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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!
Sunday, April 4
Saucy night on the West Coast with the Lakers losing by 18 points to their brotherlike Clippers and the Warriors dropping their seventh in the past eight games
With LeBron James and Anthony Davis injured, and with Andre Drummond missing yesterday's intra-Staples affair adding wood to the fire, the Lakers were never even close to contending for the W. Montrezl Harrell, stubborn as ever, came off the pine for the Lakers and was the best player of the Purple and Gold... with a putrid 33 FP on the day. Kawhi took the reins of the Clippers and dropped a top-10 fantasy performance to the tune of a 19-10-8-2 near-trip-dub while the lesser brother Clips didn't even need Paul George (16-7-3-2) that much to run the Lakers out of town.
Staying in the West, Steph Curry was ultra-bummed after losing to the Hawks on Sunday night. The Warriors have lost seven of their last eight games, sit a shaky 10th in the conference, and are just 0.5 games (above New Orleans) from falling off the play-in picture. Curry has said that the expectations were higher among the organization for this year, Klay Thompson injury and all, but odds are they will stay sucking ROS and be grateful if they can sneak into the postseason somehow. Curry, as always, was great with a 37-5-2-2-1 stuffed performance, while the second-best Warrior was Oubre putting up a 20-11-2-2-3 stuffed dub-dub himself.
- The Nets had the chance to overtake Philly for the no. 1 seed in the East but they ended losing to Chicago. Not a problem for Kyrie Irving's personal interest, though, as he was Sunday's top performer thanks to a 24-2-15-2 scoring-and-diming outing for 54 slate-leading FP in 39 minutes. No Harden/KD, and middling performances by Griffin and Aldridge, ended killing the Nets.
- Denver was forced to pulling off a comeback against trade-deadline-partner Orlando yesterday. And they did. Jokic was (surprise!) the best Nug, but the mojo was to be found on both Aaron Gordon (24-7-2 with 2 blocks) and R.J. Hampton (16-4-3-2), who put up their best games for their new teams after swapping places a couple of weeks ago.
- With Josh Hart done for the year, and Ingram/Zion banged up, and now Nickeil Alexander-Walker seemingly injured too, someone had to step up for the Pels. Enter recently-acquired James Johnson, who started at the SF position, played 34 minutes and was the best for his team with a stuffed 18-7-3-2-4 performance for 43 FP. Rostered in just 15% of Yahoo leagues, and given his experience, Johnson looks like a steal of an addition in deep leagues to me.
- Kelly Olynyk played off the pine one more time for the Rockets. And obviously, he excelled: 26-8-3 and a block to spare on a 9-of-17 shooting night that included 5 (!!!) treys. Houston will hold onto Oklynyk at least until his deal expires this summer, and they have plans to re-ink him come offseason time. Odds are Olynyk ends the year starting next to Christian Wood, so roster him before it's too late (available in 45% of Yahoo leagues).
- Will Memphis flip the starters at the SG position at some point down the home stretch? Grayson Allen has been a fixture for the Grizzlies almost all year long, and although he was good on Sunday (15-5-2-2-2) the fanbase keeps asking for the team to start De'Anthony Melton in his place. Not quite surprising, given Melton's exploits of late, including yesterday's 14-3-3 line in just 15 minutes off the bench for a slate-leading 1.72 FP/min. That's efficiency, folks. Melton is rostered in just 15% of Yahoo leagues.
- You're not going to sit Ben Simmons any time soon, because that'd be dumb, but wasn't it for the name, you'd most probably be doing so because the game has stunk of late. Another dud yesterday against the Grizzlies in which Simmons finished with a paltry 25 FP playing 26 minutes and shooting 33% on a putrid 6 FGA, hitting only 3-of-6 freebies on top of that. That's not a leading fantasy player, that's all I know.
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