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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.
Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers received five total writing awards and 13 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association, tops in the industry! Congrats to all the award winners and nominees including NBA Writer of the Year, Best NFL Series, MLB Series, PGA Writer and Player Notes writer of the year. Be sure to follow their analysis, rankings and advice all year long, and win big with RotoBaller! Read More!
Friday, March 26
The Celtics catch a break by defeating the Bucks while James Harden rules the night and puts up his Nets-high scoring with 44 points against Detroit
James Harden made it clear after Friday's winning effort against Detroit: "I am the MVP." That's all James needed to say, and it is not that he doesn't have an appealing case to make it there. Harden's 44 points are his highest mark of the season (he had 44 with the Rockets back on Dec. 26) for him as part of the Nets, topping his prior high of 40 posted just about 10 days ago against Indiana. This is Harden's 11th game of 30+ points this season, and he's posting a 26-8-11 line overall on the year. You tell me if that's not MVP talent right there.
In other news, the Celtics defeated Milwaukee and are closer to being .500, which believe me, they're still not with more than 60 percent of the season already in the books. Moving on, Zion had quite a night himself with a resounding 39-10-5-1-2 stuffed dub-dub: only 12 guys (Zion included) have put up a 30-10-5 line at age 20 or in their teens. Yesterday's was Zion's 66 pro-game, still 16 short of what would be a normal 82-game full season; Zion ranks 2nd in total points through the first 66th games of his career among all players since 1980, only behind Michael Jordan (1,860 points to Zion's 1,634).
- John Collins wasn't traded on Thursday, which means he will remain with the Hawks until the end of the season to later enter restricted free agency. He is surely going to fill his bag with a max deal, and I have zero doubts about it. And Atlanta should pony up. Masterful 38-12-2-1 line yesterday for JoCo with 4 hits on the night against the Warriors, shooting 74% from the floor and committing all of zero turnovers.
- Kristaps Porzingis and Jonas Valanciunas pulled down 18 boards each. I won't get tired of telling you to chase Valanciunas in every fantasy league. He's just ridiculous, a walking dub-dubber often overlooked, and most probably available for the right price. 14-18-2-1-2 was the line, 46 the fantasy points, and that is even shooting a rather bad 36% on 14 FGA.
- Damian Lillard didn't play yesterday, and Norman Powell got the start in his Blazers debut. His outing? Not bad at all, with a 22-2-1-2-1 all-across-the-board contribution in 36 minutes on the floor for 33 FP. Can get better, but this being the first night as a Blazer for him, things could have been worse.
- Stinky John Wall made an appearance yesterday, and even then he put on his Russell Westbrook boots and reached 47 FP. If you don't understand anything about the last sentence, this was Wall's line: 14-3-15-2-2 (great) but on a stupid 24% shooting from the floor on 25 (!!!) FGA and 7 TOs. The 27 true shooting percentage was bad as hell, and the usage sky-high at 37%. That's what happens when you're part of a squad like the Rockets', I guess...
- Fantastic game from Trevor Ariza, who starter at PF now that Kelly Olynyk is in Houston, with Bam Adebayo taking on the C spot. Ariza put up a nice 14-9-5-2-2 in 31 minutes, reached 41 FP on a low 21% usage rate, and he could very well be key in Miami's postseason run a la Andre Iguodala last year.
- Other than Montrezl Harrell (24-10) and Enes Kanter (15-15), who always hit no matter what happens, Malik Monk was the best reserve of the day hitting 5 treys and 32 total points against Miami. He didn't do much more, with 2 boards, a steal, and a block, but the shooting was sublime as he finished with a great 71% FG% on a more than healthy 17 FGA while going 3-for-3 from the charity stripe.
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