RADIO
The NBA offseason has turned into a matter of days--hours, if you push it--when it comes to player movement. Tampering present or not, the truth is that franchises lose no time in inking their new acquisitions to healthy deals, wheeling and dealing rookies and draft picks left and right, and pulling off trades with other teams around the nation. That's why entering September, pretty much all the dust has already settled leading up to next season.
That was mostly the case earlier this summer when it came to actual free-agent moves. It definitely wasn't the case with trades, as only one true blockbuster (Rudy Gobert from Utah to Minnesota) qualifies as the Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell trade sweepstakes have stayed alive for weeks and months on end with varying results.
With virtually all free agents already signed and rookies knowing where they'll start their careers, I will cover some of the trades that took place in the past few weeks to declare fantasy winners and losers involved in them. Let's take a look at some players who changed teams via trade that should find their stock cratering down this season.
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2022-23 Fantasy NBA Preview: Fantasy Losers from Offseason Trades
Royce O'Neale, PF - Brooklyn Nets
In a move that nobody understood when the news broke – let alone when Kevin Durant's trade request was made official – the Nets moved a first-round draft pick in exchange for Utah Jazz forward Royce O'Neale. Whatever their motives were for making such a trade are still unclear--unless the Nets brass was absolutely convinced the front office would never fall for KD's threats and keep everyone in tow ahead of the 2022-23 season.
After two years of not really factoring that much into Utah's plans, O'Neale became a legit starter in the 2020 season, getting almost 29 MPG with 62 of 71 games as part of the starting unit. That's been the case for the past three seasons, in which O'Neale has started 96% of the 219 games he's played with the SLC franchise.
Some fantasy GMs would assume that Royce can only be labeled a winner after it took the Nets a first-rounder to land him, and even more now that he's getting to a team that has kept its core in place in a unit that features legitimate superstars like Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and Ben Simmons--which should make for a better context for O'Neale to operate within.
Will such a loaded context/environment be good for O'Neale, though? Let me doubt it, even if the likes of Kyrie, Simmons, and KD take all of the defenders' eyes off the new Net. There is just one ball in play at once in basketball games, and odds are O'Neale is the odd man out when it comes to taking the shot, getting assists, pulling down rebounds, etc.
O'Neale has finished the last three seasons in the 109-to-134th overall range of fantasy players and never finished inside the top-35 fantasy F players in that span. He's a 20+ FPPG player but his efficiency is atrocious averaging just 0.65 FP/min last season (league average at around 0.90). O'Neal shared the court with very capable players in Utah already--Mike Conley, Donovan Mitchell, and Rudy Gobert--who were already more than reasonably commanding tons of touches and finishing most actions.
I guess getting to an even more crowded unit is not going to help him, and even if he's the main man off the pine, I doubt he will start putting on massive numbers as he proved incapable of doing so in Utah for a few years.
O'Neal is not the worst three-point shooter (38.9% on 4.0 3PA per game last year) and has some rebounding (4.8 RPG) and assisting(2.5 APG) upside, but that's pretty much it and all he will provide in a team with much better options on both offense and defense at least for the first few games of the season and unless a new/final trade involving KD gets completed.
Danilo Gallinari, SF/PF - Boston Celtics
I know I'm cheating here because the Celtics didn't exactly trade for Gallo, but a couple of trades involving the Celtics (lost other players that opened the door for Gallo to get signed) and the Hawks (Gallo's former team) facilitated everything and made possible the addition of the Italian forward to Boston's roster.
After trading for second-tier star Malcolm Brogdon to bolster their backcourt, the Celtics took advantage of Atlanta's trade for Dejounte Murray and signed acquired-then-waived-out Gallo from the Spurs after Pop's team landed him as part of the Murray trade. To which I'd say: congrats Boston because you got an extraordinary performer on a very sweet deal. How this move affects Gallinari going forward, though, is a completely different story.
Gallo is far from his peak, of course, but he's been incredibly productive since turning 30 back in 2019 while he posted a career-high (seriously) 33.8 FPPG mark playing for the Clippers and started all 68 games he played. He kept that starting role in OKC a year later (when he moved to the PF position for the first time and where he's remained ever since) and was good for 30.5 FPPG. After that, though, Gallo's outcomes have cratered to 22.9 and 21.6 FPPG in the last two seasons as part of the Hawks franchise.
