to know will keep him out of basketball courts until next year. Ugh.
LaMelo has had a terrific rookie year in which he's played all of 41 games (more than 50% of this season's reduced 72-game schedule), started 21 of them, and dropped an average 16-6-6 line in nearly 29 MPG over the year. Which such a line, LaMelo will become just the third rookie to put up those numbers as a freshman in the NBA, following what only Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, and Michael Carter-Williams were able to do in the past. While Magic missed on winning the ROY in 1980 (it went to Larry Bird) the other two got their names in the award, which will probably happen to Ball this season even though he'll miss most of the second half of the season. Here's hoping LaMelo gets back as soon and healthy as possible!
- First things first, with Ball out of the Hornets' rotation it will all be about Terry Rozier and Devonte' Graham on Charlotte's backcourt ROS. Hard to find Rozier in the WW or getting for cheap via trade, but Graham is rostered in "only" 70% of leagues so it's worth taking a look just in case.
- The Wizards might end doing nothing in terms of team success this season, but Russell Westbrook is putting up numbers as he's always done. Another day, another no. 1 finish in the FP leaderboard with 70 DKFP to the tune of a massive 29-13-13-2 trip-dub that included 8 (!!!) turnovers on a night Washington ate an L against Brooklyn.
- Speaking of the Nets, Blake Griffin made his debut for BKN yesterday on a minute restriction and finished with a ridiculous 2-2 line (and a block!) in his 14 rounds of the clock out there on the court. Griffin is rostered in 54% of Yahoo leagues, but you better keep in mind that he's way past his prime. If you can swing a dale trading him away to someone who happens to be excited about Griffin joining the Nets, definitely pull the trigger. Blake is not going to make you happy any time soon by staying in your squad.
- The Celtics defeated the Magic thanks to a career night by Jaylen Brown: 34 points of which 30 of them came via three-pointers with 10 of them on the night. Brown shot 50% from the floor but hit 55% of his three-pointers. 50 FP on the day for him thanks to his 4-3-1 rest-of-line on top of that point-outcome.
- Interesting fantasy performances from a bunch of second-unit men around the Association yesterday: Alec Burks was the bench off-the-pine asset with 42 FP (20-6-4-3-1 stuffed line) in 30 minutes; Montrezl Harrell (39 FP with a 23-10 line and a block) will stay on the bench no matter how many bodies go down injured for the Lakers; and Josh Hart kept up his great season with another nice 12-9-6-1 packed line in 29 minutes (keep an eye on NOLA potentially moving on from Lonzo Ball/Eric Bledsoe/J.J. Redick).
- Daniel Theis, Mason Plumlee, Justin Hill, Lugentz Dort, Alec Burks, and Duncan Robinson are all rostered in fewer than 75 percent of Yahoo leagues, should be negotiable in trades, and all of them come with nice upside ROS. On top of that, some of them have made it to the rumor mill of late, and with the deadline coming this Thursday we better keep an eye on how the market develops as they might find themselves in better scenarios in just a few days.
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