Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Sunday, October 31

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.

Sunday, October 31

James Harden puts up a historic line, ties Larry Bird with the seventh-most triple-doubles in the NBA, and is now the leading trip-dubber in Nets history

Just another day in the office for James Harden, but surely one for the Association's history books. Harden and the Nets demolished Detroit and The Beard put up a line good enough to make history: 18 points, 10 boards, 12 dimes for a triple-double that ties Harden with Larry Bird for the seventh-most such lines in history and makes Harden the no. 1 Net in the category with plenty more to come.

Not happy enough with that, Harden's game made him the best DKFP-performer of the slate edging LaMelo Ball by a midget 0.2 FP on the day. Even though as many as 109 players appeared in yesterday's games, Harden was the only one to put up a triple-double while Luka Doncic came the closest to it with a 23-8-10-1-1 fantastic line.

• Getting back to LaMelo Ball, he finally seemed to get things right for good, and he finished the day with a neat 27-9-7-1 line that included 4 triples on a 50% shooting from the floor on 20 FGA, with just one turnover. It's about time Ball plays to his talents, but it was just a matter of time before it happened.
• Charlotte was an absolute unit yesterday, and the 125-113 victory over Portland was no fluke. All of Melo, Kelly Oubre, Miles Bridges, and PJ Washington finished inside the top-25 in DK and reached at least 28.5 DKFP each.
• Fantastic burger from Richaun Holmes, who put up a dub-dub of 22 points and 13 boards to go with a couple of steals with the Kings. Holmes did all that in just 27 minutes starting, which was a very tasty way of screaming efficiency.

• Brother Thanasis was fantastic (for what his price/availability is at, I mean) and he was this close to dub-dubbing with a 10-9-3-3 line even on a putrid 33% shooting night (with a more than healthy 15 FGA, though).
• Among non-Antetokounmpo-related players, Carmelo Anthony put another gem together coming off the pine for the Lakers finishing with 23 points in 25 minutes and 14 FGA making 5 triples and adding 3 boards, 2 steals, and somehow a slate-leading 4 blocks. This is the Melo we stan for, folks.
• With Gordon Hayward starting at the SF position in Charlotte, Kelly Oubre was relegated to bench-riding but he made the most of his playing time (32 minutes) putting up a mighty 26-7-5-2 packed line that included 6 treys (only Anthony, Grayson Allen, and Anfernee Simons scored 5 triples, with no one else hitting 6).

• De'Aaron Fox wasn't incredibly bad (14-8-4 shooting 31% on 16 FGA) but it's time to start worrying a bit about this man's start to the year. Hayward, mentioned above, also dropped a dud while both Pistons Jerami Grant and Saddiq Bey couldn't do a thing to save their lives against Brooklyn, either.
• Rudy Gobert, even if you don't believe it, finished yesterday's outing against Milwaukee with a measly 9-13-2-1-4 line. I mean, that's probably a higher outcome than 80% of the league players can achieve, but Gobert's season average of 16-17-1-1-2 was definitely nowhere to be found.
• An interesting development in Los Angeles: DeAndre Jordan came off the pine for the first time this season giving way to Anthony Davis as the starting center. Davis performed as nicely as ever (16-13-2-1-1 in 33 minutes) and DAJ was good on a per-minute basis playing his customary 17 minutes against Houston.

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