Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Thursday, March 25

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.

Thursday, March 25

The Kings stay mostly-put in the deadline and hand a resounding defeat to the Golden State Warriors in a 44-point career-night by De'Aaron Fox

There aren't many teams completely out of the postseason equation. That's what happens when you expand the field to include down to the 10th seed in each conference. Sacramento is sitting at 11th today, only a couple of games behind... a mollywhopped Warrios that suffered a horrid 141-119 loss on Thursday to their in-state rival. That position is keeping the Kings fighting for a shot at the play-in, and thus they avoided major moves other than the Nemanja Bjelica trade to Miami.

One they didn't trade and won't be trading any time soon: De'Aaron Fox. Swipa put up a career-high 44 points in a night in which all he needed was 36 minutes of playing time and a monster 37% usage rate to get there. He paired that scoring outing with a 2-7-3 rest-of-line shooting 73% from the floor, hitting 9-of-10 freebies, and committing just a couple of turnovers. Fox became the first King to score 40+ since DeMarcus Cousins did so for the last time in 2017, and he's the youngest King to do so since Tiny Archibald achieved the feat at 22 years of age all the way back in 1971, exactly 50 years ago!

• We got to witness the most active trade deadline ever yesterday. A grand total of 45 players were moved, making it a record of sorts. I'll be talking about the players moved as they start debuting for their new teams during the next few days and spotting valuable players here and there and how they do in their new environments.
• Tyler Herro was the best reserve of the slate yesterday with 50 FP in 35 minutes. Herro went for 29 points to go with 4 boards, 8 dimes, and a steal. Is this the last truly great performance by Herro, though? The Heat acquired Victor Oladipo via trade, and while Herro will keep getting his minutes, the opportunities and the 30+ usage rate percentages will drop no matter what ROS.

• On the day C.J. McCollum finally got his game right after coming back from injury, the Blazers traded Gary Trent Jr. away to acquire Norman Powell. Powell will most probably come off the bench for the Blazers, and he shouldn't impact the Damian Lillard/McCollum too much, so it's alright to roster and play any and every of those three. Shout-out to CJ for his 35-1-8 with 6 triples on the day.
• Danny Green was on a mood for the Sixers. He started another game, dodged a trade, won't be impacted by the acquisition of PG George Hill, and put up a sound 28-5-0-1-2 line hitting a slate-leading 8 triples while keeping up a great 64% shooting from the floor.

• Ridiculous game by RJ Barrett, no matter the angle you look at it from. 42 minutes (!!!), a 24-10-5-3 line, and 51 FP on a day in which he could only shoot 32% on 22 (!!!) FGA. Imagine if he had hit a few more of those shots. Sheesh.
• Although neither of them played yesterday, I'd like to highlight the Celtics trading Daniel Theis away yesterday, as today features the fantasy trade deadline in Yahoo. With Theis out, you want to trade for Robert Williams III. Sure, he's a liability in defense, but Theis was cutting Williams' upside in half and he's now gone. It's still unclear if Williams will get more playing time and chances, but odds are he does and if you can acquire him for a reasonable package then you should be doing so.

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