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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Monday, March 15
LeBron James carried the Lake Show to San Francisco to demolish Golden State Warriors in a night in which Stephen Curry made franchise-history
All of 31 minutes. That's what LBJ needed to put up a trip-dub in the trouncing of GSW that Los Angeles pulled off yesterday. James closed the day with a borderline 22-10-11 triple-double in a night in which there was no real competition between these two squads. Curry himself played just 29 minutes, and off-the-pine Montrezl Harrell and Talen Horton-Tucker were the third- and fourth-highest fantasy scorers from that game. That tells you all you need to know about this match.
Getting back to Steph, Curry made it to Golden State's history books becoming the no. 1 player in assists for the franchise since its inception. Curry dished out 2 dimes, but that's all he needed to make that jump into the top spot. With those two in his bag, Curry has now 4,856 sitting first in the all-time GSW dime-leaderboard having just surpassed Guy Rodgers' mark of 4,855, one that had stood right there for 55 (!) years.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic are doing it nightly. It is almost impossible to find any of these two outside of any slate's top-5 fantasy players. Giannis was no. 1 yesterday with 76 FP to the tune of a 31-15-10-3-1 stuffed trip-dub, while Jokic finished no. 2 with a 32-14-5-4-1 line himself. Talk about league winners...
- Making it to the top-10, though, was a rather surprising Richaun Holmes... who is playing ball in a contract year. Holmes played a monster 41 minutes but even then averaged 1.41 FP/min, which is pretty bonkers. The line was spicy at 17-15-6-2-4 while shooting 62% from the floor and committing only 1 TO in a game in which he used just 17% of his team's possessions. Gotta love it.
- The Knicks fam has been calling for it all season long: Thibs, start Immanuel Quickley! It finally happened yesterday, but IQ did what he was already doing coming from the bench, dropping a 21-2-2 line in 34 minutes starting at the point. It must be said that his shooting was atrocious at just 32% from the floor, but he shot the rock 19 times, and if that volume stays that high then IQ will be a nightly fixture in every fantasy league and starting lineup out there.
- For those in deeper leagues that read my columns, you know that I have recommended Nuggets' JaMychal Green as a WW target for a while. Green is not going to give you a ton of points, sure, but he's one of the most efficient players in the league. Just yesterday he played 18 minutes and averaged 1.40 FP/min in a 16-3-1 performance with a block to spare. No turnovers, 60 percent FG%, and a rather nice 24% usage rate on the day.
- Jonas Valanciunas is one of the most undervalued players in the NBA. That's it. That's the take. Only two players are averaging 10+ points and 10+ rebounds while playing fewer than 28 MPG this season, those being JoVa and Enes Kanter. Valanciunas, though, is at much higher marks with an average 16-12-2 line to go with 1.5 stocks per game. He logged 27 minutes yesterday, dropped another 24-17 dub-dub, stole a couple of rocks, and went home to had a sweet sleep. Not bad.
- After having a ridiculous stretch from mid-February to the start of March, rookie Saddiq Bey seems to be finally hitting a wall. From March 3 on, Bey has not scored more than 27 FP in any game even playing 28+ MPG and starting every one of those matches. He struggled once more on Monday with a 7-2 outing in 27 minutes. I'd still bet on him and add him in the deepest leagues, but he doesn't seem to be worth it for those in shallower formats these days.
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