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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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Thursday, February 11
Steph keeps building his MVP case, this time in victory and hitting 10 long-rangers
It's good to have Stephen Curry back--only he never truly left. See, most basketball pundits and analysts are leaving Steph out of the MVP conversation for... reasons? Curry is playing for a Warriors team that is 14-12 and .538 on the season, which as far as I know is not a losing team, yet he's not getting attention because Golden State seemingly is "not winning". Jokic, who plays for the 13-11 (.542) Nuggets, though, is a clear-cut candidate. Let me raise some questions about this whole narrative...
Curry put up one of his best games ever yesterday. Steph hit 10 (!) treys on a night in which he defeated Orlando with 40 pops, 8 boards, 5 dimes, and 4 steals. Looking at NBA history, Steph has put on such performances more than once already but never reached that number of thefts. Curry has the most 40-5-5 games with 10+ triples added (five of them) and he's the first player ever to put up such a line while stealing more than three possessions (he did so in 2013). Talk about an MVP candidate, folks.
- Staying with Steph, he was the only player from yesterday's slate to attempt more than 15 FGA and finish with a TS% above 60%. Steph's 74.4 TS% was absolutely ridiculous given his 26 FGA, although that's what happens when you put it through the rim 10 times from beyond the three-point line.
- Juan Toscano-Anderson was a two-way player, longshot-project to establish as an NBA player. Well, look at him these days. Another game with 20+minutes of playing time and a nice 9-5-2-1-1 stuffed line starting at PF for the depleted Warriors. Clear WW-target with Wiseman expected to miss even more time down the road.
- Every game Christian Wood misses is a game DeMarcus Cousins thrives. He logged 25 minutes yesterday and that's all he needed to put up a monster 16-11-3-1 line which turned out to be the most-efficient (Steph excluded) of the slate with an average of 1.55 FP/min on the day.
- Josh Jackson was the best per-minute performer coming off the bench. He did so thanks to 34 FP to the tune of an 18-8-4-1 game in 24 minutes in which he shot 60 percent from the floor (10 FGA) and also hit 6-of-8 freebies.
- The Magic couldn't stop Golden State, but James Ennis proved his worth as a deep-league asset with a good 17-10-1-2 stuffed line, three triples, and 39 (!) minutes of playing time starting at the SF position. Already recommended him last week in one of my columns as an above-average performer on the season, even more with Aaron Gordon out.
- Actually, if you're in the need of warm bodies, pretty much every Magic player is worth a flyer these days in deep formats. all of Khem Birch (9-8-2 with 2 blocks), Dwayne Bacon (20-3-1-3), Chuma Okeke (9-5-5-1), and Terrence Ross (20-6-3 with 3 blocks) were great for their prices/availability so you lose nothing throwing them to the wall to see who sticks and who does not.
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