What Does the Kevin Huerter Trade Mean For Fantasy Basketball?

July 2, 2022

The Atlanta Hawks traded Kevin Huerter to the Sacramento Kings for Justin Holiday, Mo Harkless and a draft pick. What does that mean for fantasy basketball?

The Atlanta Hawks traded Kevin Huerter to the Sacramento Kings for Justin Holiday, Mo Harkless and a draft pick. What does that mean for fantasy basketball?

Huerter played four seasons in Atlanta, but the team's surplus of guards made it easy for them to justify moving on from him. What will Huerter do in Sacramento?

Let's examine what this trade means for fantasy basketball managers for the 2022-23 NBA season.

Kevin Huerter in Sacramento

After starting 216 of his 274 career games in Atlanta, Kevin Huerter should have a good shot at a starting role with the Kings.

Right now, the battle for the starting shooting guard role is between Huerter and Malik Monk. Factoring in the cost the team paid to acquire Huerter, we can likely say that he's the favorite for that role heading into the season, though things can still change.

Huerter would join a backcourt that has De'Aaron Fox at the point. Fox is similar to Huerter's former backcourt mate in Atlanta, Trae Young, in the sense that both are explosive point guards who are always looking to score.

Because of that, I think Huerter in Sacramento ends up looking a lot like Huerter in Atlanta from a numbers perspective. Last season, he averaged 12.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game on 45.4% shooting and a 38.9% mark from three.

I would consider Huerter to be somewhere just outside of the top 150 in fantasy this season. There's some value there, but I'm not super excited by him, though he's still young enough to have some additional upside in case he takes a step forward.

Atlanta's New Pieces

Atlanta replaces Huerter with Justin Holiday and Mo Harkless.

There's a lot less upside here than there is with Huerter.

Holiday is the most likely player to see a major workload, but he won't start, as the Hawks acquired Dejounte Murray to fill that need at SG. Holiday should be a rotation piece off the bench and averaged 11.0 points last season while connecting on 2.4 threes per game. He averaged 0.8 steals, his lowest mark since the 2015-16 season. Holiday can usually be a good source of threes and steals and I expect that to be the case this season as well. I'd consider him someone who can return value just inside of the top 200.

As for Harkless, the 29-year-old forward averaged 4.5 points and 2.4 rebounds per game last season. He might see a little more usage in Atlanta depending on how the rest of free agency goes, especially with rumors about a John Collins trade happening, which would open up minutes at the four. But I can't imagine Atlanta goes into this season with Harkless being anything more than the fourth forward on the team. He's not going to have much fantasy value and isn't currently on my radar.

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