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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Tuesday, October 19
The NBA is back with the Bucks taking Brooklyn aback and the Lake Show floundering against the still-half-baked Warriors
Even though we were still in the Bubble less than a year ago, and even though we had one of the shortest offseasons in NBA history, you can't tell me the wait for the 2022 season hasn't felt like it would never end. You bet it has, man. Buck we back!
The L kicked things off with a couple of tasty games pitting the Eastern Conference finalists and two molly-hating teams from the west coast in Cali-based Los Angeles and Golden State. And of course, it turned out we came to know the fact that Giannis--off his 50-pop Finals' coda--hasn't lost a freaking step: 32-14-7-1-2 stuffed line? Damn right.
- Giannis was the clear Player of the Slate yesterday, and his 66 FP are probably all you need to know about his outing. It only took G just 31 minutes of playing time to reach that ridiculous fantasy bounty, and he broke the 2.00-FP/min barrier averaging a ridiculous 2.13 FP per minute on the court yesterday, which is borderline insane. Here's hoping Giannis can keep it up and have another MVP season in him this year!
- Now, if allow me a quick interlude between Giannis and the next block of bullet points: what the hell is Steph Curry these days? This man is about to hit 34 years old, and he just debuted with a freakish trip-dub against the oft-favorited-for-the-O'B L.A. Lakers. That's it, that's all Curry did. 21-10-10 with three steals on top of that and hitting a low (for him) 2 treys on the night. I mean, Chef Curry cooked to a putrid 23.8 FG% on 21 shots that really sucked to watch (he went 9-for-9 on freebies, though) but Curry still got the nice line. Klay can't come back soon enough, folks.
- Coming out of left field for the Warriors: free-agency acquisition Nemanja Bjelica. Absolutely incredible performance on a ridiculously low 13.3 percent USG%. Bjelica played 26 minutes off the pine for Golden State and finished with a 15-11 dub-dub with 4 dimes and a theft. The shooting was sky-high at 85.7% from the floor on 7 FGA, and the FP/min reached 1.47. We'll see if Bjeli can keep this up for long, but he's looked beastly one game into the season.
- Another off-the-pine marvel debuting for his team yesterday: Patty Mills. The Australian didn't start even with Kyrie Irving out of the lineup, but he didn't need to do so in order to excel. Patty put up a stuffed 21-2-2-1-1 line shooting 63.6% on his 11 FGA, of which 7 ended in made treys (obviously leading the slate on that front with LBJ (?) coming in second with 5 3PM). Patty is going to be a veeeeeeery sneaky play all year long, so make sure to roster him in redraft leagues and to play him in good DFS matchups daily.
- This is nothing we like, but it just comes along with the game. Only two games played on the first day of the 2022 campaign, but we already had our first scare as Jrue Holiday was forced out of yesterday's tip-off night with an injury after playing only 18 minutes. Jrue couldn't even reach 20 FP on the night, obviously, but it looks like the injury shouldn't be too worrying as it seems to be a heel contusion (that being said, he's questionable for Thursday's affair with Miami). Upside boost for George Hill as he's the backup PG benefiting from this, though he truly sucked in G1 with a 1-5-3-0-1 silly line in 23 minutes off the pine.
- It is only one game, sure, but LeBron was LeBron (34-11-5-1-1), Davis was Davis (33-11-4-1), and Russ definitely was not Russ (8-5-4; 30.8% from the floor on a healthy 13 FGA; 4 turnovers and 4 fouls). We'll see how this evolves, but one thing was real: Kent Bazemore is the starting SG of the Lake Show and he was bad, while Dwight Howard played 13 minutes off the pine to interesting levels (5 points, 6 boards, 3-of-4 FTM) worth checking by deeper-league GMs.
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