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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Thursday, February 25
The Nuggets fail against Washington with a last-second gaffe while Zion has to eat an L against Giannis
The night was all about Zion and Giannis. The matchup between Milwaukee and New Orleans was hyperanticipated and overhyped, and it didn't disappoint. The final result was as close as it could get, with both teams hitting as many as 125+ points and ending separated by just 4 pops. Giannis Antetokounmpo was the best player of yesterday's slate, let alone this lone game, thanks to a 38-10-4 dub-dub to which he added a block, while Zion Williamson himself put up a nice 34-8-6-1-1 stuffed line in the losing effort.
On another note, the Nuggets dropped their game against the--believe it or not--second-best team in the East, the Wizards, which are 7-3 in their last 10 games and sitting at the no. 12 spot but inching closer to the play-in mini-tourney by the day. Both Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray were great and finished in the top-4 among FP scorers but that wasn't enough against the 10th and 11th-best players in Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook (triple-double).
- Shouts out to Kyrie Irving and Joel Embiid. They were the only two players to reach 40+ FP on the day without playing more than 30 minutes on their respective games. Irving did it by the way of a 27-5-9-2 performance in 30 ticks, while JoJo got there with a 27-9-4-2-1 stuffed line in 28 minutes (and that's having in consideration a very putrid shooting night of 25% success from the floor on 20 FGA).
- No incredible performers off the bench yesterday, all things considered. The best of them, rookie Immanuel Quickley, dropped 25 pops but was a zero in the rest of the cats with just a single rebound, 3 dimes, and 2 steals in 20 minutes.
- Tyus Jones didn't log a ton of minutes (15) for the Grizzlies yesterday, but his time in the court couldn't have been more productive. He finished the day with a 20--2-3-1 line, shot 82 percent from the field on 11 FGA, committed no turnovers at all, and his couple of treys helped him put up a great 90.9 true shooting percentage. All in all, a monster 2.00 FP/min average to lead the slate in that cat.
- Donte Divincenzo was great starting for the Jrue-less Bucks and is still available in around 40 percent of Yahoo leagues. Check your WW just in case. He put up a 24-7-9-2-1 stuffed line in 35 minutes of playing time for 1.51 FP/min. Cool.
- Bryn Forbes has had his good days, but yesterday wasn't one of them. He played 21 minutes off the bench for the Bucks but he was wildly overlooked (8% usage rate) and could only finish the game with just 2 points and 2 boards. Ugh.
- Keep an eye on Tobias Harris' updates, as he had to leave yesterday's game injured early. He logged 22 minutes and a 6-2-2-1 line, but we'll see if he misses time or not. Also regarding Philly, the franchise seems to be interested in adding Kyle Lowry via trade and the PG might be interested in such a move too. Activate your notifications because from this moment to the trade deadline stuff is going to get a bit crazy.
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