What a crazy week we just experienced! This was perhaps the most impactful trade deadline ever, and saw a host of big name moves made at the buzzer. Unfortunately for managers, not many stashes made it all the way through as full fledged adds, leading us to look elsewhere for perhaps less expected beacons of rest of season production.
As always, the deadline also caused some to lose out, leading previous roster locks to be considered droppable candidates from here on out.
Adds
Toumani Camara
(Shallow Leagues)
The Portland Trail Blazers have seemingly departed from the tank they were expected to go through with an incredible win streak going into the deadline. The front office has gone on record stating that they would see what they could do with this current team, and this will undoubtedly lead to them playing their best guys when possible. Fortunately for Camara, he has taken a leap not many expected of him and has become an incredible 3/D player in only his second year.
Fantasy-wise, Camara adds to a few key categories you might expect from a role player. He excels at rebounding, especially for a player not playing directly under the basket, and is grabbing 8 per contest over his three weeks. In this same span, he has been able to provide great value to your steals and field goal percentage, averaging 1.4 steals and 56% from the field.
Perhaps not the most exciting player, he looks lineup-proof in Portland for the time being and has been an easy lock inside the top 70 for nearly a month now. This is more than enough to qualify as a shallow league add despite being rostered in only 37% of leagues.
Matas Buzelis
(Standard Leagues)
It only came three years too late, but the Chicago Bulls have finally stopped prioritizing the nonexistent development of Patrick Williams. Instead, the franchise has opted to give heavy minutes to their recent lottery pick, Matas Buzelis. This is a game-changer for everyone on the Bulls, nobody more so than Buzelis himself, who has one of the most appealing fantasy profiles of any rookie this year. The Bulls also have an excellent schedule coming
Buzelis excels most as a mobile shot blocker, capable of shoring up the shaky rim protection of his frontcourt partner Nikola Vucevic. Since he has taken the starting spot, he has blocked two shots per game, a number that would easily place him among the elite in the league as is.
Buzelis has also hit an extraordinary stretch of efficiency as a result of being an afterthought to the opposition’s defensive scheme. The rookie is shooting a lights-out 67% in his recent games, and although that number will never stick at that high a level, it is encouraging to see him thriving so early into his time as a starter.
Georges Niang
(Deep Leagues)
Ordinarily not a player worth a second thought, Georges Niang moving to the Atlanta Hawks might put the veteran into contention as a deep league option. Following the loss of De’Andre Hunter from an already miserable shooting lineup, Niang has stepped in with some big shoes to fill the starting power forward role.
Although the position has been a bit of a revolving door for the team as of late, Niang provides the best fit next to Trae Young and contributed in a big way to a Hawks win in his debut. Niang is, first and foremost, an elite shooter from deep. In games where the veteran has played over 25 minutes this season, he averages just about 3 three’s per game.
This number was actually improved upon in his Hawks debut, with Niang scoring 4. While he struggles to truly excel in other categories, he is a positive to a few (field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and turnovers). Volume stats will always be tough for role guys to generate and deeper league options are often limited by this exact issue, but his upside elsewhere makes him worth a speculative add (think similarly to Malik Beasley).
Drops
De’Andre Hunter
(Shallow Leagues)
Funnily enough, the most notable shallow league drop candidate comes from the other side of the Niang trade, which saw De’Andre Hunter sent to Cleveland. Hunter has always been a player who struggles to find value in categories not directly associated in scoring. His rise this year has been built off the back of his elite scoring at a career high clip and is tied completely to his unprecedented usage. This all projects to disappear on the Cavs, a team far from needing a volume scorer.
While his play up to this point has been more than acceptable, with the veteran forward clocking in as the 105th-ranked player in category leagues up to this point. However, this is off the back of 24% usage, which has nearly no chance of being hit in Cleveland. He slots in as the fourth option offensively, and while his game is catered to thrive off the ball, he cannot be counted on for high-volume contributions elsewhere.
The last time he received under 20% usage was two seasons ago when he failed to make the top 180. In shallow leagues, it is likely not even worth the speculative hold to allow his role to solidify, and his value is far below that of a streaming spot in this instance.
Goga Bitadze
(Standard Leagues)
This one really comes as a blow, given how important Goga Bitadze proved to be in keeping the Magic afloat following the loss of Paolo Banchero. However, the return of Banchero has seen the franchise turn to backup center Wendell Carter Jr. in times of need. As a team struggling to make anything work lately, rotations have been far from consistent, and the abysmal shooting of the Magic squad has required Goga to take a backseat to floor spacing options just to make something happen.
In this time, Goga has slipped all the way down to a low of 12% usage in a mere 20 minutes per night over the course of the last two weeks. While he is a prolific player for those hunting center stats, even with the limited role, his ability to provide even remotely passable value in other categories has taken his value all the way outside the top 200. With no sign of reclaiming his role ever being on the horizon, Goga has gone from being one of the biggest surprise stories of the season all the way down to being a strong drop in nearly every situation.
Jalen Smith
(Deep Leagues)
Another Chicago Bull features on the list, this time a victim of the Bulls indifference towards tanking. Jalen Smith, a hot stash going into the deadline following rumors that the longtime starter Vucevic was on his way out, still finds himself backing up the veteran big. With the franchise gunning for a playoff spot (they traded Zach LaVine for their own pick this year, but that’s no matter, I guess), Smith appears limited to the bench for the foreseeable future.
Despite playing the best basketball of his season over the course of the last week, Smith projects to remain outside of the top 200 when limited to the bench. In his putrid 15 minutes a night on the season, Smith has been a strong positive in only one category (turnovers). As a player who provides no value outside of being a handcuff to Vucevic, the deadline served as a grim outcome for those stashing him.
As difficult as it is to give up on an asset with top-100 potential, Smith is currently just dead weight to managers in even the deepest formats and can be easily replaced by players with much more reliable upside (think Aaron Wiggins, Bub Carrington, Kyshawn George).