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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Sunday, November 14
Night full of blowouts as Atlanta destroys Milwaukee, Brooklyn bombs Oklahoma City, and Denver defeats Portland by 29 points; while the Warriors and Clippers see their winning streaks come to an end as they fall down
In a night in which a few of the highest-powered teams took the court in fancy matchups, the truth was that surprises baked in or not, there wasn't much story to most of those games. Atlanta ran Milwaukee out of the court with a fantastic Trae Young hitting a season-high 42 pops and leading DK's slate with 72 DKFP (42-8-10-1 near-trip-dub line scoring 8 triples and shooting a magnificent 61.5% on 26 FGA). Denver did the same to Portland aided by an almost-triple-dubber Nikola Jokic (28-9-9), and Brooklyn's Kevin Durant (33-8-4-1 going 13-of-14 from the charity stripe) was fantastic in his meeting with his former Thunder.
The Lakers had a monster Anthony Davis (34-15-6-2-1) playing for them in the early-slate victory over San Antonio, and the Suns blasted the Rockets for the latter's 11th straight KO. On the tight side of things, GSW dropped one to Charlotte while the Clippers couldn't get past the Bulls to close the fourth week of games.
- Only three players could break the 60-DKFP barrier yesterday: Trae, AD... and Dejounte Murray whose spicy 22-10-10-3-1 stuffed-trip-dubbing line was close but enough to help the Spurs edge the Lakers.
- The Clippers lost but Paul George was as good as advertised and kept up his early-season exploits with a marvelous 27-11-4-1-1 dub-dub (that said, he shot a putrid 28% from the field on 25 FGA). The Warriors fell to Charlotte but, same as PG13, Steph Curry cooked more than a bit to close the game at 24-6-10-3-1 although also suffering on the shooting department hitting just 31.8% of his 22 FGA.
- James Harden is borderline unbelievable. Just 13 FGA, on a game in which he turned the ball over six times, and he still somehow found a way to finish with a 16-6-13-3 line, 5-for-5 free-throws made, and a 48 DKFP tally. Brothers and sisters, witness greatness.
- Out-of-left-fieldish game by JaVale McGee who started once more thanks to Deandre Ayton's injury and put up 47 DKFP in a silly-low 25 minutes of playing time for 1.88 FP/min on par with Jokic's mark. McGee dumped a 19-14-1-13 line on Houston while committing 5 PF but only 1 TO... and shot 75% on 12 FGA.
- Patty Mills came to the OKC game with the batteries fully charged and dropped 29 points (9 treys) on the Thunder foreheads going 62.5% on 16 FGA.
- Two more reserves playing fantastically dope games in Cody Martin (12-8-3-2 with no TOs) and Bones Hyland (18-3-3-2 with a single turnover either and hitting 4 triples).
- Surely not a night to remember for some of the highest-priced/most-started players out there in fantasy leagues. Lonzo Ball did a little bit of everything (10-5-3-3) but wasn't that good all things considered, Ivica Zubac is a perennial starter but fell to a silly 4-7-0-0-4, and Jusuf Nurkic finished with a silly 4-6-1 horrid line.
- Scare for Cam Reddish who went to the locker room but ultimately came back to the court... Not so much luck for the Hawks with De'Andre Hunter (wrist) getting injured and potentially missing two months while recovering... Keep an eye on Will Barton (low back) as he was forced out of yesterday's Nuggets game.