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Brendan Kennealy highlights three fantasy basketball takeaways from the NBA's November 18th slate. This recap focuses on LeBron James, Enes Kanter and Nikola Vucevic.
Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight three fantasy basketball takeaways from last night's slate of NBA games. The Warriors have come back down to Earth and look like a team that has to play the Monstars on a daily basis now, as they lost their third straight on their three-game Texas road trip 104-to-92 to the Spurs yesterday. Kevin Durant is putting up solid fantasy numbers, including 26 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, but it's not quite enough to push the Warriors to victory without Stephen Curry. LaMarcus Aldridge poured in 24 points and grabbed 18 boards in the Spurs' winning efforts.
Other key performances around the league included Marc Gasol and his 10-and-5 Grizzlies taking down the Timberwolves with a performance that included 26 points and 13 rebounds. In the loss, Karl-Anthony Towns scored 15 points and finished with 20 rebounds. In the final game of the day, Damian Lillard continued his torrid start to the season with a 40-point game in a 10-point Blazers win over the Wizards to improve to 11-and-5 on the season.
Let's take a look at the recap for Sunday, November 18th.
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LeBron James is on Another Level
LeBron James has the Los Angeles Lakers firing on all cylinders following a 113-to-97 win over the Miami Heat to improve to 9-and-7 on the season. James scored a season-high 51 points for Los Angeles, while adding eight rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block on 61 percent shooting, which included six three-pointers made.
This capped off a terrific three-game stretch for James on the week that also included games of 44 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in a win over the Blazers and 22 points, seven assists and four rebounds in a loss to the Magic.
James is obviously a must-start in all formats.
Enes Kanter Averaging Double-Double on Season
Although the New York Knicks are not quite playing great basketball, or even good basketball, and some may not even call it basketball at all... Enes Kanter is still filling up the stat sheet because... well, somebody has to.
Kanter has double-double performances in 12 of his 17 games this season, which includes yesterday's 21-point, 19-rebound performance in a Knicks loss to the Magic.
His fantasy upside has been somewhat limited thus far, however, as he doesn't add too much in the blocks or steals categories unfortunately. On the season, Kanter has just seven blocks and seven steals. In leagues that reward double-doubles, he's about as sure-fire as you can get for that category.
Nikola Vucevic on Fire in November
Magic center Nikola Vucevic is a key reason why the two players listed above have both taken losses to Orlando, as the big man has been on a solid hot streak for the entirety of November. Yesterday, Vucevic nearly notched his second triple-double of the season with a 28-point, 10-rebound and nine-assist performance in a 131-to-117 win over the Knicks.
Vucevic was on fire all weekend, as he had 36 points and 13 rebounds against the Lakers on Saturday. He was a combined 25-for-38 from the field (65.7 percent) in those two games.
Vucevic is a must-start in all leagues, and if you can, I highly advise you to go out and acquire him as the Magic look decent this year at 9-and-8.
