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.
Wednesday, November 24
Houston escapes 15th straight victory with a win over Chicago; Phoenix keeps their victorious streak alive by snatching its 14th consecutive win
Night packed full of games on the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. And quite a slate, too, with the Rockets finally catching a break after defeating Chicago without any real great contribution from anyone. Christian Wood was the best Rocket but he barely entered the top-20 in DK with a 16-10-6 (+2 blocks) in 32 minutes of playing time. No other Rocket made the top-45 cut, while Chicago had three players inside the top-30 (Lonzo finishing 19-5-5-2-2, Vooch 14-13-5-1-1, and LaVine 28-2-4-1-1) but a stinking second unit that sank their ship.
Phoenix doesn't know how to lose at this game of basketball and put up its 14th straight W. Not bad, but somehow there will still be haters out there... Book cooked himself a 35-wing game to go with 4 boards, 3 dimes, and one steal shooting 66.7% on 21 FGA. Of course, Golden State also won so everything remains the same in the West with the Warriors one full game above the Suns in the standings entering Thanksgiving free-of-games Thursday.
- Shout out to Anthony Edwards, who had the dunk of the season (called off with a charge by the refs...) and also the highest FP tally in yesterday's slate of games thanks to his magnificent 33-14-6-33-1 outing, which included 6 treys in 43 minutes of play for the soph.
- LeBron got to play a massive 44 minutes reaching OT against Indy and helped the Lakers out of their funk with a 39-5-6-1-2 much-needed contribution as LA missed AD (non-COVID illness) and endured a hard-to-swallow Russ (20-7-5 with 4 TO shooting 33% on 15 FGA) on the day.
- Quite a booming game from Jusuf Nurkic and his 28-17-5-1 dub-dub against Sacramento... in another losing effort by the Blazers. Ugh. Other usual suspects dub-dubbing yesterday were Trae Young, Dame, Dejounte, Harden, Steph, and Gobert.
- Danuel House was key for Houston in their upset of Chicago. House dumped 18 pops to the tune of 4 treys and 2 freebies on the Bulls while adding 4 rebounds, two blocks, one assist, and one steal to his line in just 17 minutes played off the pine.
- Malik Beasley got to play 38 minutes coming off the bench and finished with a sound 29-3-0-1-1 line while hitting 5 treys and going 70.6% from the field on a more than healthy 19 FGA on the day. He also avoided turnovers entirely, not losing any sort of fantasy value from shaky plays.
- DeAndre' Bembry started for the Nets in their trouncing of Boston and all he did was putting up a near-dub-dub with a 9-10-2-3-1 contribution on very low-volume shooting (80% on 5 FGA) in 26 minutes on the court manning the wing.
- As good as Ant was, Karl-Anthony Towns was not. KAT could only finish with a silly 11-6-4 line (with 2 blocks) as he shot a putrid 33% on 12 FGA and his usage rate cratered to 20.8 percent against Miami. Kyle Lowry (7-6-5-1 going 3-for-6 from the field) wasn't great for the Heat either, although I guess at least he can say he only played 23 minutes...
- Andre Drummond came back to hell with a 1-12-2 line hitting none of his 5 FGA and only 1-of-2 freebies while committing 5 TOs against Golden State. Philly is about to have Joel Embiid back (whispers of a Saturday comeback are out there already) and they better do because Dru is playing like a 52-year-old man these days.
- Keep an eye on banged-up Jalen Green as he was forced out of yesterday's game with a leg injury... Pat Beverley had to leave with a groin injury, opening the door to Malik Beasley to rack up goodies... Robert Covington and De'Aaron Fox got ejected in the Portland/Sacto affair... Harrison Barnes didn't return to the court after leaving it on Wednesday with a right foot injury.
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