January 30, 2018

Justin Carter explores the fantasy ramifications of the trade that sent NBA star Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons and Tobias Harris to the Clippers.

On Monday night, the Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons agreed to a trade that felt shocking at first.

The Clippers are sending the player many regarded as their star in Blake Griffin, along with Brice Johnson and Willie Reed, to Detroit for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic, and two draft picks. It's a trade that sends shock waves through the league, but what does it mean from a fantasy perspective?

Let's do a detailed breakdown of how the pieces in this trade should fit in with their new teams and what their fantasy value should be moving forward.

What The Pistons Get

Let's start with the big piece, former Clippers big man Blake Griffin. A healthy Blake Griffin ranks among the top...hmm, the top ten players in the league? The top fifteen? Top twenty? From a real life perspective, this trade is tough to judge because it seems that we no longer know how good Griffin can be because we no longer know how healthy he can be. For what it's worth, ESPN ranked Griffin as the league's 22nd best player before this season. He's obviously got the skill set to be better than that, but health still becomes a big factor.

For fantasy owners, though, Griffin shouldn't see much of a dip in productivity. He'll slot in at power forward and share the front court with Andre Drummond in a role very similar to the one he had in Los Angeles. If this was any other season of Blake's career, there would be questions about how he'll fit on a team that uses its power forward as a three point shooter, but Griffin has averaged a career high 5.7 attempts per game from downtown, just .1 lower than the 5.8 attempts that Tobias Harris has gotten. He's not going to suddenly shoot 40 percent from there like Harris has either. If anything suffers for Griffin, it could be his assist numbers if the Pistons aren't able to adapt the offense to his game on the run, as Harris averages around three assists per game less than Griffin in Detroit's scheme. Of course, the Pistons gave up a lot of pieces to acquire Griffin, so it seems more likely that they'll get the ball in his hand more than they did with Harris. Don't expect Griffin's usage percentage--currently 29.5 percent--to drop down to the level of Harris at 23.3 percent.

The other pieces coming to Detroit won't have nearly the impact as Griffin. Brice Johnson is a non-factor in this deal. Willie Reed will likely battle Eric Moreland for minutes behind Andre Drummond. Neither player should be on fantasy radars right now.

Meanwhile, the nature of this deal means that some Pistons players will be asked to step into bigger roles. The aforementioned Moreland likely fills in for Marjanovic, but he won't see the court enough to make an impact. Luke Kennard, though, is a player to watch: the rookie has already seen an increase in minutes over the past month and should see a larger role with Bradley gone. It'll come down to Kennard and Langston Galloway for those minutes, with Kennard having the edge because he's been a much better shooter this season. Kennard has made 43 percent of his long range shots this season on 2.5 attempts per game. If he's able to come close to that level of efficiency with an increase in volume, he's going to have a lot more fantasy value than he does right now.

What The Clippers Get

I'm much more interested in how we judge this deal from the Clippers point of view and how that affects the fantasy values of the players they acquired and the players on their current roster. It was relatively easy to figure out what happens to the Pistons because Griffin has a defined role and we can guess pretty effectively who takes Bradley's minutes (and we aren't super concerned with Andre Drummond's backup because Andre Drummond is too good). But this Los Angeles haul? Things get messier.

Let's start with the main piece for the Clippers, power forward Tobias Harris. Harris is scoring a career high 18.1 points per game on a career high 5.8 three point attempts per game. He's shooting over 40 percent from downtown for the first time. For the time being, Harris projects to play about as well as he has in Detroit. He's not the kind of playmaker that Griffin is, which means he likely won't see an uptick in assists towards Griffin's level. Harris's long term value is difficult to figure out, though, because the Clippers could still trade DeAndre Jordan and Lou Williams. Depending on what happens with those deals and what pieces return, Harris could see anything from a slight downturn in value (if the trades brings in any ball-dominant players) to a big increase in value if he ends up as the Clippers top scoring option. If that happens, the fact that he's playing so well this season on a career high amount of shot attempts suggests that he should be able to handle that increase.

Avery Bradley is tougher to project. He should be the team's starting shooting guard for now, but Austin Rivers's (Achilles) pending return (early February?) makes things a little murkier. Doc Rivers like Bradley, though, which means he should maintain a role on the team after Rivers returns. What happens with Bradley depends on two factors: if Lou Williams gets traded, which could open up a larger role for Bradley in the days after Rivers returns, and how he's able to fit with the Clippers defensively. Bradley has a long held reputation as a top defensive player, but most of that comes from his ability as an on-ball defender. This season, Bradley has been really, really bad at off-ball defense. If Los Angeles sees that Bradley is becoming a liability with his help defense, he might find himself losing minutes. If he's able to contribute more to the team defense, he's in a safer position. (Or everything I said is wrong because Doc Rivers is just going to look at his raw defensive stats and go OH HE IS GOOD YEAH HE IS DEFINITELY GOOD.) The best fantasy forecast for him right now is to assume that he's still going to score close to the 15 points per game he is now and continue to average at least a steal per night, but that those numbers could be threatened by the return of Rivers. They could also be threatened if the Clippers end up believing Bradley isn't part of their long term plans.

Boban Marjanovic goes from playing behind Andre Drummond to playing behind DeAndre Jordan, which is pretty much a lateral move. Chris Herring wrote an interesting piece last week for FiveThirtyEight about Boban and how he's the most efficient scorer in NBA history but isn't getting minutes because that's pretty much all he is. The league has passed guys like Boban by and it's really sad. Maybe he sees the court a little more consistently in Los Angeles, but he doesn't bring enough to the table to get him on anyone's fantasy radars, unless the Clippers trade DeAndre Jordan. Let's call the analysis of Boban incomplete for now, as a DJ deal completely changes the picture in Los Angeles.

For how this trade affects current Clippers, they obviously get a little more crowded in the back court. That's fine for now, because Patrick Beverley is out for the season and Austin Rivers is out a little longer. Once Rivers is back, he probably has a slightly smaller role than he does now, but the guard situation depends a lot on the possible Lou Williams trade. If the Clippers ride out the season with Bradley/Rivers/Teodosic/Williams in the back court, there might be too many mouths to feed.

The final note on the Clippers end of this deal: take all my analysis with a grain of salt. This trade came out of nowhere, and it's possible that whatever Lou Williams and DeAndre Jordan trade that does or doesn't happen will come out of nowhere as well. I feel good about this analysis in the shortest term possible--the days between right now and the next Clippers move. Beyond that, anything could be in play.

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