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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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Sunday, February 14
The Lakers drop their first game after seven wins, might face an AD-less short-term future
Denver hosted the Lake Show to close the second week of February and they did so upsetting the title favorites. LeBron's top-10 fantasy score wasn't bad, but it wasn't enough to top a Nuggets squad that featured the no. 2 player of the slate in Jokic (63 FP; 23-16-10) and that only had to face Anthony Davis for 15 minutes before he was forced out of the match with an aggravated Achilles injury. With the Lakers pretty much coasting through the regular season, it'd make sense for them to sit AD for a while and don't risk a thing when it comes to his health.
Giannis was the true king of Sunday's slate, though, with a pretty impressive 24-17-10-3-3 stuffed trip-dub that amounted to 75 FP on a losing effort against OKC. That total tally he accrued in just 36 minutes for an average of 2.08 FP/min. That mark is the fourth-highest since the start of the season among performances in 35+ minutes of playing time. This was also just the sixth time in NBA history a player has put up a 20-15-10-3-3 game, with no other man doing it in fewer than 39 minutes (DeMarcus Cousins; the other ones: Bird, Webber, Kareem, and Dave Cowens).
- Boston, somehow, found a way to lose to Washington yesterday. Kemba Walker was the best Celtic yet he barely reached 40 FP on the day. Brown and Tatum were mediocre. Keep an eye on potential moves coming from Boston on the trade market, as the fantasy impact could be important when it comes to wings and points (the likes of JJ Redick might find a way to Beantown).
- With Kawhi out injured, Marcus Morris thrived for the Clips on an off-the-bench role. Morris played 26 minutes but he finished with a packed 23-6-1-1-2 line and a very impressive (for what he is) 27% usage rate.
- Tyrese Haliburton (22-4-4-2 shooting 64% from the floor and hitting 3 treys) and Bobby Portis (21-6 with 3 steals shooting 64 FG%) were the other two great reserves of the slate. Hard to find the former in the WW (70+ percent rostered in Yahoo leagues) but finding Portis is a coin flip (54%) so you should be checking, just in case.
- It looks like LaMarcus Aldridge is not close to returning for the Spurs. In his absence, Jakob Poeltl has been starting every game at the C position and he's played quite nicely. Just yesterday he fell this short of a dub-dub putting up a stuffed 8-12-2-1-4 line and 34 FP against Charlotte. A pretty good target for those in slightly-deep leagues.
- The Pistons are so bad, but at the same time, they're a gold mine of cheap fantasy players. All of Zeke Nnaji, Dennis Smith Jr., and Svi Mykhailiuk were great values yesterday, and they are barely rostered. Both Nnaji and Mykhailiuk hit 16+ points, 4 triples, grabbed 2+ rebounds, and shot above 63% from the field.
- If Michael Porter Jr. keeps disappointing, I wouldn't rule out Denver really putting him in a trade package for someone like Bradley Beal before MPJ's value drops to ground levels and they have to sell low (you, as a fantasy GM, should consider doing so too). It's been five starts in a row for MPJ but he's topped 10 points just twice and not reached 10 rebounds in any of those starts, underperforming by a lot.
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