Another mostly anticlimactic trade deadline has come and gone. Every season the story is a little bit different, but the bottom line this year was that we got a few moves as motivated as much by money as by on-court concerns. For the fantasy player ready to jolt his roster by pouncing on players moving into bigger roles -- and bigger numbers -- there were opportunities. Just not that many.
Lots of ink gets spilled about the impact, or lack thereof, on the deadline when it comes to the postseason race. History tells us that these kinds of in-season moves generally don't have a major effect when it comes to determining the champion in a given season. But what about the fantasy part of the equation? Does the deadline ever move the needle for a player?
In a nutshell: Sure. Sometimes. And if you're looking for a general trend in the kind of player whose numbers change drastically for the better, look for the little-used guy headed to a bad team. Today, we're going to list the 10 most impactful players affected by deadline trades over the last 15 years. As you count those down, you'll see what we mean about the little-used/bad-team combination.
First some semantics:
- We used NBA.com/stats for season splits, dividing each player-season into pre- and post-All-Star numbers. The break doesn't always correspond exactly with the deadline, but it's close enough for our purposes. The data goes back to 2000-01, which is why we are looking at the last 15 seasons.
- To identify the relevant players in the data set, we used the nicely organized transactions logs from http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/transactions. Any trade made on each season's deadline day or the seven-day period beforehand was counted.
- To capture before- and after-trade impact, we used a fantasy points system not unlike what you'd find on a daily fantasy sports site. Those figures aren't presented -- we're listing a few key stats instead -- but that's how the list was narrowed.
- Players whose pre-deadline numbers were suppressed by injuries and/or late signings were omitted. We're listing players who saw drastic changes in performance, playing time or both.
1. Tobias Harris (2013)
Pre-trade: 11.6 MPG, 4.9 PPG, 2.0 RPG, 0.5 APG Post-trade: 36.1 MPG, 17.3 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 2.1 APG
If history is any guide, this year's deadline deal that sent Harris from Orlando to Detroit will be a tonic to his numbers. Back in 2013, he was dealt by Milwaukee to the post-Dwight Howard Magic and his leap established him as a pro rotation player. His per-minute numbers also improved, so it wasn't just more playing time. In three games for Detroit, Harris has scored 17 PPG, up from 13.7 for Orlando.
2. Nazr Mohammed (2001)
Pre-trade: 6.5 MPG, 3.2 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 0.1 APG Post-trade: 25.6 MPG, 12.3 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 0.6 APG
Mohammed didn't see much of the court early in his career under Larry Brown in Philadelphia. He saw plenty of it after being traded to Atlanta at the 2001 deadline, a transaction that shipped Dikembo Mutombo to Philadelphia. Mohammed was able to translate his small-sample numbers to the bigger role and went on to a long run in the NBA.
3. Henry Sims (2014)
Pre-trade: 8.4 MPG, 2.2 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 0.3 APG Post-trade: 27.2 MPG, 11.8 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 1.8 APG
Sims went from one rebuilding team to another when the between-LeBron Cavs sent him to Philadelphia for Spencer Hawes. He put up some decent numbers for the tanking Sixers -- his post-trade PER was 17.4 -- and the season after he logged 1,399 NBA minutes. Alas, a fringe player might get big minutes on a team as bad as Philly, but he's still a fringe player. Sims has spent this season as an unattached player in the D-League.
4. Bob Sura (2004)
Pre-trade: 13.3 MPG, 1.9 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 1.7 APG Post-trade: 35.4 MPG, 14.7 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 5.3 APG
The 2003-04 season had to be bittersweet for veteran Bob Sura. While he wasn't playing a big role under Larry Brown in Detroit, he was a member of a team that would ultimately win the championship. Unfortunately, part of the reason for that was the deadline trade in which Sura ended up with 28-win Atlanta and Rasheed Wallace ended up on the Pistons. Sura got to put up some numbers for the Hawks, though, and the next season he started 59 games for Houston before calling it a career.
5. Brian Skinner (2005)
Pre-trade: 10.3 MPG, 2.0 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 0.2 APG Post-trade: 27.8 MPG, 7.4 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 1.5 APG
The end of the fun Kings teams from the 2000s was mostly augured in by the trade in which Skinner went from Philadelphia to Sacramento in a package for Chris Webber. Skinner started 54 games the season before in Milwaukee but never established himself as an NBA regular. Fantasy gamers who snatched him up after the trade a decade ago couldn't know that the 60 percent career foul shooter they were adding would shoot 38 percent for the remainder of that season.
6. Ray Allen (2003)
Pre-trade: 35.8 MPG, 21.3 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 3.5 APG Post-trade: 41.3 MPG, 24.5 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 5.9 APG
Allen is the exception for this list: a star player moved at the deadline in a bonafide blockbuster. At the time, you wouldn't have thought that a player getting 36 minutes per game would get a significant boost in court time. But Nate McMillan rode him hard, explaining the increase in scoring and rebounding averages. But Allen also served as more of a playmaker in Seattle, and it's the boost in assists that really increased his fantasy value.
7. Jeff Adrien (2014)
Pre-trade: 10.2 MPG, 2.3 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 0.3 APG Post-trade: 25.2 MPG, 10.9 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 1.1 APG
Often a fringe player will have per-minute numbers so eye-catching that you can't help but wonder what he could do with a better opportunity. Adrien got just such a chance a couple of years ago, landing on a flailing Bucks team that won 15 games. He not only matched his per-minute indicators, he soared past them: Adrien averaged 15.6 points and 11. 1 rebounds per 36 minutes in Milwaukee and shot 52 percent from the floor. A star is born! Nope: Remember what we said about fringe players? Adrien played 17 games for Minnesota last season and has spent this season in parts unknown.
8. Marcus Thornton (2011)
Pre-trade: 16.2 MPG, 7.8 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 0.9 APG Post-trade: 38.1 MPG, 21.3 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 3.4 APG
What a gold mine Thornton turned out to be for those taking a flier on him after the 2011 deadline. He represents another type of player who benefits from a deadline deal. That is, a player who has established a level of play in significant minutes, as Thornton did for New Orleans in 2009-10, then falls out of the rotation for whatever reason. In Thornton's case, he was lost in a numbers crunch. But in Sacramento, he got all the run he wanted and really established a reputation as an instant-offense threat that keeps him employed today.
9. James Johnson (2011)
Pre-trade: 9.5 MPG, 3.2 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 1.1 APG Post-trade: 28.0 MPG, 9.2 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 3.0 APG
Johnson was a first-round pick by Chicago in 2009, but in his second season, despite reporting to camp in much-improved condition, he was shipped out for a draft pick by a Bulls team making a push for a title run. He put up middling, but better, numbers for the Raptors, however, and continues to tease us with across-the-board per-minute results that just never seem to add up to anything significant.
10. Henry Walker (2010)
Pre-trade: 3.6 MPG, 1.0 PPG, 0.6 RPG, 0.4 APG Post-trade: 27.4 MPG, 11.9 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.4 APG
Remember when we thought that Henry "I'm Not Bill Anymore" Walker was going to be something in the NBA? After wasting away for a season and a half at the end of Doc Rivers' bench on some powerful Celtics teams, Walker was sent to New York in 2010 for Nate Robinson. These were the pre-Melo Mike D'Antoni Knicks who ended up being pretty fun for a while the next season. After going 0-for-1 from 3-point range as a Celtic, Walker shot 43 percent on 116 3s in 27 games for the Knicks. His scoring average reached double figures; he scored 28 points in New York's last game that season and was just 22 years old. Sadly, these things don't always work out.