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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 2021-2022 season and what happened just a few months back in time. We're having the first proper NBA offseason in a couple of years as COVID fades away, and it's now time to do some evaluation on another unique season as we prepare for the 2023 campaign.
We have nearly a full season of data for most players to crunch now. It's time to reflect on the 2021-22 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 we get closer to peak draft SZN.
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Fantasy Basketball Fallers - Forwards
Jerami Grant, SF - Portland Trail Blazers
2021 - 61st-best Overall
2022 - 147th
Long gone are the days of Jerami Grant as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers Process Squad. So much so (and helped by how bad the franchise was back then) that you probably didn't even remember Grant as a Sixer. Grant's career can be split into two very different parts: before and after his deal with Detroit. Before: 19 FPPG through six NBA seasons. After: 33+ FPPG in just two campaigns with the Pistons.
Now about to play basketball in Portland, Grant is entering the third part of his career in which he'll try to help Dame reach the pinnacle of the sport by winning a championship (yeah, right...). The problem is that Grant regressed last season after a magnificent first-year debut in Detroit's threads.
The difference might not look too steep, but it was definitely there. Grant dropped from a top-20 forward to outside of the top-50 in most fantasy leagues last year. Let alone falling entirely off the top-100 OVR list and barely making it to the top-150 players of the year. He only played seven fewer games last year than in 2021, so it's not that he really missed that much time to have that as his main undoing.
Grant's per-game average dropped from nearly 36 FPPG to below 32 a pop. He fell from a 22-4-3 line to a lower 19-4-2 one, although he at least retained his 55.4 true shooting intact on back-to-back campaigns (though it's now two years below his 59%+ in three consecutive years prior to joining Detroit, mind you). Dame might boost Grant's numbers a bit, but Grant is no longer the face of an NBA team and that might be a reason for concern when it comes to his USG%, which averaged 27.1% in his two seasons with the Pistons.
P.J. Washington, SF - Charlotte Hornets
2021 - 65th-best Overall
2022 - 134th
The Hornets are entering a crucial season. The franchise isn't oozing talent and the minute LaMelo Ball stops producing they'll suffer mightily. That's because Miles Bridges (a top-15 player last season and into the top-5 forwards) is most probably gone from the NBA after his legal issues, and because a once super-promising Washington might have already reached his ceiling as a pro.
That might be a little bit harsh, I know, but that might also be a reality for Washington and fantasy GMs to accept when next season comes. Washington's rookie year was good (12-5-2-1-1) and on a similar playing time (30+ MPG) he improved his numbers as a sophomore to a nightly 13-6-2-1-1 line. Given he had started 57-of-58 and 61-of-64 games while visibly improving his game, the expectations entering 2022 were really high. Only for Washington to hit the third-year wall.
For starters, Washington was relegated to a reserve role last season (65 GP, only 28 starts) while his minutes went down to 27 MPG. His per-minute production should have gone up, but it actually went down to a below-league-average 0.88 FP/min mark. He also finished the year averaging a career-low in FFPG (24.0). Not good.
Washington could be turning into a phenomenal spot-up microwave shooter (he posted a career-best 59.0 TS% percentage last year) but his rebounding, diming, stealing, and blocking rates went down from his sophomore year. Concerning, to say the least. The usage rate was super low (15.6%), but I'm not sure if that will get fixed in Charlotte next season when it comes to the forward getting a larger role even with Bridges off.
Duncan Robinson, SG/SF - Miami Heat
2021 - 96th-best Overall
2022 - 145th
If you read Washington's commentary above, you can think about D-Rob as an even worse potential crash incoming with a very similar story. The thing with Robinson is that he's been a marksman since the minute he hit the league (or perhaps more accurately, his second year). He launched 8.3 3PA as a sophomore (of a total of 9.4 FGA per game) hitting paydirt in 44.6% of those attempts. He came back down to Earth a bit in 2021 (40.8% on 8.5 3PA), but he absolutely hit the ground head-first last year with a putrid 37.2% on 7.9 3PA per game.
That is, to say the least, hyper-concerning when it comes to Robinson and his specialist player profile. Robinson started 68 of 79 games last season, on par with years prior, and in fact, he ended playing 2,000+ minutes for the third season in a row. Not even keeping those numbers up helped him reach more than a measly 19 FPPG average over the year, his worst mark career-wide barring his rookie season.
After back-to-back campaigns into the top-100 OVR in most fantasy leagues, Robinson fell nearly outside of the top-150, let alone outside the top-50 forward-eligible pool of players. His true shooting cratered to a (still good, admittedly) 57.1% after two years into the 68+ and 62+ percent. The PPG went from 13 to 10, and he basically forgot how to rebound and dish out dimes.
If you need a three-point-shooting-only player, Robinson could still be one of value for you. If you want to add something else (even the tiniest thing) to that player, then Robinson might be starting to fall short of your needs. Do-or-die season ahead for Robinson although the chances will be scarce if Victor Oladipo and Tyler Herro outperform the expectations and Max Strus takes another developmental step forward.
Robert Covington, SF/PF - Los Angeles Clippers
2021 - 77th-best Overall
2022 - 124th
While RoCo started nearly 30 fewer games last season than he did in 2021, the truth is that he played "only" 300 fewer minutes than two years ago. That's a sizable amount, but not one to justify his drop from a near-top-75 player overall to barely making it into the top-125 last season.
Just a look at the last 10 seasons of fantasy play gives you all you need to know: 310 players finished with more total fantasy points than 2022 Covington playing the same or fewer minutes than the Clippers forward. No bueno, amigo.
Covington spent only part of the season in Los Angeles playing in Portland before moving to Hollywood, and that's been the case for a few years for him as he's done it in Houston, Philly, Minnesota, the PDX, and now under the (not brightest) lights of L.A. The problem is that his numbers were going up on a yearly basis for multiple seasons until peaking back in 2020 and dropping steadily from that point on and non-stop.
It's been now two seasons in a row for RoCo going down the fantasy leaderboard. He was a top-50 player in 2020 (28.8 FPPG) but he then fell to a top-80 finish (25.1) and lastly almost outside of the top-125 (23.3). His shooting has stayed up (and actually improved last season, going from a true shooting of 55.2% to a better 57.1%) but other than that his per-game numbers and counting stats won't help you that much.
Covington is two years removed from averaging double-digit points (8.5 PPG last year), only put up 5 RPG last season, and got his shooting diet cut down to just 7 FGA a pop (he had reached 10+ shots in six of his prior seven seasons). Covington seems to have entered the real-life useful, fantasy-realm unviable part of his career, so you'd be better off drafting any other forward before targeting him.
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