That should stay the same or even go further down in Boston with his usage and touches getting (one has to assume) hyper-limited. The Celtics lacked playmaking and shooting in the Finals and they were never beating the Warriors without that. Gallo isn't going to turn the ball over, but he won't do so mostly because he is just not tasked with creating or devising passing lines or dropping dimes.
Gallo will be out there mostly shooting spot-up shots, which he wasn't excellent at doing last season, falling from shooting 40% beyond the arc for the first time in the last four years (38.1% on 4.5 3PA per game) and hitting 43.4% of his total 9.0 FGA for the second season in a row, down from the 46.3% he hit in his career-best 2019 campaign. Gallo's getting to the NBA runner-up, but he's also doing so in an even more limited role than the one he had in Atlanta.
This man is an obvious winner in real life landing on a bona fide contender coming off a season in which the chip was this close to ending in the TD Garden rafters... but he's a loser for fantasy GMs out there looking to squeeze the last drops of his talent. More of a top-165-or-worse player than a top-65 as he was not that long ago.
All of the above is also assuming that Gallinari gets to play most of the regular season, which is now in doubt following the news coming off Italy's camp ahead of the FIBA EuroBasket which started Aug. 31. Italy, in fact, removed Gallinari from their roster for the tournament after he suffered an injury (torn meniscus) that will have Gallo sitting on the shelves for weeks and potentially months.
The NBA season is still ways away, but this news means that Boston might very well ease him slowly into the rotation through the first few weeks and months of the campaign, entirely killing his season-long upside. Not liking the fantasy fit, let alone the precarious situation after the injury news.
Cory Joseph, PG/SG - Detroit Pistons
Alec Burks, PG/SG/SF - Detroit Pistons
Joseph's situation is pretty much the same as that of other veterans suffering the arrival of young bloods (Eric Gordon, Terrence Ross, Jeremy Lamb, etc...) to their franchises. Joseph has played for five different franchises in his 11 years of NBA play. He has been in Detroit for one-and-change seasons, starting 13-of-63 games in 2020 and 39-of-65 last season.
That late development/rise in playing time is about to revert, though, with the Pistons drafting Purdue's Jaden Ivey with the no. 5 pick of the 2022 draft and not happy enough with that, bringing über-veteran and do-it-all guard Alec Burks from the New York Knicks in a salary-dumping trade by the MSG franchise.
Detroit might have already completed the bulk of its rebuilding and it barely took the Pistons a couple of seasons to do so. It's a rather impressive work, all things considered. Ivey joins Cade Cunningham on the backcourt--don't forget about Killian Hayes, either-- Saddiq Bey was a surprisingly nice addition to the rotation, and Isaiah Stewart looks like a legit starter also joined now by fellow big man and 2022 lottery pick Jalen Duren.
While Marvin Bagley III and Kevin Knox are just a couple of reclamation projects that might never amount to much, they're still super young and should have the bulk of their pro careers ahead of them.
Burks is not going to move the needle because the Pistons are probably more interested in nurturing their young guns for another year or two than trying to fake-contend. That said, the veteran is an extraordinary guy to have around the kids and have on the court to show them how to do it--more than Cory Joseph, probably.
Burks was forced into playing PG for the Knicks last season under coach Thibs, and he wasn't that bad. He finished the year with nearly a 12-5-3-1 line, turning the ball over just 1.1 times a pop while Joseph put up an 8-2-3 line in just four fewer minutes of playing time with more turnovers.
Joseph was the better shooter, and that's probably what he'll be next season: a spot-up guy with limited touches and used in very particular situations. Burks is going to get back to his natural SG/SF role in Detroit and while I love his fantastic ability for adaptation, this roster feels a bit too crowded for him to do anything substantial.
Burks finished 2022 at the league average in efficiency (0.89 FP/min) while Joseph sucked to a 0.75 FP/min mark. The lack of playing time and the age-related regression both men are experiencing might see them finish outside of the top-100 guard-eligible players for the first time in at least the past three seasons.
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