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Spencer Aguiar highlights three fantasy basketball takeaways from the NBA's November 24th slate. This recap focuses on Collin Sexton, Jabari Parker and Brook Lopez.
Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we highlight three fantasy basketball takeaways from last night's slate of NBA games. Saturday rendered some thrills, even though the majority of the games were not all that close. The battle of the night belonged to Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings. The Warriors were able to escape another early-season loss with a Klay Thompson layup with 5.8 seconds left in the game. The basket put them up 117-116, and both Buddy Hield and Marvin Bagley III missed in the closing seconds to increase the Warriors win streak to two games.
Going from one of the best teams in the NBA to one of the worst, the Cleveland Cavaliers continued their two-day incredible display of basketball, beating the Houston Rockets at home 117-108. The Cavs were able to conquer the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday and are playing some of their best basketball of the year. Tristan Thompson grabbed 20 rebounds, adding 16 points, two assists and four steals in 39 minutes. The 27-year-old has seen at least 30 minutes in his previous four games and is an intriguing player going forward.
And the Dallas Mavericks outlasted the Boston Celtics 113-104. The loss bumps the Celtics down to the sixth-seed after 20 games in the East and moves Dallas within a half-game of the eighth seed out West. It is too early to start looking at playoff scenarios, but the Celtics slow start is noteworthy. If they aren't able to grab a top-three seed, it will make their path to the NBA Finals substantially more difficult. Our top three fantasy takeaways of the night are still to come, so without further ado, let's take a more in-depth look into Saturday's action.
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Collin Sexton: Unprotected Sexton
Collin Sexton scored a career-high 29 points on Saturday against the Houston Rockets, adding four rebounds, two assists and one three-pointer on 14-for-21 shooting from the field. Sexton has been outstanding as a scorer over his past seven games, averaging 20.2 points with a steady 32.4 minutes per game, but there are reasons for concern if you own the rookie.
While Sexton does appear to be the team's go-to scorer as of right now, George Hill will be making his return to the Cavaliers shortly, maybe as soon as their next contest on Monday. And I realize it is incredibly doubtful that coach Larry Drew would move the 19-year-old to the bench, but Hill's return will impact a fraction of Sexton's upside.
In the last five games, Sexton has made an unsustainable 26 of 42 attempts from mid-range. That statistic alone is alarming, but he is also adding very little outside of scoring, providing averages of 2.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.2 blocks and 0.7 threes on the year. The extra usage should let the eighth selection in this year's draft get a boost in three-point production, but his defensive statistics continue to remain non-existent.
Sexton is worth owning, but there could be a sell-high window available to another owner that is salivating over his current scoring. He is going to struggle to provide top-100 value in nine-category leagues this season, and there may not be a better opportunity to trade Sexton. If you own him, shop around and see what you can get.
Jabari Parker: What To Do With Jabari Parker?
Jabari Parker continued his recent run of strong outings, scoring a season-high 27 points to go along with seven rebounds, four assists, one block, two steals and three three-pointers on 11-for-18 shooting. Parker has now put together three straight strong outings and is averaging 23.3 points, 10 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 0.6 blocks, 1.6 steals and 1.0 threes on 54.3 percent shooting from the field during that duration of time.
It's nice to see Parker find a rhythm after the multitude of injuries he has had to overcome over the past few seasons, but just like Collin Sexton, the time to trade Parker is NOW. Bobby Portis and Lauri Markkanen will eventually return, and once they do, Parker's production is going to take a massive hit. And even if his output somehow remained the same, he provides practically nothing defensively and gives you very little to be excited about outside of scoring and rebounding. Owners tend to become enamored with scoring over other categories, so see if you can't sell Parker for much more than his value is even worth now. And expect for his worth to take a nose dive shortly with Portis and Markkanen inching closer to returning.
Brook Lopez: A Nice Buy-Low Candidate
After giving two pessimistic views of players you should be looking to sell, let's dive into someone that you should be looking into buy.
Brook Lopez has found himself on a terrible four-game stretch that has seen him average 6.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 threes. In reality, the rebounding has been solid compared to what we usually get from the seven-footer, but his scoring and three-point production have taken a massive hit.
However, it hasn't been because of a lack of opportunity. Lopez has produced a couple of barren stat lines with a lack of aggressiveness, but the 30-year-old has also had 10 and 17-shot games in the last week. On Friday, Lopez went 3-for-17 from the field and a shocking 0-for-12 from deep, so Saturday's four-shot performance should have probably been expected after such a poor outing the day before.
Lopez is a unique fantasy commodity for his position. He is better suited for teams that are tanking rebounding, but if your league has multiple utility positions, he can be viewed as a game-changer that can shoot and block shots. Lopez is the number one center on ESPN for threes per game, making 0.8 more than the next eligible center, and he is ranked inside the top-15 in blocks for the position also. Lopez should be viewed as a borderline top-50 nine-category league player based on his unusual way of producing, but his upside is stunted because of his lack of rebounding. Regardless, Lopez's value is as low as it is going to be right now, and he makes for a great buy-low option.
