Early Winners of the 2021-22 NBA Free Agency

August 4, 2021

Antonio Losada takes a look at some NBA players who changed teams this offseason and should have a good 2021-22 season in their new environments. These players could be fantasy basketball draft sleepers.

Free agency can be a great opportunity for players to find new homes that mesh with their playing styles and help them achieve their potential. But it can also be a chance for players to think they're doing that and then wind up in a bad situation where they're unable to find NBA success.

This article is about the former, and while it's only been hours since the market officially opened, we're here to analyze some of the deals that have been confirmed in advance of the 2021-22 season tipoff later this fall.

Let's take a look at some players who changed teams who should find their stock rising up this season.

Devonte' Graham, PG/SG - New Orleans Pelicans

The Hornets were entering the offseason with both guards Malik Monk and Devonte' Graham as pending free agents. To those two, you have to add Terry Rozier, LaMelo Ball, and 11th-overall pick James Bouknight. The backcourt was getting a little bit crowded, so Charlotte opted to move on from Graham by pulling off a sign-and-trade deal with New Orleans. And Graham came out a clear winner, if you ask me.

Graham lost a lot of playing time to both LaMelo and Rozier last season while starting 44 of his 55 games for Charlotte this past year. Even though Graham still averaged the fourth-most MPG among Hornets players, his usage went down from 24.8% in 2020 to only 21.4% in 2021. He was fantastic on efficient stats (better TS%, higher 3PAr and 3P%, career-high WS/48 mark), but on such a loaded unit at the guard positions, he was always going to struggle to rack up serious numbers.

New Orleans boasts a couple of ball-magnets/possession-finishers in Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, but the Pels also lack a point guard after losing Lonzo Ball to Chicago in free agency, and even if they opt to play Nickeil Alexander-Walker at the PG spot, it's not that they have any SG in place either so Devonte' would slide into that role nicely. Win-win for Graham in terms of both opportunity and context.

Kelly Olynyk, PF/C - Detroit Pistons

You can consider Houston and Detroit, Olynyk's former and upcoming squads, to be winners or losers. That depends on your view on squad-building/paying big bucks to big men. No matter what you think, though, Olynyk is a winner here after moving on from his last team and signing with Detroit.

The Pistons sent Mason Plumlee--another early-offseason winner--packing to Charlotte a few days ago creating a massive hole in the Motown paint. Only Isaiah Stewart remained as a viable player to put right down the middle, with the likes of Luke Garza, Sekou Doumbouya, and an oversizing-Jerami Grant as potential PF/C fits. Olynyk is now in Detroit and clearly expected to become the go-to center of the team going forward.

Olynyk was good playing for the Heat last season, and he only raised his numbers even higher once he got traded to Houston. That's important because Detroit isn't far from Houston in terms of the stage of their rebuilding process--and a depleted Rockets squad helped Olynyk become a monster player. I don't think it's crazy at all to have Olynyk reach a season-long 19-8-4 line in 2022, the same he put up in his short Houston tenure last year.

Kyle Lowry, PG - Miami Heat

The Raptors won the chip just three years ago. The Heat made it to the Finals in the Bubble. Both Toronto and Miami had nice players in place with the likes of Paskal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Jimmy Butler, and Bam Adebayo respectively playing for those teams. At the end of the day, though, 2021 felt like a turning point for Toronto (for the bad) while Miami still kept things up (although ultimately flopped). It made sense for Toronto to move on from the franchise savior, and Lowry can only be considered a winner after this move.

We all know Lowry so I'm not discovering anything incredible with this pick. He's a great player, full stop. But he's now taking on the starting PG role for a Heat franchise that is as loaded as they get. Miami re-signed Duncan Robinson to keeping hitting long-range bombs. They inked P.J. Tucker, who is a fantasy afterthought but a rather valuable real-life asset. And they retain Jimmy Butler (just extended his deal) and a young-and-still-developing Bam Adebayo. No downside for Lowry in playing in this context.

Lowry could only play 46 games last season. Sure. He also was able to improve his numbers mightily from his career averages. He logged a 17-5-7-1 line over the year while he's a career 15-4-6 player. He had 43.6/39.6/87.5 shooting splits while having a 42/37/51 career slash. Only two players finished 2021 with more fantasy points than Lowry while playing 46 or fewer games: James Harden and LeBron James. I can't wait to see this team play.

Spencer Dinwiddie, PG/SG - Washington Wizards

This move has not been confirmed yet but where there's smoke there's fire and it can't be foggier around these places (I mean, ESPN already has Dinwiddie as the Wiz starting PG with the very own Woj reporting the deal). Assuming Dinwiddie finally gets to play in Washington, I can only see positives for him and his upside for the upcoming 2022 season. After blowing his ACL last year and playing just three games in 2021 (actually, he didn't even make it to the 2021 calendar year as he got injured on Dec. 27), Spencer bet on himself, declined his 12-million player option, and became a UFA...

...and now he's inked a near-60-million deal for the next three years. Not bad, that piece of business. Best of all, Dinwiddie is getting to a team that built a gaping hole at the PG spot after dealing Russell Westbrook west to Los Angeles. Sure, the Wiz traded for Aaron Holiday on draft day, but other than that it all comes down to Raul Neto, Ish Smith, and Cassius Winston at the position for Washington. And Bradley Beal has seemingly given his blessings to the addition of Dinwiddie to the team.

Spencer Dinwiddie is starting for the Wizards next to Beal on DC's backcourt. If you remember the good old days of the no-superstar Nets, Spence was thriving nightly playing a much larger role than he was forced into throughout the KD/Kyrie era. Two years ago, in his last full season (64 GP, 49 of them starting) for the Nets, Dinwiddie posted a 20-3-7 line and was the 37th-best fantasy player of 2020 sandwiched between Kristaps Porzingis and Ja Morant. If the ACL doesn't cause Spencer any trouble, this could very well become a very valuable, league-winning play right here.

Los Angeles Lakers' Veteran Signings

Dwight Howard (C), Trevor Ariza (SF/PF), and Wayne Ellington (SG/SF)

I loved all of these signings. From a fantasy standpoint, I have been praising all these three guys forever, so it's reasonable to like how their upside look for the 2022 campaign as part of an absolutely thin Lakers roster. Dwight Howard already won the chip with the Lake Show just two seasons ago and will play a very similar role next season (assuming Marc Gasol starts at C). Howard comes off a nice season (7-8-1-0-1 per-game line) in Philly playing from the pine and ranking 2nd-best in total FP among players with 20 MPG or fewer.

Trevor Ariza, as hated as the man is, could prove crucial to keeping the Lakers up through LeBron/AD's resting minutes. Ariza has missed a few games in the past couple of seasons, but he's started 48 of the last 51 he's played while logging very heavy MPG marks--just last year, in Miami, he averaged 28 minutes with a line of 9-5-2-1 per game on a very limited role as a starter. He should come off the bench for the Lakers, which will undoubtedly help him have larger usage rates and more chances to lead the unit he'll be part of.

Finally, Wayne Ellington is quite a surprising min-money signing by the Lakers given his exploits of late in Detroit and how he could have landed a larger (if only a bit) deal elsewhere. In some low 22 MPG last year in Motown, Ellington's near-10-2-1 line per game looked more suited for a role/bench heater rather than a starter... and that's precisely what he'll be in LA. Ellington shot a magnificent 44.1% from the floor on a healthy 7+ FGA per game, hit 42.2% of his 2.5 3PA, and had a ridiculously high eFG% at 61.2 percent--that was the eighth-highest mark among players with 275+ 3PA on the full 2021 season and all the Lakers need from him to make a postseason push.

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