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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Saturday, October 30
Two low scoring games involving Denver and Toronto highlight the present and the future of the NBA
This is a very subjective take. Maybe a hot one, even, but this is my daily column on the Association results so allow me to go my way, please. So, starting at the beginning, the present is very safe in the L with reigning MVP putting up numbers even while having banged up knee in the middle of his leg. Nikola Jokic was the best fantasy player of yesterday's DK slate thanks to a monster 68-DKFP performance translated from a 26-19-7-1-3 ridiculous line. The C played 37 minutes, shot 43.% on a bulky 23 FGA, and he reached those silly heights even turning the ball over a grand total of 7 times. LOL.
Now moving a bit into the future, Raps rookie Scottie Barnes kept proving he's more than a valuable draft pick at no. 4 (yes, over Jalen Suggs) as he dropped another dub-dub in the early season against Indiana while helping Toronto edge the pacers on Saturday. Scottie finished with a spicy 21-12-1-1 line while hitting 53% of his 17 FGA, going 3-of-6 from the free-throw line, and turning the ball just once.
- Big news related to freshmen doing it in the L yesterday as we finally got to watch no. 1 pick Cade Cunningham's debut for Motown. The Pistons defeated the Magic but it's not that Cade had a lot to do with it on the grand scheme of things: 10 minutes of play starting at the SG position is all he played while putting up a low 2-7-2 line with a block to spare shooting a horrid 12.5% from the floor. Better nights ahead for Cade, we hope.
- Are there fools out there still not believing in R.J. Barrett? Damn. Barrett was an absolute beauty of a play yesterday against the Pels eating a tasty 35-8-6 line with 6 treys on the day. He didn't need any more stuff to rack up fantasy goodies, as he shot a freaking 66.7% going 5-of-6 on freebies while logging 36 minutes of playing time. With Randle underperforming yesterday, R.J. was the man tasked with--and capable of--lifting the Knicks for another W.
- Lord have mercy for Washington and Boston, which went on to play overtime-ball and that meant all of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Bradley Beal, and Kyle Kuzma topped 46 minutes in yesterday's game. Of course, all of them finished as top-20 fantasy players in yesterday's slate with Beal(36-7-6-2-1) leading the way.
- Matisse Thybulle came loaded for the Sixers and did it all in his 23 minutes off the pine: 11 points, 3 boards, 2 dimes, 4 steals, 3 blocks, 57 FG%, 100% FTA, and just one turnover and one personal foul. If this is Thybs ROS, you better be running to your WW to check if he's still available.
- Myles Turner bounced back to a very valuable type of outing, but that speaks more of how Turner is lowly regarded by most fantasy GMs (thus the low salary) more than anything else. Turner put up a 10-11 dub-dub to go with 4 dimes and 5 (!!!) blocks starting and playing a high 36 minutes.
- Something similar happened with Kemba, whose 19-4-5-4 was good but was also very amplified by the fact he's still not quite trusted by fantasy GMs out there. More impressive was Kelly Olynyk's 18-6-4-3-2 outing in just 28 minutes playing for the lowly Pistons.
- Stinky performance by Collin Sexton, who has started the year in a very shaky way--the only thing saving him was his low 19 minutes played (the Cavs were run off the building) because the 10-1 line was stupid. So it makes sense to find the likes of Evan Mobley, Ricky Rubio, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, etc... putting up some duds.
- Caris LeVert came back from injury and played his first game of the year finishing with a 15-1-2-2 line in just 16 minutes. Not the bulkiest of performances, of course, but the per-minute production was absolutely bonkers at 1.42 FP/min.
- Deandre Ayton got banged up and didn't return to yesterday's match, though it is also true that everybody was limited in playing time because the game had no story to it. Ayton will get further evaluations soon, but it seems the injury is not too worrying.
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