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Antonio Losada looks back at Week 5 of the 2020-2021 NBA season, including fantasy basketball risers, fallers and takeaways from each night of action.
Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from the games played during the past week. These viewpoints can be both positive and negative and will hopefully help to provide insight into different roster moves you should consider making.
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.
Without further ado, let's get right into the last week of 2021 games and try to figure out how to take advantage of what we saw transpire.
Monday, January 18th
The potential ECF preview turns into a Giannis vs. Harden showdown
That might be a little bit of a stretch, I know. Kevin Durant and Khris Middleton also put up some numbers, but the truth is that both Antetokounmpo and James Harden were the two players worth highlighting. Both of them scored more than 60 FP on the day and they posted virtually the same stat line--only flipping dimes and boards: Giannis was 34-12-7 while Harden finished with a 34-6-12 line. Quite the night.
Again, KD was able to contribute 30 pops and 9 rebounds, while Khris posted a 25-4-4-4 stuffed line in Milwaukee's losing effort. If this is what we're getting in a few months, let me tell you I will be pretty pleased with it.
- Oladipo's move to Houston made him skip no beat. Dipo dropped 32 in his debut with the Rockets, hit 4 treys, and added a 5-9-2 rest-of-line to that scoring outing while logging a massive usage rate of 42.3 percent.
- Getting back to the Nets, Jeff Green started at PF and was über-efficient scoring 14 points (with 4 triples) in just 6 shots while pulling down 6 boards. Add Green to any and every roster you are playing with this year, folks, as he's one of the winners of the Harden trade.
- Immanuel Quickley hit a wall against the Magic playing just 15 minutes and finishing with a paltry 11-1-2 line. Don't be fooled, though, as he's been impressive in a bench-role for the Knicks and you should be all over him as there aren't many second-unit players out there with the rookie's upside.
- Speaking of rookies, James Wiseman has been incredible but his fouling problems are starting to get worrying. Another game, another 5-turnover, 5-foul performance in which amounted to a 13-minute run against the Lakers. The kid is good, but he's getting super-limited playing time because of those issues more often than not.
- Finally, Trae Young got things a little bit right. He went to the line 13 times, scored 12 of those freebies, completed a near-triple-double game (20-8-13-3), and showed why we considered him the real deal during the first week of the season.
- Derrick Rose has been good enough for some contending team to consider him a trade target as we approach the trade deadline. He dropped 23 and 21 pops on Miami in back-to-back games ending Monday, is shooting nicely all around the court, and he has good numbers (5.1 APG, 1.4 SPG, 28%+ usage rate, ) for a bench, 23-minute player.
Tuesday, January 19th
A thin slate of two games ends in blowouts and not very spectacular performances
No big expectations entering Tuesday night's games, and the predictions ultimately turned out to be correct. Denver and Utah sent Oklahoma City and New Orleans home carrying respective L's in a couple of games that had no story at all to them. The Jazz and Pels players at least logged some big-time minutes, with some reaching 35+ of them, but in the other matchup, no Nugget/Thunder man topped 28 ticks.
Jokic was the best player of the day, but given his 28 minutes of playing time all he could do was putting up another dub-dub to the tune of a 27-12-6-1-1 stuffed line. Other than the MVP candidate, Zion kept improving with a sweet 32-pop game, Gobert finished 13-18, and Murray disappointed once more with a putrid 5-2-4-2 line in 20 minutes.
- Joe Ingles returned from injury and in his first game back after missing the last three (going back to Jan. 10th) he was able to hit 5 treys for 15 points on the night to go with 3 boards, 2 dimes, and a block. Über-efficient shooting, as Ingles finished with 2.5 points per shot coming off the pine.
- Zion was fantastic once more, and he keeps making a serious argument as to why he should focus on the interior game and exploit that style rather than stretching the floor. Zion missed his lone triple but otherwise hit most of his short-range shots to finish at 73.7 FG% adding 4-of-6 points at the free-throw line.
- In a night in which second-unit players were highly featured, Georges Niang and JaMychal Green were the most-used such players. Both of them score 10 points with 2 triples, though Green was much better overall thanks to his 8 rebounds to Niang's one.
