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, November 16
Steph Curry's inevitability proves true once more as his lone effort is enough to defeat Brooklyn; Paul George puts on another gem of a game to bring the Clippers back to the W column
Yesterday's matchup between the Brooklyn Nets and the Golden State Warriors was highly anticipated, even more considering the start of the season both squads have had. Too bad for us watching, this thing was over by the start of the fourth quarter after a middling third period by BKN. That doesn't take from Curry's chef-like performance in just 29 minutes, more than enough time to finish as the top play in DK's slate: 37 pops with a season-high 9 treys baked into them, 7 boards, 5 dimes, 2 steals, 1 block... and only 2 turnovers while going 4-for-4 from the free-throw line.
As for the Clippers, which will be playing inside the Crypto.com Arena and not the STAPLES Center starting Dec. 25th along with neighbor Lakers, they escaped defeat against San Antonio and got back to their winning ways with another monster outing by PG13 to the tune of a 34-9-4-2. Speaking of Spurs, though, what about Dejounte Murray!? This man is surely making the leap and fell just one assist short of trip-dubbing for the second time in the past few days with a 26-12-9-3 stuffed line. Youngblood.
- While Joel Embiid stays on the shelf, Philly's opponents are feasting on the Sixers. It was Utah's turn on Tuesday, as both Rudy Gobert and Bojan Bogdanovic finished inside DK's top-5 with lines reaching 15-17-1 (with 4 blocks) and 27-6-2 (with 5 triples) respectively.
- Kevin Durant fell below 20 points for the first time this season hitting "only" 19 pops in 32 minutes while shooting a paltry 31.6% from the field on 19 FGA... while James Harden put up a 24-4-4 line himself helped by scoring 10-of-11 freebies. Bruce Brown was arguably the better Net with a 14-5-3-3 line in 27 minutes and no TOs on the day.
- Back to the Jazz, Jordan Clarkson found a way to finish inside the top-8 plays of the day coming off the pine as he dumped 20 points, 7 boards, and a single dime in the trouncing of Philadelphia. Not bad for the bonafide pine rider.
- Bruce Brown, of course, was the best value of the slate (read above). A rook in Brandon Boston Jr. was magnificent though he only played 20 minutes, dropping a low-but-efficient 13-4-1-1 line while hitting all three attempted freebies.
- Ivica Zubac was good-not-great for the Clips too, thanks to a near-dub-dub 8-13-1-1 contribution missing on it by a couple of pops. The usage, believe it or not, fell all the way down to 11.8 percent for him.
- Not a lot of competitiveness between the Warriors and the Nets, so Jonathan Kuminga took a little bit of advantage of the situation and reached a nice 7-6-1 with a block on top in his low 19 minutes of playing time.
- Andre Drummonds keeps starting for Philly with Embiid out, but he's fallen out of grace as the dub-dubbing ways he showed a while ago are nowhere to be found these days. Stupid 6-6-1-1-1 line for Dru against Utah in 12 minutes, not worth a dime.
- Brother Seth stank to a 5-1-2-2 outing with a putrid 12.5% shooting on a healthy 8 FGA. At least he hit a triple and went 100% from the charity stripe in a night to forget for the Philly Phandom.
- Luka Doncic got banged up a couple of days ago and will miss some time, so you know what to do with backup Jalen Brunson... A little update on Klay Thompson, who is indeed aiming for a Christmas return to the court... No James Wiseman for now as he has yet to go 5-on-5 in practice... Nico Batum with the scare of the day but HC Ty Lue let the media folks know the French is in good condition and only a bit sore on his Achilles.