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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Tuesday, April 6
In a night full of games, Tuesday turned into Nikola Day as both Vucevic and Jokic led the fantasy slate
At this point in time, already into the third decade of the century, one thing is clear when it comes to basketball frontiers: they just don't exist anymore. We're clearly past the days of Americans dominating the game by themselves with the random Pau Gasol or Dirk Nowitzki popping up here and there. It's about a magnificent combination of talents these days that are coming from all around the globe, as we could watch yesterday.
The Nikolas--Vucevic and Jokic, that is--were great for both Chicago and Denver on Tuesday. Vucevic finished as the top fantasy player of the day with a massive 64 FP on a day in which he had his best game as a Bull to date with a 32-17-5 dub-dub and a block to spare, while Jokic needed only 27 minutes (!!!) to finish as the fantasy runner-up with 58 FP in a 27-8-11-1-1 outing in which he also shot 81% from the floor on 16 FGA and committed just one turnover on a 29% usage rate.
- Kawhi Leonard was, unsurprisingly, the best Clipper yesterday. Paul George got his game right too with a borderline top-5 performance. But the most interesting news was the debut of DeMarcus Cousins for the Clips, playing 8 minutes after been out for a while having left Houston a few weeks ago and finishing the day with a low 7-4-2 line that was actually pretty efficient given the short run (1.69 FP/min).
- The Sixers defeated Boston by 10 points, and Joel Embiid was fantastic on 33 minutes of playing time. JoJo finished with the 10th-highest fantasy score thanks to a 35-6-1 performance in which he also blocked a shot and went to the free-throw line as many as 20 (!!!) times, hitting 16 of those freebies.
- The Warriors are, simply put, absolutely atrocious. Golden State needed, once more, an impossible effort by Steph Curry (41 pops) to make it out alive against Milwaukee and beat the Bucks by one point. Other than Curry, the best Warrior was Kelly Oubre with a way-below-average 0.86 FP/min game in which he logged a 19-6-1-2 line in a massive 37-minute run. Rookie James Wiseman, miraculously, put up a 13-10 dub-dub.
- Shout-out to Pacers reserve Jeremy Lamb, who in just 23 minutes off the pine stuffed the line to the tune of a 15-6-1-6-1. That could have been even better, as Lamb could only shoot 33% on his 12 FGA, though he hit all five of his freebies.
- The Blazers keep using the Lillard/McCollum/Powell starting lineup, but it didn't work that well for them on Tuesday as they were molly-whopped by the Clippers. That being said, though, Powell is not one to blame for the defeat, as he had his best game as a Blazer so far dropping 32 pops, 4 boards, and a dime in his 38 minutes on the court. Dame was the one putting up a dud, with a low 11-4-6 line in 38 minutes for a measly 0.68 FP/min.
- Don't look now, but Marc Gasol finally had a good game for the Lakers against his former team in Toronto. Gasol was this close to getting himself a dub-dub, finishing with a 13-9-5 line to go with 4 blocks on top of that. It's been a rough one for Marc, who has made it public that he's a little bit bummed by his role--not to mention Andre Drummond's addition--so he might have realized the only way to fix it is playing some nice ball. We'll see if it sticks, though.
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