Fantasy Impact: James Harden Traded To Brooklyn

January 14, 2021

Justin Carter’s fantasy basketball analysis of the trade that sent James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets. The NBA players traded could be lineup sleepers and busts for fantasy basketball managers.

On Wednesday, the much-anticipated James Harden trade finally went down, with the Brooklyn Nets grabbing the former MVP as part of a four-team traded that somehow landed Victor Oladipo in Houston.

There were a lot of moving parts in this one, so let's take some time to step back and figure out exactly what this all means rest-of-season for fantasy basketball.

We'll go through all the teams individually, starting with the Nets.

Brooklyn Nets

Traded For: James Harden
Traded Away: Caris Levert, Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince, Rodions Kurucs

Obviously, the biggest piece of this whole thing is Harden, but he's also maybe the least interesting player to talk about.

Harden will slide into the two-guard spot in Brooklyn, or maybe he'll play point guard until Kyrie Irving returns. Whichever way, he should immediately be a top-five fantasy option. Harden might see his usage drop, but his scoring upside remains as high as anyone in the NBA, and he's a really good passer who'll still rack up assists. Maybe his ceiling drops some and you play him a little less in DFS, but overall Harden's still a big winner here.

Kevin Durant might see a slight drop in production. With a durable star like Harden to lead the way, Brooklyn can start to play things safer with Durant, reducing his usage and minutes. Not by a lot, but by enough that his production could see a tiny fall-off.

With Jarrett Allen gone and no other real centers on the roster, DeAndre Jordan should rise above the 17.1 minutes per game he's been playing. If he winds up playing in the high-20s per night, Jordan will be a huge winner of this deal. He remains a highly efficient scorer who can pull down rebounds and block shots, and while he isn't as good a defender as Allen, the Nets will have to make do with him as their primary center.

With Prince and LeVert gone, we'll see more of guys like Jeff Green, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Bruce Brown and Reggie Perry. Do we need to pick any of them up? Probably! Brown is the guy I'd be most interested in of this group.

Houston Rockets

Traded For: Victor Oladipo, Rodions Kurucs, Dante Exum, lots & lots of draft picks
Traded Away: James Harden

Now, the big addition for Houston here are all of the draft picks -- four unprotected firsts and four unprotected pick swaps -- but future draft picks don't matter a ton in fantasy basketball since they, uhh, aren't NBA players yet.

But Houston also gets a very, very good player in Victor Oladipo courtesy of the Pacers, who ended up getting Caris LeVert.

Oladipo's no James Harden, but he's a very good player when healthy. In nine games this season, he's averaging 20 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game. He's not the same type of player as Harden, so don't expect to see Oladipo's usage rate look anything like Harden's from the last few years. Instead, we'll likely see John Wall with an increase in usage, making Wall someone to target if you can get a good trade price for him. Eric Gordon might get some more shots too and is likely on waivers still in a lot of leagues. As for Oladipo, he'll continue to be a solid fantasy option, though I expect Houston to not push him too much due to injury concerns.

Kurucs couldn't crack the rotation in Brooklyn, but maybe he gets some backup four time ahead of Jae'sean Tate? He definitely has more upside because of his versatility than someone like Bruno Caboclo has, but considering Kurucs has seen his numbers go down each season in the league, I don't really know what Houston gets out of him this season.

Exum has a calf injury and is out for the next couple of months. Because of that, I'm not super interested in him at this stage. When healthy, he'd slot in as the backup point guard behind John Wall, but Exum has reached the point where he's been around too long for anyone to have high hopes for him. He flashed some decent three-point shooting at the end of last season, but he lacks much scoring upside and won't get the minutes to make up for that with his other stats.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Traded For: Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince
Traded Away: Dante Exum

Oh, another center!

While Prince's role in Cleveland won't be hard to figure out -- he'll be a depth piece who won't do enough to be fantasy relevant -- the big question is what Jarrett Allen will do in Cleveland.

The Cavaliers now have Andre Drummond and Jarrett Allen at the five. I don't see much reason to play the two of them at the same time, which means this is going to be a tough situation. Allen is the player who is likely in Cleveland's long term plans, so expect to see a drop in Drummond's minutes to account for the Allen addition. That hurts Drummond's value, but Allen also has his value hurt because Drummond is going to still play more than DeAndre Jordan was playing in Brooklyn.

This also means less small-ball minutes for other bigs at the five, so something else to monitor as we move forward.

Cleveland could clear this all up by trading Drummond, but until that happens, both players take a hit. And considering how important rebounds are to Drummond's fantasy value, a drop in minutes could really hurt. This might be the first time since 16-17 that he doesn't average 15 rebounds per game.

Indiana Pacers

Traded For: Caris LeVert
Traded Away: Victor Oladipo

The Pacers were probably not keeping Oladipo long term, so jumping into this deal and coming away with Caris LeVert is a huge win. LeVert's good! The Pacers are going to be dangerous!

This is one of the easiest situations to predict. LeVert slides into Oladipo's starting role. LeVert has a usage rate that's four percent higher than Oladipo this year, but even with a slight drop in usage, LeVert will post solid numbers, maybe something like 16-17 points per game with 5.5 assists and around the 3.5 rebounds he's already putting up.

There will probably be a couple of shots per game that can go elsewhere, but that's a small-enough number and there are enough players on this team who could get those shots that I'd assume there's not enough there to move the fantasy needle on any of the role players in Indiana.

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