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, December 6
Philadelphia needs OT and an inspired Joel Embiid to defeat the pesky Hornets; Milwaukee's Giannis turns 27 years old and celebrates with a 27-pop game
The Sixers faced a depleted Charlotte squad (now also without backup point Ish Smith) but they had to go all the way to OT to edge the Hornets by a measly three points in extra time. JoJo was sublime for the Sixers playing 41 minutes for 75 DKFP translated from a ridiculous 43-15-7-1 line while shooting 75% on his 20 FGA on the day and 85.7% on 14 free-throw attempts. Not bad, indeed.
Giannis scored 27 points, one per year he's been on Earth, as Milly defeated Cleveland. He needed all of 28 minutes to get that 27-12-2-0-1 dub-dub, one of the most efficient lines of the day, but it is not that the Cavs made things very hard for the Bucks as the best man playing for Cleveland was Jarrett Allen and he barely made it to the top-30 in DK's slate of Monday games.
- Karl-Anthony Towns and Nikola Jokic closed yesterday's top-3 with very different lines. KAT did it on pure scoring and rebounding with a 31-16-6 (with 4 treys and a block) while The Joker was able to dump a trip-dub (17-12-15-2) on Chicago in Denver's losing effort on Monday.
- Shouts out to the rooks balling out there, including Cade Cunningham (hi, haters!) and his fantastic top-10 finish on a day in which the Pistons (surprise!) fell to OKC. Cade put up a sound 28-11-5-2 line doing a bit of everything... including turning the ball over 6 times and hitting that same figure of shots from beyond the arc.
- Steph with 7 treys and Wiggins with 8 combined for 15 long-rangers against Orlando and a total of 59 points yesterday. That was more than enough to whop a Magic squad that found his best player in top-34 Wendell Carter and his 14-12-3-1 line. And that's probably all you need to know about why the game ended in a 31-point victory for the Warriors...
- With half the rotation on the shelves and going through protocols, it makes sense to find Kelly Oubre as one of the most valuable players nightly these days. Wave Papi with the 35-5-3-4-1 all-across-the-board contribution in a massive 43 minutes of playing time hitting 6 treys and turning the ball over just once.
- More to our liking because of the under-the-radarness: Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot with a solid 23-2-2-1 and 7 triples, and Ayo Dosunmu with his 11-6-8-1 bulky thing on a ridiculous 10.2% usage rate.
- Steven Adams dub-dubbed his way to a 17-16-2-1-1 filled line while Jeff Green did the same on a lower level (14-13 with a block on top) for the Nugs.
- Jimmy Butler came back from his injury and all he did was re-aggravating it playing just 25 minutes thus getting a low-for-his-price 10-5-4-3 line. Wrong shooting at just 33% on 24 monster attempts from the field.
- More worry was probably Cole Anthony, who played pretty much the same (28 minutes) yet could only put up a 9-1-1 in a 27.3% shooting effort while dropping the rock and losing it 4 times on the night. Ugh.
- Ben McLemore got banged up and didn't return against the Clips in yesterday's Portland game... CJ and Dame missed the game entirely for the Blazers... James Wiseman is still to scrimmage and Coach Kerr made it almost clear that a comeback is not going to happen until January at the very least... Klay Thompson has not traveled with the GSW contingent for the road trip so he won't be on a basketball court at least until Dec. 20 when the Warriors are back home.
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