RADIO
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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Tuesday, April 20
Nobody is able to keep up with New York's pace as the Knicks win their seventh straight and jump ahead of Boston for the no. 5 seed in the East
Are we sure the Knicks are for real? Ha! I'm joking. These Knicks are indeed for real, and after almost 60 games played and 80% of the total NBA matches for the 2021 season in the books, New York is 32-27 with a .542 percentage and already aiming at Atlanta to get that sweet fourth spot and home-court advantage on the first round of the playoffs, being just 0.5 games behind the Hawks.
As it's been the case all year long, Julius Randle was the main reason NYK got the W on Tuesday. He has solidified himself as a cornerstone of these Knicks, is now the leading candidate for the MIP award, and he put on another show yesterday with a 16-10-7-2 near-trip-dub that was good enough to finish as a top-7 player in the DKFP leaderboard. The shooting was terrible at just 31% but not even that could stop Randle from excelling. The Knicks were a joke mere months ago. I'm not sure anybody wants to cross paths with them in the postseason these days, though.
- The Wolves stink, and if they're not the worst team in the NBA right now that's only because OKC is also part of the league. No problem for KAT, though, as he keeps putting up numbers. Karl-Anthony Towns played 36 minutes yesterday and led the fantasy leaderboard with a 10-point margin over no. 2 Paul George thanks to his 66 FP translated from a 26-18-5 line with 4 blocks and 4 treys to go.
- As ridiculous as it sounds, there were many Wolves playing nicely yesterday. D'Angelo Russell came off the pine once more and was the best reserve of the day with a 28-3-6 line himself, Ricky Rubio--an afterthought for long this season--put up a 6-4-11-1 topping his season-high in dimes, and Anthony Edwards was a top-5 play in the slate with a 28-4-3-3-1 stuffed line (5 treys, 52% shooting on 21 FGA).
- Now for the bad news: James Harden has suffered a setback in his recovery, potentially making him miss more games through the remainder of the regular season. Kevin Durant is day-to-day, but will obviously be taken care of more than cautiously. The Lakers announced that LeBron James is still "weeks away" from getting back, which probably means no LeBron until the playoffs. Kawhi Leonard missed Tuesday's game and will be out for a week (at least) with foot soreness... Damn, son.
- For the good ones: LaMelo is about to come back for good, as I already wrote about yesterday. More good news: Jaren Jackson Jr. is also super-close to getting back for the Griz, and he's already tagged as questionable for tonight's affair with the Clippers. Memphis has been great all season long, so the addition of JJJ (assuming he's at the top of his talents) might be the ultimate addition for them to become a real threat come play-in/playoffs time (the Griz are no. 8 right now).
- Moe Harkless, who the Kings added a month ago via trade, had a rather nice outing of 20 pops, 7 boards, and a couple of steals while hitting 3 treys on the day. Moe has started 7 in a row for the Kings, is playing 27+ MPG, and Tuesday's marked his best performance so far in Sacto. Not the worst addition for GMs in super deep leagues as he might keep playing ROS with the Kings now completely off the play-in picture.
- Naji Marshall might be for real, folks. I already dropped his name in the column a few times in the last few days, and you better go add him to your rosters if you care about winning. Another day, another great outing off the pine for Naji with a 15-6-7-2 line with just one turnover in 35 massive minutes. The freebies were ugly (1-of-6), but other than that Marshall was fantastic against Brooklyn.
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