Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Wednesday, December 8

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.

Wednesday, December 8

Houston defeats Brooklyn for its 7th straight W, the Knicks fall to the rebuilding Pacers, and the Beantown Boys get edged by the Clips

Fantastic news out of the Western Conference as Steph Curry missed on reaching Ray Allen's three-point career tally (obviously)... only for Basketball God to touch the Rockets and help them beat the Nets 114-104 to extend Houston's winning streak. The Rocks did it led by Christian Wood (of course) but the night belonged to rookie Josh Christopher and his ridiculously efficient 18-2-2-2-1 stuffed line in a game that saw him go a perfect 7-for-7 hitting all 4 treys he attempted. Sweet Jaygup.

The Knicks went back to the 90s and put up a stinker against the lowly Pacers, which happen to be dangling all of Sabonis, Turner, and LeVert to suitors out there looking for a trade. Maybe New York should look into it? And what about the fellow Eastern Conference squad of Celtics losers? Loss to the Clips even though LA was led by rook Brandon Boston Jr. on the night. LOL. Beantown can't surely catch a break.

• Shout out to Cole Anthony for his top-3 finish against Sacto on Wednesday. The line finished all the way up at a spicy 33-4-8-1 with 6 triples baked into it. Anthony has been a little bit up and down and is way random on a game-to-game basis, but he's shown his ceiling more than once and he can be as good as they come in this League for a while. Here's hoping.
• Salute the Joker for his no. 1 finish to the tune of a ridiculous 39-11-11 trip-dub in overtime to beat the Pelicans. No treys for the big man on a 73.9% shooting night in which he attempted 23 FGA and 9 FTA of which he dropped five of them. The 1.97 FP/min average was ridiculously high for someone logging 37 minutes on the day, for sure.
• James Harden with the near-trip-dub finishing with a 25-11-8-2 line but shooting a putrid 25% while dropping the ball 8 freaking times in 39 minutes. No wonder the Nets dropped this one to Houston (yes, KD sat out resting, but still). Before I forget: Luka Doncic bested Harden at turning the ball over with 9 TOs himself... Yikes.

• Monster 13-game slate, which means tons of players turned into great value plays. Caleb Martin started at SG for the Heat and put up a ridiculous 28-8-3 line with 2 blocks and 6 treys... Brandon Boston led the Clips to a Celtics defeat with a 27-2-0-4 line and 5 triples... P.J. Tucker was somehow good for fantasy GMs thanks to a packed 15-7-8-2 line... Josh Christopher couldn't miss a shot... KZ Okpala with the stuffed 10-9-2-1-2 near-dub-dub...
• Three Kings into the top-15 value plays of the day including Tristan Thompson (14-10 with a steal and a block), Davion Mitchell (18-3-4 with a trey), and Tyrese Haliburton (18-3-11-3-2 with a trey to go with it).
• The Pacers might be looking into a long period of sucking, but at least they hit the jackpot by drafting "old" rook Chris Duarte. Another magnificent outing by the Latin baller thanks to a 23-3-6-1 line starting at SF and logging 30 minutes on a Wednesday.

• Not the best of days for Giannis, who could only dump 15 points on Miami in the Bucks losing effort against the Heat. Giannis added 6 boards, 4 dimes, and one-and-one steals and blocks, but none of that served a good purpose for the defeated Milly B's.
• Steph came overhyped with his sight on closing the distance between his career three-pointer count and that of Ray Ray but all he could do was putting up a 22-2-2-1 with 6 triples for a not-so-great outcome. 10 triples to go in which is a much more accomplishable feat for Steph in his next game.
• Paul George missed yesterday's outing against the Celtics with an ailing right elbow, but nothing too worrying... Eric Gordon and Dillon Brooks bought into the Wednesday Ejection Special... Richaun Holmes got off yesterday's game and he couldn't come back with a bungled eye...

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