15 Biggest NBA Offseason Moves Impacting Fantasy Basketball

It’s been a wild offseason in the NBA, featuring some major roster shakeups all around the league. In this article I’m going to break down the 15 biggest veteran acquisitions and what they mean for your Fantasy Basketball team in 2025.

NBA Offseason Moves Impacting Fantasy Basketball

15. Jordan Poole to the New Orleans Pelicans

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big believer in Jordan Poole. He’s not nearly as good of a shooter as he thinks he is, makes way too many dumb turnovers, and frankly just doesn’t seem to take the game seriously enough to ever reach his ceiling. So why would I include him on this list? Because he’s still likely going to start for the team and will have plenty of opportunities.

Even still, Poole will have more competition for touches than he did in D.C. and he will likely end up playing off-ball more, as I expect Dejounte Murray to be the primary ball handler. Yes, he will still be a usable fantasy asset, but replicating last year’s 20ppg is not something I would put money on.

14. Collin Sexton to the Charlotte Hornets

Unlike the guy just above him on this list, I think that Sexton is a bit underrated at this point in his career. While he hasn’t had nearly the success he had since he was a starter in Cleveland, he was still a useful piece in Utah.

It’s possible that Sexton starts for the team, but my expectation is they brought him in to be the sixth man. He’ll have a lot of extra value, though, seeing as LaMelo Ball might be immune to playing a full season. If Ball does go down, Sexton could find himself as the starting point guard. The team is probably going to be bad again, but that shouldn’t stop Sexton from stuffing his stat sheet more than he’s been able to the past few seasons.

13. Marcus Smart to the Los Angeles Lakers

While the former Defensive Player of the Year is a bit past his prime, I’m not one to think he’s washed just yet. Injury derailed his time in Memphis, and after a midseason trade to the hapless wizards last year, Smart now gets a chance at a bit of a resurgence in LA. I don’t think he takes this deal without the team offering him a starting role.

For most of his career in Boston, he was forced to be a bit more of an offensive producer than he should have been, but with the Lakers, I expect him to be out there for his defense and to fill in some of Luka’s shortcomings on that end of the ball. He’ll get pulled plenty for Austin Reeves when the team needs more of an offensive spark, but I still expect him to play close to 27-28 minutes per game and probably be good for his career average of about 11 points per game. He’s still a career 32% shooter from 3, and actually showed some of the best shooting percentages of his career in those few games with Washington last year.

The real question will be how the team feels about Dalton Knecht.  They were willing to move him last year when they tried to get a big to pair with Luka. If they aren’t sold on him yet, that could mean more minutes for Smart, but if they feel Knecht is showing more signs of upside, that could eat into Smart’s minutes down the stretch.

12. Bradley Beal to the Los Angeles Clippers

Beal has had a down few years while in Phoenix, seeing a significant drop in his points-per-game during his tenure there. I think that might be a bit overblown, however, as he had never been the third option on a team before, and when the first two options are Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, the leftovers are going to be hard to come by.

Beal was brought in to be a third option again, this time behind James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. With all the uncertainty surrounding Kawhi right now, with the League investigation, Beal could end up having a lot more thrust onto his shoulders than we initially expected.

During his first season as a Sun, Beal achieved the best shooting efficiency of his career, posting 53% from the field and 43% from three-point range. Last season saw some regression, but he still put up 49% and 38% averages, respectively, which are still some of the better numbers for his career. Any talk of his downturn doesn’t take these numbers into account.

What I find more worrisome is that he hasn’t played in more than 60 games since the 2018-2019 season, when he suited up for every game. So, durability is a definite concern.

11. Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks to the Phoenix Suns

The Suns moved on from both Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal this offseason, creating some pretty big shoes to fill on the roster. Jalen Green is going to be the more impactful acquisition, but Brooks is still going to be a big part of this rotation. It will be interesting to see how Green and Devin Booker operate as the 1 and the 2. While I think Book is the better facilitator of the two, they both work better as a scoring option and it could result in some growing pains (not unlike Booker and Beal together).

Brooks will get minutes as he’s going to likely be the main defensive presence on the team, but the 31.8 minutes he averaged last year in Houston is likely a bit higher than what we should expect. Either way, this is going to be a pretty shallow lineup next year and both players will have their value for fantasy, but don’t expect the team to be anywhere near contenders.

10. Jonas Valanciunas to the Denver Nuggets

This move is less about the value for the player that’s coming in, and more about what he brings to the other players on the team, specifically Jokic. Valanciunas moved into a backup role for the first time last season and that’s what I expect him to be in Denver. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spends a decent amount of minutes on the floor with Jokic, though, taking some of the defensive load off his shoulders and allowing him to spread the floor even more.

Overall, I think he’s just going to be a better version of what they’ve had in DeAndre Jordan the past three seasons. They won’t need to rely on him much offensively, but with Jokic drawing the best defenders, that could leave Jonas free to snag boards and putbacks from the paint. In Jordan’s best season with the team (2022, when they won the Championship), he still only averaged 15 minutes per game and 5.1 points. Valanciunas won’t be a star, but he’ll blow those numbers out of the water.

