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, October 26
The Warriors get past Oklahoma City at the expense of bulky Stephen Curry minutes; the LeBron-less Lakers edge San Antonio in OT with Russell Westbrook taking advantage of James' absence
Steve Kerr made it clear by the end of the game when he said that GSW didn't expect to play Curry as much as they were forced too yesterday. Of course, it could have been worse--Curry finished with 32 minutes of playing time--but he was expected to see a limit falling in the 20s. Curry made the most of his playing time, though, getting to a nice 23-6-4 (with a block) all-around contribution.
Also from Cali we finally got positive vibes about this whole Russ drama. LeBron was forced out of yesterday's game against San Antonio entirely with a little injury, and that opened the door to Westbrook to have his first booming game as a Laker: 33-10-8-3 shooting 55.6% on an unreasonable 27 FGA... that teammate Anthony Davis beat with 31 (!) FGA himself and a 35-17-4 line with 4 blocks.
- The best and worst updates from the night pertained to the very same player: Nikola Jokic. The Joker was the 10th-best player of the fantasy slate thanks to 41.5 DKFP against Utah... in 15 minutes. What the hell!? The FP/min sat at 2.77, which is something I hadn't even been close to seeing in the history of fantasy basketball. Seriously. The line got as high as 24-6-6 with 3 treys. In 15 minutes. With a 39.3% usage rate. For the bad: the 15 minutes were related to a first-half injury that looked way worse than it turned out (we think) to be. Here's hoping it's all good going forward.
- Shout out Dejounte Murray for his ridiculous triple-double against the Lake Show putting up a silly 21-12-15-2-2 line in 40 minutes yet falling short of grabbing that W losing in OT. Yikes.
- Jakob Poeltl with the absolute out-of-left-field performance of the night reaching a top-5 finish with a 27-14 dub-dub to go with one steal and 3 blocks. The spurs needed a miracle--that is, everyone to perform at sky-high levels--to fight the Lakers, but you bet they did.
- All of Devin Vassell (19-7-2-2), Murray, and Poeltl finished as the top-3 most valuable players of yesterday's slate, and Lonnie Walker (21-2-6) also ranked among the top-6 players in terms of ROI. Insane game by the Spurs players, with Vassell and Walker hitting 5 treys each.
- If you don't have Jalen Brunson shares, you're doing it wrong. Brunson was ultra for the Mavs with an 11-4-11-1 in 29 minutes dropping a trey and a steal while at it, even though his usage rate sat at 15.5%. Perennial WW target worth checking/rostering/starting weekly.
- Kudos go to Eric Gordon for keeping his game up as he waits for Houston to move him to a contender eventually. Whoever ends landing this microwave is going to be very satisfied by games like yesterday's in which Eric G put up a 22-1-2-2-1 line off the pine against Dallas.
- Joel Embiid ended playing yesterday (after being labeled Questionable) and put up a dud of 27.5 DKFP (14-6-3-1-1) for what he has accustomed us to expect. But the Putrid King was definitely Kristaps Porzingis, whose 9-3-1 line in 20 minutes was absolutely atrocious, not to mention his 20% shooting from the floor. Dallas better be finding a trade partner to send KP packing as soon as possible...
- Jalen Green's shooting hasn't been great to start his career, but he's not afraid of taking as many chances as he can muster. Giddey struggled a bit on the shooting front too, same as Korkmaz and very struggling Michael Porter Jr., who once more shot 28% on 18 FGA and has had an ice-cold start to the year.
- Porzingis got banged up and removed from yesterday's game with no return to it and Jokic had us scared as hell (early returns talk about no real damage).
- We're entering Wednesday's slate with P.J. Washington, Jrue Holiday, Serge Ibaka, Cam Payne, Brook Lopez, Rui Hachimura, Pascal Siakam, and Chuma Okeke definitely out/injured; and with Terry Rozier, Caris LeVert, Danilo Gallinari, AD/LBJ, Bobby Portis, and Norman Powell all tagged with Questionable/Doubtful/Probable statuses.
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