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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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Monday, October 25
The Celtics stay hooked to overtime games, the Clippers trash the Trail Blazers, and Jonas Valanciunas helps New Orleans edge Minny for the first no-Zion win of the year
First things first: what about this Jonas Valanciunas!? Absolutely insane game by JoVa, who was the main reason New Orleans finally got its first W of the season after putting up a silly 22-23-3 line with 2 blocks to spare. He did so committing 5 fouls and playing on the verge through 39 minutes in which he hit 38.9% of his low 8 FGA. Even then, though, the Pels better pray for Zion to get back to the court soon, or else it's going to be quite a long season in The Big Easy.
In other news, the Clippers blasted Portland without any otherworldly performance (Paul George was the best yet only hitting 41 DKFP), the Celtics benefited from another overtime (win) to rack up fantasy goodies (Tatum and Brown finished with 41-7-8-0-1 and 30-9-3-3-1 lines, both above 53 FP) while playing Robert Williams III at the starting C spot once more with the biggie racking up 41 FP to the tune of a 12-16-4 and 3 blocks.
- Even on the best fantasy effort of the night, Karl-Anthony Towns could do nothing to stop NOLA. KAT put up 70 DKFP translated from a 32-14-7-2-2 super stuffed line, and he even hit 4 treys on a 41%+ shooting night. He added 8-for-8 freebies through the game and 40 minutes of play.
- With Clint Capela still getting eased in a bit after a dried preseason, John Collis is eating big time with the Hawks. Slate-high usage rate at 35.2% against Detroit in a night in which JoCo put up all-column contribution of 22-7-2-2-1 with a trey to spare.
- Getting back to the true top-of-the-leaderboard, Jokic excelled for Denver (though the Nuggets lost) with a fantastic 24-19-3-3, Jimmy Butler stole 5 rocks, FVV finally got it right with a massive 15-17 dub-dub on points and dimes, LaMelo Ball scored a spicy 7 triples, and PG13 somehow got to stole eight possessions facing Portland.
- Luka Kennard, who was wildly misused and an afterthought in Los Angeles after the Clippers signed him last season, turned into the best-value play of the night thanks to his 23-4-3 off the pine in 24 minutes played while shooting 80% from the field and scoring 6 long-range shots. Second in that value leaderboard? Teammate Terance Mann with a ridiculous 13-5-5-4-1 do-it-all contrib. Target them if you haven't already (remember, no Kawhi this season in LA).
- Patty Mills rebounded to a nice outing with a 21-2-3-1 line for the Nets, hit 5 treys, and was a staple on the second unit with a 30.2% usage rate. In a similar vein, über-veteran Kevin Love gave Denver fits and put up a 22-6 line coming off the bench and playing only 21 minutes with a staggering 34.8% usage rate.
- Absolute stinkers from Dame and Beal as none of them were able to even reach 30 DKFP. Damian Lillard finished with a 12-3-3 line in 28 minutes (4 TO, silly 26.7% shooting) and all Beal could finish with was a 19-3-4 with 5 TO.
- All of Kyle Lowry, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley started the season nicely, but their average stats won't be helped by yesterday's lines as all of them fell below the 25-DKFP mark on Monday.
- Both Philly bigs (Andre Drummond and Joel Embiid) are questionable tonight. Jonathan Kuminga is inching closer to his return to the court (and actual debut), perhaps at the end of the week. Rudy Gay is expected to be out until well into the first week of November when he should finally take the court for the Jazz.
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