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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Wednesday, October 27
Bad Day, L.A. None of the Lakers nor the Clippers could get Ws yesterday with the Clippers limited to a measly 79 points by Cleveland and the Lakers somehow surrendering a 26-point lead to fall against OKC.
Giannis put up the best effort of the night with a monster 78.5 DKPF tally against Minny, though the Bucks couldn't get the win on Wednesday. But the most important developments took place around both Los Angeles franchises. The Clippers were limited to a ridiculous 79 points in a horrid game by all Clips, of which only four scored on double figures and the other six didn't even reach 7 points. PG13 closed a 34-minute outing with a low 12-10-1-4 dub-dub shooting 30% on 20 FGA.
The Lakers, missing LeBron for the second time in the last two games, were all smiles until they were not. Westbrook dropped his first trip-dub of the season with a 20-14-13 and a massive 37.5% usage rate while Anthony Davis put up 30 pops to go with 8 dimes, 2 dimes, and one steal... that ultimately served no purpose because of the Thunder otherworldly 26-point comeback, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 27-9-5.
- The OKC Thunder aren't even remotely close to contending, and they might find it hard to reach 10 wins over the full season, but SGA is already a stud. Will he stay in town for long with so much tanking going on, though? Speaking of Thunders... Josh Giddey is looking like a rookie steal so far and he got another dub-dub yesterday to the tune of an 18-2-10-1 line with 2 treys to spare on a healthy 23.8 usage rate.
- All across the board contribution by Jimmy Butler (17-14-7-4-1) in helping Miami edge Brooklyn on Wednesday. Adebayo himself put up numbers too for the Heat finishing with a 24-9 near-trip-dub while PJ Tucker and Dewayne Dedmon, if only for one game, weren't bad fantasy plays with 15-7-2 and 14-9 outcomes respectively.
- Shouts out to the pair of Deandre Ayton (21-21-1-1-1) and Devin Booker (31-6-8-1) for their fantastic performances... on a losing day for them against Sacto and a melting-lava-hot Buddy Hield (7 triples in a 26-5-1-2-2 outing).
- The Charlotte Hornets snatched another W thanks to the most valuable players of the slate in terms of ROI, which happened to be Jalen McDaniels (16-4-3-2-1 stuffed line) and Cody Martin (12-2-5-4). The usage rates were low (17% and 10%) but it's not that they couldn't contrib on non-points fronts, which they both did with gusto against Orlando.
- Jarred Vanderbilt started at PF for Minny and was a steady headache for Milwaukee, putting up a 10-13 dub-dub to go with three dimes and a steal.
- Another under-the-radar Thunder: big man Darius Bazley, who finished yesterday's game at a neat 20-6-2-4-1 stuffed line while hitting 4 treys and shooting the rock a more than bulky 14 times from the floor hitting 57% of his attempts.
- Paul George wasn't good at leading the Clips, but Domantas Sabonis truly had the ultimate stinker with a stupid 9-8-3-2-1 performance in a game in which he played 34 minutes... and was limited to just 4 FGA while committing as many TOs with 4. Night to forget.
- LaMelo, once for all, put up a dud (7-6-3-3 shooting 21% on 14 FGA) while Jaylen Brown couldn't get things right either finishing the affair with the Wiz at a low 13-4-1 even though he went on to log 38 minutes of playing time for a ridiculous 0.49 FP/min average mark.
- Keep an eye on Daniel Gafford's status today as he will be getting an MRI after getting a quad contusion yesterday. This man can't catch a break, as he just returned this year for the Wizards and now could face another stint off the court... Yikes.