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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Friday, November 26
Sacramento outlasts Los Angeles in a three-overtime marathon that ends with the Lakers eating the L; Phoenix wins 15th (!) straight game by blasting New York for a 21-point victory
The Bulls mollywhooped Orlando... but that was always going to happen. Much more surprising was the fact that the Lakers dropped one against the interim-coached Kings in the Cali Derby. Sacramento somehow got to force three overtimes until they finally separated in the scoreboard to inflict the 11th loss of the season on Los Angeles as the Lakers fell below .500 with a 10-11 record after Friday's slate of games. Westbrook was the no. 1 player on DK but he needed 51 (!) minutes of playing time to reach his trip-dub to the tune of a 29-10-11-2 and somehow committing only 3 TOs... while LeBron dropped a nice 30-7-11-1 and AD finished at a high 23-8-4-3-3 line doing it all across the board--for nothing, though.
Phoenix kept his streak up with their 15th W in a row after defeating the Knicks in a no-story game. Book dumped a 32-burger on New York baking 4 treys into that scoring outing. Chris Paul (nor any other Sun for that matter) couldn't even crack the top-30 in DK's slate but still contributed a 14-4-10-1 dub-dub on the day. No Knick topped 26 DKFP yesterday with Julius Randle leading the squad with a stupid 9-6-4-2-1. Yikes.
- I've been saying it for a while now, and there is just no point in arguing it: Dejount. Murray. Has. Arrived. Murray put up another bombastic line to the tune of a 29-11-6--3-1 contribution in 38 minutes for the Spurs. The L is for Murray and Shai Gilgous-Alexander (15-8-9-1-1) to grab a hold on and it's only about time both SAS and OKC build strong teams around them in order for the two to fight against each other come playoffs time in a few years. Can't wait.
- Steph came back to his customary ways dumping a 32-7-8-1 performance on a lowly Blazers team that can't surely catch a break this season. Six treys for the Chef, the most on the day.
- God bless Buddy Hield for kicking LA's ass yesterday coming off the pine for 40 minutes, 25 pops, 3 treys, and a 4-6-2 rest-of-line with no turnovers at all. And to think that he could have been donning purple and gold threads had LeGM not opted for Russ instead...
- Scorching hot Anfernee Simons for Portland against GSW with a 29-minute off-the-pine outing hitting 5 triples for a total of 19 points adding 6 boards, 2 dimes, and 3 steals... yet losing the game because that's all Portland knows how to do this season; eating Ls left and right.
- John Konchar came out of left field as the Grizz deployed him from the bench and he was somehow able to hit 7-of-8 FGA, dump 17 points (including 3 triples), and add 5 rebounds and 3 assists on his quite efficient 1.77 FP/min night.
- Wendel Carter Jr. making Chicago regret (well, at least a bit) trading him away last year with a 26-10-2 dub-dub that included 2 blocks, a 53% shooting performance from the field on a healthy 15 FGA, and going 8-of-10 from the charity stripe. Not bad, Mr. Carter.
- One more game, one more night to forget on Dame's house. Lillard played a bulky 38 minutes but he couldn't top 16 points nor hit more than 2 triples against Golden State. The shooting was down to 33.3% on 15 FGA and only his 4-for-4 on the freebie department saved his face a bit. Even then, he only contributed 6 dimes and a steal on top of the points, which was just too small of a contrib for someone of his stature.
- Al Horford was probably the stinkiest play of the day after starting for Boston, playing 26 minutes, and putting together a massive underperformance reading 4-5-1-0-1 shooting 25% on 8 FGA and finishing with a silly low 13 DKFP. Anthony Edwards came crashing down to Earth with a very low 11-5-2-1 line in his 28 minutes of playing time against the Hornets.
- Ja Morant was the true worst player of the day in relation to his price/availability, but that was only because of his very worrying left knee sprain. Woj has already dropped information regarding it as I'm writing this at 4 am ET in the morning, saying that Ja has avoided a season-ending injury but will be out for weeks. Cold world for him and his GMs out there.