- Speaking of bench players, what about microwave-shooter Jordan Clarkson? The 6th Man of the Year award isn't anything crazy to put next to Clarkson's name these days, and Clarkson put up another great performance on Tuesday with his 18-6-6 line shooting 40% from the floor yet hitting 4 treys and adding a couple of successful freebies.
- Keep an eye on Lu Dort, who is improving by the day. He's starting for OKC this season, playing 28+ MPG, and his line after 13 games reads 13-4-1-1-1 with 48/43/76 shooting splits. Dort was rostered in just 47% of Yahoo leagues at the time of this writing on Tuesday. Steal of a fantasy asset.
- On the other hand, Royce O'Neale is turning into a little disappointing player just worth adding in super-deep leagues. Another 35+ minute game, another low scoring outing with a paltry 6-1-1 line and 2 blocks. Of the 67 players averaging 32+ MPG, O'Neale ranks second-last in PPG, 13th-worst in APG, middle-of-the-pack in RPG, and for our main purposes, 4th-worst in fantasy points per game (only above Danuel House, Isaac Okoro, and P.J. Tucker).
Wednesday, January 20th
The Nets Big-3 gets together... and drops its first game to Cleveland in double-OT
Tons of excitement and anticipation for what turned into a nightmare for Brooklyn fans. The truth is that this was just the first game in which all of KD, Harden, and Kyrie shared the floor, so no deep conclusions so be made of it. The squad can definitely drop buckets, but it also seemed to be porous as hell allowing Collin Sexton to score 42 points on them in his 38 minutes on the court. None of Durant, Harden, or Kyrie topped 38 pops, even though all of them played 48+ ticks.
Perhaps more interesting on Wednesday's slate of games was how Atlanta's two main guys went bananas against Detroit. Trae Young finally had another monster game, finishing 38-4-10 for the third-most fantasy points among players to feature in the slate, while Clint Capela posted the first 27-26 game of the season (the best game on those terms up to Wednesday's was Drummond's 26-24 back on Jan. 9th) while also blocking 5 shots on top of that... for the second-highest FP tally of the day only behind KD.
- Quite a night for bench-biggies. Daniel Theis played 27 minutes off the pine for the Celtics and finished with a sound 23-10 dub-dub in which he shot 90.9% from the floor and even got to score a triple. Jarrett Allen's revenge game went nicely for the 'fro, as he also posted a 12-11 dub-dub with 4 swats putting the cherry on top.
- The ultimate under-the-radar player was Kendrick Nunn, who also coming off the bench for the Heat put up a stuffed 28-5-1 line with 4 treys... although he turned the ball over as many as five times and got 4 personal fouls to his name.
- It's time to go add every rotation/second-unit/role player from the Nets. Jeff Green kept getting tons of space and easy shots (4 treys, 16 points, 7 rebounds), DeAndre Jordan put up 13 points and 4 boards, and Joe Harris didn't have a day but still shot 10 FGA.
- Ivica Zubac will never get high usage rates or tons of opportunities to rack up fantasy points, but he's as efficient as it gets. Zub had a dub-dub of 11-12 in just 22 minutes of playing time for an average of 1.39 FP/min.
- A couple of veterans potentially on the move who struggled Wednesday: Drummond only played 25 minutes for a 13-7-3 line that won't cut it for his fantasy GMs, and DeRozan logged 24 minutes and finished the day with a paltry 15-2-3 line himself. Worth monitoring what Cleveland and San Antonio do before the trade deadline in case they find new roles in new places for these guys.
- The Wolves are so bad that Jaden McDaniels was the best of the wolfpack. He was close to reaching a dub-dub with a 12-8-1-1-3 nice line, and given the status of this team and their zero aspirations to do anything this season, odds are young guys get some run down the road.
Thursday, January 21st
The Lakers take Milwaukee seriously and Mitchell presents his superstar (?) bid
In one of the toughest games the Lakers had played up to Thursday, it made sense for Los Angeles to run both LBJ and AD for longer stretches to stop the Bucks. That's what happened, with James and Davis playing 38 and 37 minutes respectively. Both players reached season-highs in playing time, which speaks volumes of the importance LA put on this game. That being said, the stats weren't overly impressive, with James finishing 34-6-8-1-1 and Davis 18-9-6-1-2. Good, but not entirely great.
