Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Thursday, April 15

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.

Thursday, April 15

The day gets stuffed with injury/absences/retirement news as a small four-game slate provides no surprises nor highly-flashy performances

With only four games on the schedule and none of them either 1) pitting true contenders against each other or 2) featuring the best possible starters for long stretches, it was reasonable to not have many fireworks in terms of individual performances. Jaylen Brown was the only player to hit more than 33 points, reaching 40 for the Celtics while going against the Lakers, thus becoming the best fantasy player of the day. Other than that, not many highlights out there.

When it comes to player news, though, the day was packed. Brand-new Net LaMarcus Aldridge announced his retirement in a move that came absolutely out of the left field, and due to heart problems. Shouts out to LMA for his great HOF career, and prayers up for him going forward! It was also known that James Wiseman will indeed miss the remainder of the season (regular and post), while we also got to know about Zach LaVine going through health-and-safety protocols potentially missing a few games in the next few days. As if Chicago needed more hurdles in their run toward a play-in spot...

• The night of NBA basketball was kind of unique in a weird way, as only three players (Brown, Stephen Curry, and Collin Sexton) dropped 30+ more. The slate was thin, of course, but it's rather surprising to have just three players hitting that mark in this day and age.
• Bogdan Bogdanovic played 38 (!) minutes for a Trae Young-comeback Hawks, and he was excellent with a 28-6-7-1 line hitting half of his 20 FGA, including 6 treys on the day and 2-for-2 freebies with no turnovers on top of that. Atlanta, in case you haven't checked the stats, is the no. 4 seed in the east only behind the Sixers, Nets, and Bucks. Not bad.

• With Wiseman out, Kevon Looney and Draymond Green are the starters at the C/PF positions for the Warriors now and for the rest of the season. It's impossible to get Green this deep into the season, but Looney is still available in 97% of Yahoo leagues and he put up a near-dub-dub with an 8-10-2 line shooting 8 FGA and dropping 4 of them. Perhaps more interesting from GSW, although coming off the pine, is Juan Toscano-Anderson: another 30+ minute outing for a 20-7-3-1-1 stuffed line with 3 triples against Cleveland. JTA is available in virtually every Yahoo league.
• Double-doubles for Hassan Whiteside, putting up an 11-10-2 line against Phoenix with a block to spare after falling just one rebound short of the feat against Washington two days ago. Whiteside is not playing a lot for the Kings, but he's been able to log back-to-back games of 23+ minutes in the past two days. Not the worst deep-league WW target out there.

• Giannis came back for the Bucks, and we all finally breathed. Antetokounmpo was eased in by Milwaukee, played just 25 minutes, and that was enough for him to finish with an efficient 15-5-2-3-1 line on a low 24% usage rate. He will ramp up his minutes leading up to the players, you can count on that. That being said, though, the Bucks are a lock to finish third in the East so we'll see how the rotations are managed in Milly.
• Bobby Portis might be one of the main beneficiaries of Giannis missing this and that game, or playing fewer minutes if the season looks over the Bucks and they truly lock into the third seed. Portis is rostered in just 56% of leagues, is still widely available for free, and keeps putting up nice lines such as Thursday's 11-7-2-1 in 22 minutes off the bench.

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