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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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Friday, April 9
Numerologists drool at two 50-burger performances in the same night courtesy of Jayson Tatum (53) and Zach LaVine (50)
We have become so accustomed to basketball explosions that it is not surprising at all to see someone hit 50 pops any given day. It happened twice yesterday for a couple of Eastern Conference teams and players, those being Tatum of the Celtics (53 points against Minny) and LaVine of the Bulls (50 points against Atlanta). There have been 10 player-games this season of 50+ points, and you won't believe this but six of them have come in pairs: Jokic+Steph on Feb. 6, Embiid+Murray on Feb. 19, and now Tatum+LaVine on Apr. 8.
Perhaps more ridiculous is the fact that Trae Young also dropped 42 pops on those same Bulls yesterday while Karl-Anthony Towns hit 30 points himself against Boston. All in all, these four combined for 175 points between them, with the two involved in the CHI/ATL going for 92 points and the other two (BOS/MIN) for 83. Numerologists rejoice, indeed.
- I haven't mentioned him above, but Zion Williamson did enough to earn himself a bullet point in my daily list of notes. Zion put up a monster 37-15-8 near-trip-dub on Friday against Philly, did so in just 35 minutes, and his 1.90 FP/min mark was clearly the best of the slate. Crazy game for Zion, who's leveling up on a nightly basis and seems to have no ceiling.
- Speaking of ceilings... what about Nikola Jokic? The Joker dropped another trip-dub on San Antonio (26-13-14) and everything points toward an MVP award for the Euro. Jokic is just coasting his way there, it feels like, putting up nightly lines others can only dream about to ever reach once in their career if at all.
- D'Lo Russell came back from injury a few days ago, and coming off the pine for Minny yesterday he had quite a game to the tune of a 26-4-8 line shooting 56% on a large 18 FGA dose. He was the best reserve of the slate and along with Terance Mann (16-3-9-2-1) the only two players to finish the day with 40+ FP while not starting.
- With Patrick Beverly injured and out for the remainder of the regular season, it was Reggie Jackson's time to start for the Clips yesterday. And didn't disappoint. Only 30 minutes of playing time but more than enough to reach 48 FP and put up a resounding 26-4-7-2 line with 6 treys while hitting 71% of all his 14 FGA on the night. No turnovers either to round a pretty nice outing and definitely a WW target (rostered in just 10% of all Yahoo leagues) to consider adding in all leagues given Beverly's injury ROS.
- It's been a while since Cody Zeller started at C for the Hornets (Mar. 18), but he's been great coming off the pine for Charlotte. Just this Friday he logged 22 minutes of playing time and that's all he needed to put up a 10-12 dub-dub with 3 dimes and 3 blocks to go with. The shooting was sublime at 62% on 8 FGA. Zeller should be on most deep-league fantasy GMs' radars (14% rostership).
- For what he's doing, Miles Bridges is a little bit under-rostered these days. Part of just 60% of rosters in Yahoo leagues, Bridges handed his GMs a nice 26-7-4 performance while swatting 2 shots and going 6-for-6 from the charity stripe.
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