RADIO
We're this close to the regular season, and while there is a ton of hype about the incoming rookies (check out all of our NBA Draft analysis here) we still need to reflect on the 2020-2021 season and what happened just a few months back in time. We had another short NBA offseason this year and it's time to do some evaluation on another unique season as we prepare for the 2022 campaign.
We have nearly a full season of data for most players to crunch now. It's time to reflect on the 2020-21 season to see who were our "risers" and "fallers" in the rankings. A lot of young players are naturally going to be on the rise, while some older hoopers will definitely be part of the season fallers.
In this article, I will feature some of the players labeled as Forwards (SF/PF) who took the biggest drops in their output so you can properly assess their value entering the 2022 draft season as it heats up with tipoff-week approaching.
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Fantasy Basketball Fallers - Forwards
Kristaps Porzingis, PF/C - Dallas Mavericks
2020 - 36th-best Overall
2021 - 100th
Started from the bottom, now we here... or not. Kristaps story is great, and he was one of the OG Unicorns to grace the Association, but he's starting to get to a point where I'd be quite concerned with his future in the league. Porzingis is already a five-year pro (not counting his 2019 missed season) but he's yet to find his true place. As I have said for a long time now, it feels like KP thinks of himself as a head honcho, no. 1 player, while he's most probably a great no. 2 guy in the NBA. Oh, and the fact that he's teaming up with Luka and the latter's exploits isn't changing Porzingis thinking, which... Ugh.
Porzingis is horrid on D, but that is not something to worry a lot about in most fantasy leagues as his offense isn't that bad and he will keep racking up minutes--when he's available, that is. On a per-100-possession basis, KP regressed all across the board except in points (+1.1): he fell down in his boards, assists, steals, and blocks averages per-100 possessions and could only save the day thanks to his slightly higher shooting efficiency from the first season as a Mav he played in 2020.
The usage has stayed around 27% for Porzingis in back-to-back Dallas campaigns, but, I mean, Luka Doncic is the clear go-to guy and he should be finishing like 50% of the team's plays. Seriously. It's virtually impossible to see the rumors about a potential trade becoming a reality for the Mavs, but truth be told KP is about to hit the $30-million mark and that will grow on a yearly basis for three (including 2022) more seasons in which looks poised to become one of the worst NBA contracts sooner rather than later. Porzingis would probably be great on a team with no other stars around him (see, New York Knicks), but I'm not trusting him at all in this Mavs squad.
Davis Bertans, SF/PF - Washington Wizards
2020 - 121st
2021 - 195th
Bertans is my guy. This man played a great season in his 2020 contract year, filled his bag last summer, and then proceeded to stink all the way throughout the 2021 campaign. That's how you do business, folks. Oh, and that's also why you don't trust freaking contract-year seasons, too. While not a massively great player, Bertans still finished 2020 as a near top-120 player while turning into one of the best specialists out there thanks to a masterful 42.4% shooting on treys (7.5 3PA per game) that helped him to a career-high 15.4 PPG mark that year.
Obviously, Bertans had to regress if only a little bit this past season. It wasn't a massive fall down given Bertans' one-trick-pony profile, but he still suffered a drop in PPG (15.4 to 11.5), RPG (4.5 to 2.9), APG (1.7 to 0.9), and Stocks per game (1.3 to 0.8). While not playing the same position, the truth is that adding Russell Westbrook to the fold did Davis Bertans no good last year. The latter's usage cratered to below 16% after an almost-average 19% in his first season with the Wiz, and his assist rate was cut almost in half last year.
Bertans took on a super-specialized three-point-shooting role in 2021 with a ridiculous 89.5% 3-pt attempt rate that ranked 1st in the league. Only five qualified players shot more triples per 36 minutes than Bertans but the Wizard could only rank 36th in 3P% among the top-100 players with the highest 3PAr. If Washington moves on from Beal/Westbrook and enters a full rebuild with Bertans staying, he might regain some upside. If he's stuck in his 2021 role, expect another down year from him.
Tristan Thompson, PF/C - Boston Celtics (now Sacramento Kings)
2020 - 85th
2021 - 187th
For what Tristan Thompson has done throughout his career, he's barely considered as one of the better players of the last decade of play. While not fantastic, TT solidified himself as a starter in Cleveland most of the time, teamed up with LeBron James for the lone title in Cavs' history, and was named to the 2012 All-Rookie team. Not enough? Well, he's also 20th in total rebounds among active players, 16th in RPG, and 19th in field goal percentage.
One understands Boston's decision of inking him to a small two-year deal on the cheap last summer. Sadly, Thompson widely underperformed the expectations as a Beantowner and actually turned into a roadblock for a great-looking young player in Robert Williams. The per-minute production was virtually on par with prior seasons for Thompson, sure, but his putrid 23.8 MPG straight murdered his fantasy upside.
Boston has gone through a lot of changes this offseason when it comes to the FO and the coaching side, and it's not clear which route they'll take going forward while building around Tatum/Brown. Kemba Walker got canned already, and TT followed the same way out. Thompson is a net-negative these days in the real world of NBA basketball and his fantasy FPPG went down almost 10 full points from 2020 to 2021. Not liking this development.
Aaron Gordon, SF/PF - Denver Nuggets
2020 - 50th
2021 - 147th
There is no lying in saying Aaron Gordon stank last season after getting traded to Denver. No point in arguing against that thought, folks. Accept it and move on. It'd been six years and change of Gordon as the franchise player of the Magic before Orlando decided enough was enough and traded him (on top of Nikola Vucevic and Evan Fournier) this past season. It made sense and Orlando is now fully into rebuild-mode.
Gordon had kind of worked as a 1A/1B guy in Orlando playing next to Vooch. But once he moved to a stacked team in Denver where both Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray were clearly above him in the pecking order, he just flopped. That's perhaps the only positive for Gordon's 2022 upside considering Murray will most probably miss the upcoming season entirely or at least a great deal of it.
The change of scenery killed AG: just last season his ORL/DEN splits saw him putting up a 14-6-4 per-game line in the former and then a measly 10-4-2 for the Nuggets. Obviously, the Nuggets helped Gordon improve his offensive contributions from a 103 ORtg to a much-healthier 115, but he also had to endure a big hit in usage rate (from 23.8% to just 17.2%). Gordon also struggled shooting the rock (stupid 26.6% from long range on 4.9 3PA per 100 possessions) and it's hard to see him as an impact player for the Nugs next season. Going from 50th to almost 150th in the span of a year is, well, no bueno.
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