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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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Friday, May 7
The Lakers loss to Portland, fall the no. 7 seed and into the play-in, and the chances they get out of trouble are slim to non-existent with less than a week to go
LeBron James was ruled out. Anthony Davis played, put up a great 36-12-5 line with a block, and played 39 minutes. LA reached 100+ points. None of those things truly mattered as the Lake Show wasn't such against Dame's Blazers in a night that marked the day Los Angeles faced the reality of becoming a play-in team. Portland holds now the tiebreaker, too, and odds are the Lakers will be playing for their lives and to make it to the postseason, seemingly against both Memphis and Golden State if the standings remain as they are today (assuming San Antonio losses the 9th vs. 10th game).
In other news, the Bucks have jumped Brooklyn in the stats by virtue of tiebreaker (both squads are 43-24 on the season), The picture is rather clear in the Eastern play-in with all of Washington, Indiana, and Charlotte locked into it and Boston kind of there too. In the West, everything is pointing toward both the Clippers and Nuggets avoiding the Lakers and facing the Mavs or Blazers. Tough break for the Jazz and Suns, which might find themselves getting each a top-2 seed but facing the Lakers or Warriors in the first round. Yikes.
- Shout-out to Bojan Bogdanovic, who dropped a magnificent 48 points to the tune of 8 treys on the day. Not only that, but he also added 8 boards, 2 dimes, and 2 steals to round a DK-best 66 FP tally. All of that shooting 69% from the floor and while committing 5 TOs. Bonkers day for BojBog.
- Triple double for Nikola Vucevic as Chicago defeated Boston by 22 points. The Celtics are in serious danger of getting locked into the play-in, but it's not that they could do a thing to stop Vooch's 18-14-10-2-1 super-efficient performance in just 32 minutes.
- Kenyon Martin Jr. stole the show once more reaching 47 FP on the day translated from a 26-7-7 line even though he ended fouling out of Friday's match against Milwaukee. KJ Martin starter for the Rocks, played 39 minutes, and was one of the most valuable players of the slate given his salary and ROI in DK.
- Zion Williamson might be done for the season (not that it is of great impact for NOLA, which is pretty much off the playoff picture). That means Jaxson Hayes could be in for a large run through the remaining games. If he does something similar to yesterday's 19-8-3-1-3 performance (in just 24 minutes!) ROS, then he's a must-add in every 12-team league for the home stretch of those still fighting for the chip.
- Coby White should be a building block for the Bulls, and Chicago truly wants the version of Coby that popped up yesterday against Boston: 25 points with 7 triples and a 7-5-1-1 stuffed rest-of-line on just 2 TO on the day. Another nice target for those still playing fantasy this week.
- Milwaukee will have reasons to play to the highest of their levels now that they are holding the no. 2 seed. That might cut Bobby Portis off-the-pine-minutes, but he keeps doing it on pure efficiency. Yesterday against Houston he just logged 15 minutes but finished with a great 16-8-1 line for the second-highest FP/min mark among reserves at 1.69.
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