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.
Sunday, November 21
Isaiah Stewart buy Stanley Johnson's condo in LeBron James' head, gets close to starting the 2nd Edition of Malice at the Palace, and both end ejected in the Lakers win over Detroit
That was a very heated confrontation, a very large amount (at least by the look of it) of blood in one man's face, and definitely a scary bunch of moments right there as things could have gone very wrong for Detroit and LA and the in-arena fans had it all gone down wildly. Not entering into deep details (not our focus here) but keep an eye on the upcoming suspensions for both Stewart and James. Staying on the Lakers beat, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook were enough for LA to get a much-needed victory against a very stinky team that should never put the Lakers in trouble.
AD played 40 minutes to Russ' 35 and the two of them combined for a 56-burger. Not bad. But AD was the clear honcho and leader of the slate thanks to his marvelous 30-10-6-4-5 line while shooting nearly 58% from the floor on 19 attempts from the field and hitting 8-of-10 night freebies. Russ fell one board short of trip-dubbing with his 26-9-10-2 line. The best of the latter was definitely that it only included 5 TOs. Quite the surprise. LeBron only played 22 minutes and was forgettable finishing 10-1-5 on those ticks.
- Do you know who finished third on the DK leaderboard following the two Angelenos? Cade Cunningham. That's right. The rook has finally gotten this NBA thing right and is improving by the day while putting up numbers nightly. First career trip-dub for Cade as he dumped a mental 13-12-10-2 on the Lakers even on a very poor shooting day (28.6% on 21 FGA).
- Julius Randle and RJ Barrett were sublime, both finisinhing the day as top-20 plays, but they couldn't do a thing to stop the Bulls from snatching a close game and getting another W with DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine having even better--both top-13--games.
- Jordan Poole (33-4-4) and Andrew Wiggins (32-6-3 with a block) saved the Warrios in Steph Curry's day off (12-2-8-1 shooting 20% on 10 FGA). Poole and Wiggins hit 8 and 6 treys respectively, the top marks to come from Sunday's slate of games.
- JaMychal Green was forced into starting minutes at the C position for Denver with Nikola Jokic out of commission. And of course, JMG excelled and turned into the best-value player of the day with a 14-8-4 and no turnovers in 25 minutes of (losing) playing time against the Suns.
- Cam Johnson was one of the main reasons Phoenix got to win its 12th game (!!!) in a row this season. Spicy 22-1-2-1 from the pine on 24 minutes including 4 treys on the day and a high 60% accuracy rate on 15 FGA.
- Otto Porter and Kevon Looney helped the Warriors to their victory over Toronto with 15-6-1-1 and 7-10-4-2-2 all-across-the-board contributions. God help fools stop Golden State in the near future with the likes of Klay Thompson and James Wiseman back in the rotation... Ooffff.
- Stinker from LeBron James aided by his early exit and made even worse by the upcoming one/two/whatever-game suspension. Not brawl-related, Chris Paul probably had the worst performance among surefire studs: 9-3-10 in 25 minutes, though it's not that Phoenix really needed him out there for longer than that so he gets a little pass.
- I will always keep betting on my man Gary Trent Jr., but he was absolutely terrible against GSW with a silly 11-2 line (yes, that's it) while shooting 18.8% from the field on 16 FGA and avoiding turnovers but committing 5 PF on the night...
- Nikola Vucevic is back practicing after his mandatory two-week COVID isolation... Luka Doncic should also be back tomorrow for the Mavericks... OG Anunoby missed yesterday's game but should be ready for Wednesday's outing... Mitchell Robinson is going through concussion symptoms and protocols so don't rule out further games missed by the big man... Michael Porter Jr. could miss the remainder of the season with back issues, and that's as real as it gets given his trouble with it at the start of his pro career and in HS/college. Ugh.
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