Mitchell, playing for the Jazz, put on a great night contributing all across the board. He dropped 36 points on New Orleans in a game in which Gobert couldn't do a lot (12-11 with 4 blocks) and added 7 boards, 5 dimes, and a block to that scoring outing being perfect from the free-throw line and hitting 57.9 percent of his 19 FGA. I'm still reticent to label Mitchell a "superstar" in the L, but he's clearly reached "star" status already.
- Julius Randle was just one assist short of getting another trip-dub, yet his 16-17-9 line was still very sweet. One month into the season, this looks like the real New Randle and not just a fluky version of JR.
- A career-high scoring night for R.J. Barrett, who dropped 28 pops on Golden State shooting 58.8% from the floor. Other than that, though, he didn't contribute a lot in other categories.
- Jordan Clarkson and his microwavy ways are as hot as they can get. 19-3 line including 3 treys on 15 shots while playing just 24 minutes off the bench... and 1.33 points per shot (including 4-for-4 FT).
- If you can sell high on Eric Paschall, go do so. Paschall hasn't been bad for the role he plays in GSW, but I'm absolutely convinced most folks out there are more hyped than they should and claiming he's the clear-cut 6MOY candidate which... nope.
- We can only hope Dennis Schroeder gets it right in his next bunch of games. He started for the Lake Show, played all of 33 minutes, and all he could do was finishing with a putrid 4-1-1-2 line on a 15.4% usage rate. If this the DS the Lakers will be getting on high-stakes games, they'll be hurting more than a bit.
- Kelly Oubre Jr. can't get out of the valley. Another 10+ FGA performance scoring fewer than 20% of his attempts, and finishing with a not-efficient-at-all 7-6-3-1-1 seemingly good line, only until you realized he played 31 minutes using 18.5 percent of the Warriors possessions.
Friday, January 22nd
Clint Capela puts up the 90th block-trip-dub in NBA history
It had been ages--literally, years--since the last time we saw a triple-double on points, rebounds, and blocks until Clint Capela achieved the feat yesterday for the Hawks. Capela finished his game against Minny putting up a 13-19-10 line in just 30 minutes in what marked the 90th time such trip-dub has popped in an NBA game log, and the first one since Anthony Davis logged such a line all the way back in March 2018. Kudos to Cap!
Luka Doncic, though, was the man of the night with his 36-9-11 near-triple-double, leading the slate in fantasy points among players to appear on Friday night games. Luka did so against a Spurs team that found no way to spot him nor the Mavs as a group. Jokic's 31-10-8 was great, but it also meant The Joker entered the weekend short of averaging a triple-double on the season with averages of 25.5 PPG, 11.3 RPG, and 9.9 APG.
- Two 40+ points games on Friday from Trae Young and Jaylen Brown. Not the most surprising players to pull off the feat, but both had been a little bit cold (relative to expectations) lately so it was nice to see them back in full force.
- Tobias Harris was insane shooting the rock, as he dropped 23 points (including 3 triples) on Boston on just 12 shots and no freebies for a slate-leading 1.92 points per shot among all players with more than 6 shots to their name.
- Andre Drummond calmed his fantasy GMs a bit after the dud he put up a few days ago against Brooklyn getting back on track and logging another dub-dub with a stuffed 19-16-4-2-1 line. Allen is now a Cav, but Drummond should keep getting numbers nightly with great efficiency.
- Even with Oladipo available and playing 35 minutes, David Nwaba's per-minute production was excellent on Friday. Nwaba played 21 minutes off the pine and finished 13-7-4-2-2 with contributions all across the board though he just used 23.7% of Houston's possessions.
- Rajon Rondo was great for the Hawks on a very reduced role in which he just played 18 minutes against Minny off the bench, dropping a 9-7-6-1 line and hitting (somehow) 3 triples.
- If you still have D'Angelo Russell in your roster, and although trying to sell him now would be selling at the lowest of lows, you better start thinking about it. DLo has been horrid for the full season and that didn't change Friday when Russell could just finish 9-2-4 in 20 minutes putting up another heavy dud.
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