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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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Wednesday, March 24
Toronto destroys Denver in Lowry's potential last game as a Raptor while Utah gets a 30-point W against a very-undermanned Nets squad
It's a shame, but it is what it is: the Raptors were lucky to host the Nuggets in which could have been the last time for Kyle Lowry donning Rap threads... but they did so playing in Tampa Bay's soil. Ugh. Kyle played 33 minutes but couldn't do a lot finishing with a modest 8-5-9 line to go with a block in a trouncing of Denver. Norman Powell, another trade candidate, wasn't sublime either with a 22-2-3-1-1 line in 25 minutes that was uber-efficient but not so good on a counting basis.
At the other end of the country, the Nets visited Salt Lake City and got beaten to death by an unstoppable Jazz team. That massive 30-point difference is representative of yesterday's matchup, but not much more though. Brooklyn didn't feature any of Kyrie Irving, James Harden, or Kevin Durant, so it made sense for Utah to snatch such a big W. Alize Johnson was the best Net with 49 FP and a 23-15-3-2 dub-dub on the night (his first NBA game this season), so you get an idea of how things went.
- Nikola Vucevic led all players in fantasy points yesterday with 57 translated from a packed 27-14-4-1-1 line. Vuc could actually be the only player on the move today (little chance, but still) to have a great fantasy day 24 hours prior to the deadline, as the rest of the on-the-move players pretty much stunk.
- That goes for Al Horford (36 FP), Norman Powell (34), Malik Monk (33), Kyle Lowry (29), Aaron Gordon (29), Evan Fournier (27), Wayne Ellington (26), Harrison Barnes (23),... I'll be covering all moves starting tomorrow and keeping track of new players in new places to see where the true value can be found at.
- Magnificent game from Bobby Portis, whose 1.85 FP/min was the most-efficient mark of the slate as he put up a 21-4-1-1 line in just 17 minutes on the court hitting 4 treys and connecting on 7-of-10 FGA to go with a 3-for-3 from the line. No turnovers, either, as the Bucks defeated a still-tailspinning Celtics.
- While Kristaps Porzings was great and Luka Dondic had a little bit of a dud, the thing for the Mavs was their second unit. All of Dwight Powell (16-8-2-1-1), Jalen Brunson (16-11-5-1), and Tim Hardaway Jr. (21-4-4) had good games while logging fewer than 30 minutes, and they're rostered in around 80%, 10%, and 60% of Yahoo leagues. Dallas seems to be following the "strength in numbers" approach, so any of those three would make for good additions to your fantasy squad ROS.
- This is not more than a curiosity, but in his (most probably) last night as a Raptor, Lowry posted a ridiculous 42 plus-minus against Denver. He didn't do a lot himself (29 FP with a low 8-5-9 line), but that is the highest plus-minus mark of the whole season.
- Whether they tanked their Wednesday performances or not in order to keep potential trade-partners away, no one knows. But all of Myles Turner, Ricky Rubio, John Collins, Harrison Barnes, and Daniel Theis had nights to forget with none of them breaking for even a low 25 FP while all logged 30+ minutes on the day.
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