Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Friday, April 23

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.

Friday, April 23

The Nets go to sleep in possession of the no. 1 seed in the East after defeating Boston, and the Clippers keep pushing for a late-season climb toward the no. 1-2 seeds in the West

The playoff/play-in picture is getting clearer by the day, which is reasonable as we're already past the 80% completion of the season in terms of games played league-wide, with all teams having no more than 15 games remaining in their schedule. Taking advantage of the Sixers' day off, Brooklyn snatched a close W against the C's and are now 0.5 games above Philly for the no. 1 seed in the East. The mojo of the conference, though, is at the bottom. Washington, Chicago, and Toronto are all battling for the no. 10 seed but thanks to an impressive Russell Westbrook (another 37-11-11 trip-dub yesterday) every points toward a play-in appearance by the Wiz this season.

In the West, things are a little bit clearer as there is not much of a clogged middle-of-the-pack group of teams. The Nuggets will face the Lakers in the first round, the Jazz should keep the no. 1 seed, and the only runs for a position currently active are the Suns/Clips for the second place in the conference, and the Mavs/Blazers to see who avoids the play-in (not counting the GSW/Spurs fight for the no. 9/10 seeds, which is close but not so appealing with San Antonio most probably staying as the lower seed). The Clippers are only half a game below Phoenix and 2.5 behind Utah. But they have won four in a row and will try as hell to snatch that no. 1 seed if Utah sleeps on its laurels ROS.

• As mentioned above, Russ alone is carrying the Wiz to a play-in appearance and what could be an upset in the mini-series against (as of today) last year's runner-up Miami Heat. I don't think the Wiz can take two games from Miami, but I also don't think the Heat would be very pleased having to face a guy who just put up a massive 37-11-11 line and who's averaging a triple-double on the season once more and for the fourth time in his career.
• It took him a lot of time to reach these heights and he's failed while trying more often than not, but Ja Morant put on a clinic yesterday finishing with a 33-5-13-1 line against Portland in 36 minutes for 62 FP. Ja has been worse in his sophomore season than he was a year ago as a rookie, but he might be getting it right just in time for the playoffs.

• The Nets, even in victory, had to enduro a middling performance by their lone active part of the Big Three in Kyrie Irving. Kyrie finished with a near-triple-double to the tune of a 15-9-11-4-1 stuffed line, but his shooting was atrocious at just 21% from the floor on 19 FGA with no treys to his name and committed 5 TOs. Only the 7-for-7 from the free-throw line saved his day.
• Trail Blazers' big man Zach Collins has ruled out coming back this regular season while keeping the doors open to a potential postseason comeback. No problem for Portland inside, as Enes Kanter was great until a few days ago when Nurkic came back... and started doing things like those we watched yesterday. Nurkic cooked himself a 60-FP day thanks to a monster 26-17 dub-dub to go with 5 dimes, a steal, and a block. Too good, this Nurk.

• God bless Draymond Green because he truly is the most unique player in the Association these days. The Warriors ran Denver out of the court yesterday and while Stephen Curry was the better fantasy play (32-8-3 with 4 triples), the truth is that Dray put up another incomprehensible line to the tune of 2 (!) points, 12 rebounds, and 19 (!!!) assists in 33 minutes of playing time. All of that for a top-15 finish in the leaderboard only three FP shy of Curry's tally.
• No timeline for LaMelo Ball's return... Evan Fournier returned yesterday after missing the last nine games... Chris Boucher will miss the next three games and then get a re-evaluation... Injuries keep piling up in Denver as Will Barton was forced out of Friday's game with a hamstring injury less than a minute into the match.

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