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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 latter, 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 2022-23 season tipoff later this fall.
Let's take a look at some players who recently changed teams and who should find their stock cratering in advance of the 2022-23 campaign.
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Fantasy Basketball: Losers from 2022-23 Free Agency - Guards and Wings
Trae Young, PG - Atlanta Hawks
Dejounte Murray, PG/SG - Atlanta Hawks
This definitely should not turn into a deal-breaker, an upside-killer, or anything-of-the-like type of deal when it comes to you and your fantasy drafting masterplans. At the end of the day, even a one-legged Trae Young or a one-armed Dejounte Murray are going to finish the 2023 season within the top 15 G-eligible players in the NBA, so there's that. That's been the case for Young for four years and running (11th-best, fifth, fifth, and lastly best G) and Murray for the last two (14th, then third). The catch, though, is in the fact that playing all by themselves running their teams is going to be the case no more as they'll be sharing the Hawks' backcourt next season.
Again, don't get it wrong in the very least of ways, folks. Fading Trae/Dejounte here would be akin to fading LBJ/Wade/Bosh when they joined forces in Miami--stupid, in a simple word. That said, something has to give. Trae has been the no. 1 guy for the Hawks since they drafted him as he's gone on top log usage rates of at least 25.7% every year with a couple of 33% and 34.4% marks in the past two seasons. Same for Murray of late--once he broke out--as he's put up figures of 23.4% in 2021 but jumped all the way up to 27.3% last season. The two guards would have combined to use 51.7% of the possessions had they joined the same team last season.
The fit is kind of good with Murray being a defensive stalwart with playmaking chops and Trae more of a shooting maven focused on offense. That doesn't mean Murray didn't shot 18.3 FGA per game last year or that he dished out 9.2 APG, something Atlanta will gladly take. Or that Trae hoisted an even larger 20.3 FGA per game or 9.7 APG a pop--albeit with a sky-high 4.0 TOPG. Those two will still thrive--and the reports suggest that at least one of the two will always stay on the court giving the Hawks a one-superstar-always-present chance in all games for the full 48 minutes--but you might want to lower your expectations a bit and forecast more of a top-15 finish for them if all works nicely and seamlessly instead of a top-three when all is said and done.
Immanuel Quickley, PG/SG - New York Knicks
Of course, moving from Trae/Dejounte to IQ is definitely a step down the ranks. Now, for what it's worth, Quickley projected as a super-value draft pick with huge potential if the Knicks missed on adding Jalen Brunson via free agency, panicked, and signed someone with Tyus Jones' ceiling, or straight decided to go with IQ as the starting PG in 2023. Didn't happen as Brunson arrived in his pops' town and will man the point for the MSG-based franchise next season. Quickley is still a raw project of an NBA player--note how didn't even write "NBA point guard"--but he was handed the reins of a barren-of-talent team in the late stages of last season, and he wasn't that bad at leading it.
Quickley played 78 games in 2022, starting just three of them and playing 23 MPG. That's not very surprising considering Thibs locks on a few handpicked guys when the season tips off and just run them to death over the course of multiple months--Burks, Randle, Barrett, and Fournier all played between 29 and 35 MPG while only other player in the team reached 25 (Mitchell Robinson, the fifth starter). That would have changed next year, we have to assume, but now that Brunson is signed for the next four seasons, we'll never know if that would have happened or not.
What we know is that Quickley improved notably last year as a sophomore (from less than 19 FPPG to 22+) while retaining a very similar above-average efficiency (0.97 FP/min as a rookie, 0.96 last year). It's a bit concerning that the three-point shooting went from 38.9% in 2021 to a lower 34.6% last season because Quickley will get back to a shooting role on the two-guard spot more often than not, so he better hit his shots if he wants to retain his value. The dimes will probably get back down to the 2.0 APG he put up in his first season and not the 3.5 APG he dished last year, but the TOPG should also drop from the 1+ of last season if only because he won't be creating that much. Anyway, this is the typical case of someone getting labeled a loser by collateral moves around his team's depth chart, and more about what he won't be gaining that what he's actually losing.
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.
Danilo Gallinari, SF/PF - Boston Celtics
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 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 nor dropping dimes. He will be out there mostly shooting spot-up shots, which he wasn't excellent at 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. He's 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.
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