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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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NBA Recap - Tuesday, November 9
Depleted Sixers lose second straight, Utah does enough to defeat Atlanta, and Paul George keeps his exploits up in another Clippers victory while Damian Lillard can't get his game right
A very slim slate of games--three of them-- in which there were not many surprises popping up around the L. The Sixers lost, yes, but Philly was without Joel Embiid (COVID) and Seth Curry (foot) and had to play both Furkan Kurkmaz and Shake Milton 42 minutes... while facing the reigning champs Bucks. No big deal with that (let's accept it) expected outcome. Similar thing going on in Salt Lake City as they had no real trouble in defeating the visiting Hawks as Donovan Mitchell provided the points and Gobert the boards.
More worrying is the fact that Dame doesn't seem to get on the right track once for all, and we're already past 10 games into the season. I mean, not the largest of samples, and it is still early, but Dame has been quite disappointing to start the year. The line wasn't bad at 27-5-6 but the Blazers dropped another one and Lillard has yet to score 30+ points in a single game this season; contrast that with Paul George, who has already had two 40+ burgers and is carrying the Clips all by himself this season--he did so yesterday to the tune of a near-dub/trip-dub 24-9-7-1 line and only two turnovers.
- Kudos to Giannis who thrust Milwaukee to a W against one of the best teams of the early season. Giannis was the best play of the slate by a mile (62 DKFP compared to no.2 Drummond's 52) thanks to a 31-16-4 line with a couple of blocks baked into it. The Bucks already have Jrue Holiday back but are missing Khris Middleton while he goes through the COVID-related protocols.
- You read the point above right: Andre Drummond, starting at C with Joel Embiid out, put on a monster display and finished the day with a 17-20-3-1-2 stuffed line, shot 61.5% on a healthy 13 FGA, and although he got knocked by 3 TOs yesterday, he still found a way toward a top-2 finish in the slim slate with his 20-board dub-dub in just 33 minutes of playing time.
- Such is the state of the Sixers rotation that Tyrese Maxey got to get a bulky 49-DKFP tally himself... only he needed all of 30 minutes to reach that mark. The treys came in bunches (4) and the score reached 31 pops, to go with a 5-4-1-1 rest-of-line with a fantastic 50% shooting from the floor on 24 freebies and going 3-for-3 from the charity stripe. Give it all for landing Maxey, because he'll eat as part of this team.
- Not hating here, but you pretty much know why Atlanta was beaten by Utah when you realize Kevin Huerter put up the better line of all Hawks: 39 minutes and a 28-3-3 line with 2 blocks and 6 triples baked into that performance is what Huerter did to become the King of the ROI on Tuesday. Those six triples were phenomenal considering Huerter's overall 61.1% shooting on 18 field goals attempts.
- The best off-the-pine guy was Semi Ojeleye, from the Milly Bucks, thanks to his packed 11-8-1-1 line on a silly 9.5% usage rate on just 22 minutes of play. Better efficiency numbers for the likes of Bobby Portis (1.22 FP/min) and Tyrese Maxey (1.26), though both started against each other yesterday and racked up 36 and 39 minutes respectively.
- Eric Bledsoe is definitely a target for those in deeper formats. His availability (and DFS price) is on the affordable side of things in most leagues/contests yet with such a depleted Clips rotation, he is always going to put up reasonably good numbers: 32 minutes starting at SG yesterday and an 11-5-6-2 line on a low 13.2 USG% (7 FGA, 4 FTA) is what you can expect from him nightly, which is not that bad given his free-for-all cost.
- John Collins was the most upsetting of the Hawks starters yesterday as he could only reach 15 FP even though he played 35 minutes. Capela, on the other hand, got himself 40 DKFP in the same amount of time. Collins finished the day with a low 7-4-2 line shooting a putrid 27.3% on his 11 FGA with just one triple to his name.
- Joe Ingles, coming off the pine for Utah and playing 21 minutes, put up a dud of a line with a 2-4-1-1 outing and no triples on the match at all, which sucked because that's very much where we find all of this old man's upside. On a similar basis, Luke Kennard's 3-0-1 stinker was definitely one to forget for the assumed second-unit-microwave player from the L.A. Clips.
- No injury scares yesterday, though Nikola Jokic got a one-game suspension for his scuffle with Markieff Morris... who escaped getting banned himself... News on the Rudy Gay front, as we will get an update on his condition next Monday while he keeps inching closer to his debut for the Jazz after recovering from heel surgery.
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