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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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Tuesday, April 13
Los Angeles Clippers win their sixth game in a row and stay in the hunt for the West no. 2 seed as Phoenix holds onto it by limiting Miami to 86 points
The worst possible news to come from Jamal Murray's and the Denver Nuggets camps were confirmed yesterday: the point guard tore his ACL and will miss the remainder of the season and most probably a huge chunk of the next one too--if not entirely. That has pretty much removed Denver from the title contention, and when it comes to the regular season it will also soften the tension on the Clips as they are pretty much locked into one of the top-three seeds with Denver seemingly done.
In another round of games that involved both Phoenix and L.A. on Tuesday, both squads got away with the W and stayed two games separated from each other. It's been three wins in a row for Phoenix, and six for the Clips. Just as a quick note to complete the news roundup: Boston won its fourth straight, is now just one game behind Atlanta, and although the Bucks are still way ahead (five games above Boston), the Celtics are kind of finally breathing with a .527 record that is a lock to put them in the postseason.
- As surprising as it was, Luguentz Dort led yesterday's slate with 66 FP for the Thunder in a losing effort against Utah. Dort was super efficient with 1.78 FP/min thanks to his 42-7-3-4 line in just 37 minutes. Most impressively: Dort hit 7 treys and shot a massive 31 (!!!) FGA while at it to go with 7 freebies and a ridiculous 41% usage rate.
- Not many more surprises on Tuesday when it came to individual performances. Only Malachi Flynn performed way above expectations, dropping 22 pops on Atlanta and reaching 40 FP thanks to a 5-3-2 rest-of-line for the Raps. The rookie keeps logging minutes and has turned into a nice deep-league asset (30% rostership in Yahoo leagues) who will keep his upside up ROS.
- Kevin Durant started his second game since coming back (after a one-day delay) and all he needed was 27 minutes to drop 31 points to go with 4 boards and 4 dimes. The Nets won't risk a thing when it comes to the three members of their core, but if the efficiency is such as KD has shown so far, Brooklyn might make a Finals appearance with their main guys playing just 25 ticks a day...
- Charlotte played a walking second-unit yesterday starting Caleb Martin and Jalen McDaniels, and the two of them were nice for what we know them. Martin put up 41 FP with a 17-10-5-1 dub-dub, and McDaniels reached 31 FP himself with a 16-8-1-2 line in 40 (!) minutes of playing time. The Hornets are well-positioned to make to--at least--the play-in and by then odds are Gordon Hayward and LaMelo Ball will be back. We need that full squad making it to the playoffs, folks.
- With Jamal Murray done for the season (and who knows if for the 2022 one too...) it will all be about the contributions of Michael Porter Jr. (who will ramp up his usage) and the likes of Facundo Campazzo, Monte Morris, Will Barton, and PJ Dozier manning the guard positions. Neither of Campazzo, Morris, and Dozier is rostered in more than 20% of all leagues, with Barton still available in 40% of them.
- As a curious statistical nugget, Devin Booker led the slate in usage rate with a 44.8% mark. The Suns only played him 23 minutes because Miami couldn't put anything remotely good together, but Book was rather meh with a 12-3-3-1-1 line shooting only 25% on 16 FGA. The usage was monstrous, but the efficiency fell a bit short for the guard.
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