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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Monday, November 15
Los Angeles Lakers drop one against the Mighty Bulls, Boston gets its revenge against Cleveland, and New York edges Indiana in a game akin to the late-90s on-court wars
The Lakers are close to having LeBron James back but it didn't happen yesterday. Even more, the other two stars of the Lake Show in AD and Russ didn't play many more than 30 minutes on the day as L.A. lost by almost 20 pops and the two of DeMar DeRozan (38-3-6-1-1) and Lonzo Ball (27-7-8-2) had top-8 finishes in DK's slate of games.
After surrendering a 19-point lead to Cleveland a few days ago, Boston got over the Cavs on Monday and pulled off a six-point victory. Jayson Tatum was good enough but far from sublime when it came to shooting (35% on 20 FGA), while no other player for any of these two squads broke for a top-20 DKFP tally. The Knicks and Pacers didn't get past 92 points as Domantas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon combined for 43 points (more than half of Indiana's total) in a losing effort pretty dumbfounding as Julius Randle was the best Knick with a top-45 33.8 FP coming from a low 11-11-5-0-1 line (33% on 15 FGA, 5 TO).
- The Joker was as good as ever and led the fantasy slate, but the molly-whopping 35-16-6 outing (with 2 blocks and a usage rate of nearly 40%) wasn't good enough for Denver to finish above Dallas on the scoreboard. The Mavs had two top-4 players as Luka Doncic (23-8-11-2-1) and Kristaps Porzingis (29-11-3-2-1) were an unstoppable combined force of nature.
- Clint Capela finally exploded for a spicy performance that included 20 pops, 16 boards, 3 dimes, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. No floor stretching for Cap, but an 88.9 shooting percentage from the floor on his rim-rattling 9 FGA. All of that with a stupid 16% usage rate.
- First top-10 finish for no. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, who finally had a game to the levels of hype he generated before the season's tip-off. Cade dumped a 25-8-8-2 game on the Kangz hitting 5 treys and shooting 50% from the field on 20 FGA. Speaking of rookies, and while it wasn't an incredible fantasy performance, Josh Giddey 6-9-9-1-2 stuffed line neared a trip-dub. Loving this guy.
- The Lakers got blasted so Talen Horton-Tucker found a way to the top of the ROI leaderboard given his 28-6-2-1 line in 37 (!) minutes of playing time starting at the wing. Not the highest of efficiency marks (1.14 FP/min), but one good enough, I guess. The best value-player off the pine was Cavs' Cedi Osman, who logged 31 minutes and dropped a 26-2-5-2 for a phenomenal 1.39 FP/min.
- Shouts out to low-minute artist Brandon Clarke: 18 rounds of the clock for a 12-3-3-1-3 line and a 100% shooting on 5 FGA without a single turnover? Can't complain! The FP/min sat at a sky-high 1.57, but I mean, Memphis was facing Houston on Monday which probably helped Clarke boost his numbers.
- Malik Beasley was always going to suffer because of Ant Edwards and D'Lo getting heavy roles in Minny, but yesterday was the day of the 'Lik as he played 24 minutes off the pine and delivered a 12-8-3-2 line that could have been three or four times as good as he could only hit on 28.6% of his 14 FGA--at least he dropped 4 treys while at it.
- Night to forget by AD (20-6-1-1 turning the ball over 4 times) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (10-3-5-1 shooting 18.2% somehow). That's not very surprising, it seems, as Anthony Edwards put up the same shooting percentage for the Wolves... yet he made up for it with an overall 9-12-6-1-3 contribution (to go with 6 TO and 5 PF...).
- Shouts out to Cavs' rookie Evan Mobley and his one-point performance playing 29 minutes on Monday. LOL. He pulled down 9 boards and dished out 5 dimes while swatting 2 rocks, but the shooting was a net-zero percent on 11 FGA and all Mob could do was hitting 1-of-2 freebies. Ugh.
- Coby White finally debuted for the Bulls this season and logged 11 minutes as he was eased into the game... Mitchell Robinson got banged up and didn't return to the court... Do-it-all Rockets phenom Kevin Porter Jr. didn't return for Houston either... Mobley sustained an elbow sprain and will have an MRI later today, so keep an eye on that one... Anthony Davis got ejected yesterday.
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