NBA Summer League Winners - Forwards: Keegan Murray, Quentin Grimes, Moses Moody

August 5, 2022

Antonio Losada looks at NBA forwards who can be seen as sleepers given their Summer League performances in advance of the 2022-23 season.

A key part of doing a fantasy draft is avoiding players who find themselves in a bad situation. The wrong pick can completely tank your season. On the other hand, rostering players in perfect situations can be the ultimately league-winning move for savvy fantasy GMs.

Today, let's talk about some potential busts and sleepers that have been part of the Summer League tournaments held in early-to-mid July. For whatever reason -- be it talent, lack of opportunity, chances to rack up minutes, good and bad environments, etc-- these are players who fantasy GMs are currently buying at too high or too low ADPs this early in the preseason and who should be kept under the radar to track their progress in training camps as we each closer to the regular season's tipoff.

Let's look at some forward-eligible players that could be sleepers this year in fantasy basketball leagues who appeared in July's Summer League tourneys and explore their situations going forward.

Summer League Winners: Forwards - 2022-23 Fantasy Basketball

Paolo Banchero, PF/C - Orlando Magic

Some would say Papa Banchero is a legitimate center. Some would say he's a power forward with big-man tendencies. Some would even go the distance and maybe label him as a sort of hybrid-combo-big-guard, or something like that. The truth is, though, that Banchero is more of a playmaking guy inside the body of a big dude than anything else, and one of these no-position-applies type of players of our day and age.

Banchero, of course, is the latest no. 1 draft pick for a reason. And he is also making this list because of pure obviousness. All the Magic-handed Banchero this past Summer League was a couple of games and 61 minutes of run. That's all he needed to show how seamlessly he'll fit in Orlando's system and the NBA as a whole, full stop.

PB dumped 17 and 23 points on Houston (facing Jabari Smith Jr.) and Sacto, added a combined 10 rebounds, 12 dimes, five steals, and a couple of blocks to that, and although he turned the ball over eight (!) times in his last game, that's nothing I'd warn you to worry about. No Mo Bamba, Jonathan Isaac, Wendell Carter Jr., etc, etc... will put any barrier on Banchero's way to a 10-10 rookie campaign with ample playing time. One of the few rookies worth rostering in fantasy BK from the get-go.

Keegan Murray, SF/PF - Sacramento Kings

If there was a player surely determined to prove fools wrong, that must have been Kee-G. If you don't know: the Kings passed on consensus no. 4 Jaden Ivey and drafted Murray instead (mostly because Ivey had virtually said he didn't want a thing to do with Sacto). So both the Kings and Murray definitely wanted to make a statement in the SL period by making it clear who the real fourth-best kid of the class is.

Keegan took the courts running (first in the Cali Classic, then in Vegas) and averaged a ridiculous 21-7-1-1 line on his way to scoring the most fantasy points (257.5) by a mile among all participants. His FPPG figure of 36.8 ranked sixth (fourth-best among players with more than 65+ MP) and even though he played 220 minutes over seven games, he still kept up an extraordinary 1.20 FP/min efficiency.

You know Murray is gonna hunt for his critics after becoming the only summer player to log more than 188 minutes in July's tourneys and he very well proved that's probably the good thing for Sacto to do given his exploits among players of his talent. Murray can cover and play anything from two-through-four so the addition of Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk shouldn't hamper his chances and starting role even as a rookie.

Quentin Grimes, SG/SF - New York Knicks

I'm writing this while New York and Utah are still (reportedly) negotiating a Donovan Mitchell trade. You know what that means, even more after it was leaked that Jazz's GM Danny Ainge is mostly interested in getting a haul of draft picks and Quentin Grimes in return. Makes sense, because Grimes might be stepping into a legitimate breakout season--whether he does so donning Knicks or Jazz threads.

Grimes was good last year but with Thibs coaching the Knicks, he was never going to really have a strong chance to showcase his talents. He did so only when injuries forced HC Thibodeau to play him, and he thrived as a 3-and-D king. As is the case with tons of players these days, Grimes comes with a multi-position skill set and can man the two and three spots with chops to play the point or even a downsized four if needed.

In five Summer League games, Grimes led his Knicks to the Final against Portland to the tune of a 22-4-4-1 per-game line. Grimes shot 17+ FGA (!) a pop while hitting 41.4% of those and also went nuts from beyond the arc attempting 11 (!) three-point shots per game. Grimes lowered his SL production on a per-game basis, but even then, he always hit 19+ points, grabbed 3+ boards, and had a monster game against Chicago in which he only played 23 minutes but was good for a 24-4-4 line, hitting 50% of his 14 FGA, 4-of-9 three-point shots, and 6-for-6 freebies.

Jonathan Kuminga, PF & Moses Moody, SF/PF - Golden State Warriors

The Warriors are coming off a winning the chip. Who dat!? Why is a team like this in the need of any youngbloods, you might say? Well, the truth is that Steph, Klay, and Dray are still doing it at the highest of levels but there will be a day when Father Time comes calling. That's why. James Wiseman is a much-needed piece for this franchise to develop and turn into a nightly performer with rock-solid production, of course. But Kuminga and Moody seem to fit the current NBA trends more than JW and thus they're the ones that must turn into legit starters or ultra-reserve players.

They both did in the Summer League tourneys. Kuminga skipped the California Classic and only played in four SL games, but he logged 24+ minutes in each of those, and barring a heavily criticized G1, he excelled in the next three. He finished the summer at an average 19-4-3-1 per-game line, and that's including his debut stinker. Moody made the tournament his home for a couple of weeks and bested his teammate easily on all fronts (they overlapped in just two games, with Moody performing in the Cali Classic but only two Vegas matches).

Moody had a ridiculous game against the Knicks in which he put up a 34-5 with 2 blocks shooting 61.5% from the floor and 50% on 6 three-point attempts--he somehow went 15-of-17 from the free-throw line, too. Moody's summer line: 19-3-2-1-1 with a magnificent 63.5 TS%. Hard to see any of these two starting above the aforementioned trio (I haven't even mentioned Andrew Wiggins), but there is a great chance both see a nice uptick in MPG next season.

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