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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, November 1
The season keeps shaping up nicely for Chicago as the Bulls win and move to the top of the Eastern Conference while bringing very serious chemistry doubts to the Celtics table
The Bulls became the most active team this past offseason making the biggest, boldest, and most impactful moves in free agency to form what some saw as a big-four comprised of Lonzo Ball, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic... and others as a screwup and a mess of a squad poised to fail in huge ways. So far, so good for the Bulls as they just reached a 6-1 record on the early season and currently lead the Eastern race.
That sixth win came yesterday against a Boston Celtics team that Marcus Smart heavily criticized when it came to both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, saying "they don't want to pass the ball". Uh, oh. Boston needs those two to excel, but it's not that they are enough to carry the team to a chip by the look of it as the Beantown Boys are looking at an upsetting 2-5 record barely two weeks into the season...
- While Chicago got that W against Boston, no Bull was a top-5 player in DK's slate and DeRozan (37-7-2-1-1) was the lone one to make it to the top-18. Both LaVine (26-3-7-1) and Vooch (11-10-9 with 2 blocks) finished 19th and 20th respectively.
- Paul George, as has been the case more than once already this season, led another slate after putting together a loaded 32-9-7-3-1 stuffed line that also saw him hit 5 treys on the day and helped LA edge OKC by just five points.
- More impressive, though, is finding Cole Anthony as the second highest-scorer of Monday's slate of games after reaching 61.3 DKFP to the tune of a 31-9-8-2 line with 6 treys and shooting 47.1% from the field on 17 FGA. Arguably better than George's performance if you ask me, and quite great news for a rebuilding Magic in which Cole wasn't that good last year.
- The Grizzlies just refuse to lose. Not only was Ja Morant playing outside of his mind against Denver (26-7-8-1 for a top-11 finish), but even secondary players are thriving: Tyus Jones put together an off-the-pine 17-8-4-2 line hitting 5 treys while Kyle Anderson (9-9-3-1) and Xavier Tillman (12-5 with a steal) both finished with great ROI value in fantasy contests.
- O.G. Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr. exploded for good with the Raps, logged 41 and 43 minutes of playing time respectively, and both scored 26+ points, 4 triples, dished 2+ dimes, stole 1+ ball, pulled down 2+ boards, and shot above 45% on 22+ FGA. No Siakam, no problem for the finally-settled-north-of-the-border Raps.
- I love Scottie Barnes' start to the season (he missed yesterday's game) but what about Franz Wagner!? I highlighted the younger of the Wags in my weekly WW posts, but seriously, let me double down on that recommendation here today: Wagner finished with a freakish 28 pops (including 5 triples), 4 boards, 2 dimes, 2 steals, and a block. The usage is sky-high even starting (28.5% yesterday) and he shot 55.6% on a bulky 18 FGA. Soooo good.
- Mo Bamba came absolutely crashing down to earth after his fantastic start to the year: 34 minutes of playing time though he could "only" finish with an 8-10-1 and 4 blocks. Overall, that's far from a bad performance, I know, but his three-point prowess was nowhere to be found and the low points-rebounds numbers for the minutes weren't that great.
- Reggie Jackson started at the point for the Clips, and I mean, no offense but Jax played 39 minutes and finished with a putrid 15-3-2 line shooting a cold 29.4% on his 17 FGA over that extensive playing time. At least he didn't commit a single personal foul, I guess...
- A bunch of injury-related news to keep an eye on all three of D'Angelo Russell, Danny Green, and Davis Bertans had to leave the court and didn't return through the remainder of each of their games. We'll see if those turn into serious injuries or not as we get news of tests during the next few hours.
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