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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Wednesday, February 10
Giannis puts on a historic (losing) performance, LeBron plays third-straight OT-game
The ongoing battle between old-school basketball loyalists and contemporary players being great at it is the hot topic around the NBA these days. If you ask me, though, I'd bank on present-day hoopers all day long. When I wrote Giannis put on historic performance, that's because he did something that has only happened 18 times in the history of the NBA, but two times in the span of the last 11 days! Giannis' 47-11-5-1 line shooting 65% from the floor is unique, and the 45-10-5-1-65% baseline has happened just 18 times, including Jan. 31 by another great unicorn in Nikola Jokic. Such is the level these days.
LeBron James, by the way, has put up such a line three times in his career, the most of any player in the game's history, the last time back in November 2017. Anyway, LeBron is 36 years old now, yet he keeps playing every game and going to OTs, which he's done in the Lakers' past three games. No problem for the King, though, who still logged 41 minutes (without AD, injured) and finished 25-6-7-2 doing it all on the floor to hand L.A. another W. Infinite James is infinite.
- Two reserves entered the 40+ FP realm yesterday: Chris Boucher keeps playing off the bench for the Raps and thriving at it (17-16 dub-dub with two blocks on Wed.) while Lou Williams is on the downslope of his career but had a vintage-self game yesterday reaching a 27-5-4-2 line for the Clips.
- Zach LaVine led the slate in triples with 9. LaVine also leads--Beal excluded--the rumor mill and could be moved before the deadline. No wonder why, given he's putting up a 28-5-5 average line on the year and he bested it yesterday with a 46-7-4 line performance.
- Kyle Anderson is not the definition of an explosive scorer, yet his 90.7 TS% yesterday led all players with 10+ FGA. Anderson hit 10 of his field goals, a freebie, and 6 treys while at it. Great per-minute performance from the Grizzlie, who averaged 1.56 FP/min.
- With Karl-Anthony Towns back for the Wolves, Naz Reid had to hit the bench. Even then, this man looks legit. Playing 20 minutes off the pine he logged a 23-3 line with a steal and two blocks on top and was one of the best per-minute values of the slate.
- As great as Myles Turner has been for the Pacers this year--DPOY candidacy included--he plain sucked yesterday. All he could do in a stomping by Brooklyn was scoring three points (via triple), pulling down three boards, and block a shot while getting five PF to his name... Night to forget.
- Kira Lewis was great for the Pels, and if Lonzo and/or Redick are moved you better target him as a WW-addition. Lewis keeps playing his 20+ minutes off the bench and excelling at it: 14-2-4-2 stuffed line for him against Chicago, including a 71.4 percent shooting from the floor (7 FGA) to go with a 2-of-4 performance from the free-throw line.
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