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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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Wednesday, March 10
Who wants Jaren Jackson Jr. back with Jonas Valanciunas filling his backpack like that?
After an impressive bubble run in which they almost made the playoffs, the Grizzlies started the year with a little bit disappointing run that saw them go 2-6, then righted their wrongs with a seven-game winning streak, but after that, they haven't escaped the .500 record for the good or the bad by more than one game. That's not bad considering Ja Morant has missed time, Justise Winslow just debuted, and JJJ is about to come back.
About that last bit... Have you watched Valanciunas play basketball of late!? As always, JoVa keeps flying under the radar. While he's definitely not a league-winning fantasy player (nor real-life otherworldly hooper), Valanciunas can definitely get it done. Ask the Wiz, on which he dropped a sound 29-20 dub-dub yesterday to go with 3 dimes and 4 blocks. No joke in reaching those heights, as this performance marks just the 11th 20-20 line of the season and Valanciunas' second game doing it. Only Gobert, Jokic, and Drummond were able to put up 29 pops and 20 boards among those 10 occurrences, though, with JoVa now joining them.
- Not a lot of surprises on the night the NBA came back to our screens. Other than Valanciunas leading the slate, those who came after him in the FP leaderboard were your usual suspects, in order: Luka Doncic, DeMar DeRozan, Kristaps Porzingis, and Russell Westbrook rounded the top-5.
- Morant, the same as Valanciunas, played just 33 minutes but was still able to drop another dub-dub himself with 21 pops, 10 dimes, and 6 boards. The Grizzlies are 17-16 and the addition of JJJ down the road might boost his playoff odds even more.
- Rudy Gay came off the bench for the Spurs and was the best reserve of the slate with 33 FP in 27 minutes for a 1.23 FP/min on the day. Not the strongest of lines, but a stuffed one (13-9-1-3) on a rather bad shooting night in which Gay only hit 33% of his 12 FGA.
- Most importantly regarding San Antonio: LaMarcus Aldridge has joined Andre Drummond (and Blake Griffin before) in getting out of his team's rotation until he's either traded or bought out. Keep an eye on where he lands, as there are multiple options for him (ring-chasing, back home to Portland, etc...). Not a great player anymore, but a potentially good asset to roster if he lands in the proper environment.
- Desmond Bane, the Memphis rookie-wing, had a great game starting for the Grizz yesterday and getting a nice 20-4-1-1 line in 31 minutes. Maybe it's time to sell "high", as the rotation should start to feature Justise Winslow more and more going forward and JJJ is yet to come back, making minute-availability even tighter in Memphis.
- Jakob Poeltl was atrocious starting at C for the Spurs. Don't give up on him, though. Aldridge has been shown the door, the Spurs have not a lot of big-men depth, and Poeltl will keep manning the paint ROS while logging his 30+ MPG. The points, the rebounds, and the high shooting percentages will remain there if only because of the large runs.
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