9. Anfernee Simons to the Boston Celtics

It’s really hard to find where to put Simons on this list because we have so little clarity on the situation. The Celtics are saying that they plan on keeping him on the roster, but it’s hard to imagine that he’ll be in Beantown for the entire season, considering he’s on the final year of his contract and the team doesn’t have much in the coffers to re-sign him. Then there’s also the fact that we don’t know what his utilization would be. Will he be the starting shooting guard next to Derrick White, or will he be the sixth man that gets brought in to provide a scoring boost?

If he is actually part of the plan for the season, he will get a lot of opportunities to produce. The Celtics are losing three starters in Jason Tatum, Jrue Holiday, and Kristaps Porzingis, which will create a massive scoring vacuum. It’s not unreasonable to think Simons could be the second or third leading scorer on this team. He put up career highs in pretty much every statistical category two seasons ago, with only minimal regression last season. He has a high motor, is an efficient scorer, and already has experience being a focal point for his team. Plus, as a career 38% three-point shooter, he should fit in perfectly with the offense.

Simons’ biggest competition will come from Peyton Pritchard, with whom he shares a lot of similarities with. Only one of them will start, but it wouldn’t surprise me if both got about 30 minutes per game. Again, this all assumes Simons suits up in Green this season.

8. Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers

When this trade first happened, there were questions about whether or not Jrue would stick around in Portland. After they signed Damian Lillard, who will be out all season recovering from a ruptured Achilles, we got our answer. The plan for Holiday might only be a one-year rental, but it should be a pretty good year.

Portland already has a pair of promising young guards in Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, but both of them are more score-first options, while Holiday embodies a more traditional point guard whose best strength is that of a floor general, finding shots for his teammates. While I don’t think he will be able to match the ceiling that was his time with the Bucks, I think his regression from year 1 in Boston (48%FG, 42% 3p, 12.5ppg, 4.8apg) to year 2 (44%FG, 35% 3p, 11.1ppg, 3.9apg) is a bit overblown.

In that second year, Peyton Pritchard really came into his own, and Derrick White was continuing to play great. Frankly, the Celtics didn’t need Jrue as much, but the Trail Blazers certainly will. His shooting percentages have yo-yo’d his entire career, so the numbers from last year don’t scare me much. My biggest worry is that his motor, which has always been one of his best attributes, might be wearing down, but he’s still closer to his prime than not. Sure, he’s just a bridge until the team can get back to Dame Time, but he’ll be a quality and productive player this season regardless.

7. Cameron Johnson to the Denver Nuggets

Cam is 29 years old and still keeps playing better. He’s one of those dudes who seems to really understand his role and works hard at getting better at that, rather than wanting to be a superstar (more on the opposite type of player when we get to his trade partner). While Johnson doesn’t quite have the offensive firepower that Michael Porter Jr. does, I do think that he is a great improvement defensively.

The team probably felt comfortable with this trade-off as Aaron Gordon somehow keeps getting better at his place from beyond the arc (last year he posted a career high 43% from three, his previous high being 34%). While I expect Gordon to regress from that high, the team was also able to bring in Tim Hardaway Jr. on a minimum deal, which should make up for some of MPJ’s missing offensive presence.

The real key here, though, is defense, as the team also brought back Bruce Brown on a minimum contract. Cam is a great defender both down low and on the wing, plus he doesn’t need the ball in his hands as much as MPJ does, which will allow Jokic to control even more on the offensive side. I don’t see Johnson’s numbers being much different in Denver than they were in Brooklyn, but he was already a fine player ,and he will continue to be very valuable. As a whole, I think that the Nuggets will be a behemoth defensively, and with all of these additions, every other team should be worried going up against them.

6. DeAndre Ayton to the Los Angeles Lakers

The pick and roll will never die. Wait, you need more analysis than that? Alright then, here we go…

In a league where everyone wants to see increasingly guard-like skill sets coming from their bigs, Ayton feels like a relic from another era. No, he’s not going to shoot threes, nor is he going to force the defense to ever spread the floor to guard him out wide. But, when the team has Luka and defenses will have to pick him up near midcourt every possession anyway, that doesn’t matter much. Oh, and there’s this guy named Lebron James that they’ll have to worry about, maybe you’ve heard of him?

The team already tried to bring in Mark Williams last season, who stylistically isn’t that much different from Ayton, maybe a little more athletic but a lot less fundamental. So, the team already knew the type of player they wanted to match with Doncic, and this offseason, they were able to go and get one.

Ayton has long gotten undue criticism for what he can’t do (shoot), rather than getting praise for his strengths. In his seven seasons, he’s never averaged below 10 rebounds or 14 points per game.  You would hope that for someone his size, he would get a few more blocks here and there, but beggars can’t be choosers. He’s going to be a consistent, steady presence in both real life and fantasy.

5. CJ McCollum to the Washington Wizards

While some players on this list are here because of how they’ll elevate their teammates, this one is all about CJ himself. The Wizards’ last winning season was now 9 years ago, and that’s not a streak I expect them to break any time soon.

Despite how bad I expect the team to be, CJ will still put up perfectly fine stats. He was just in New Orleans for the past four years, so it’s not like he’ll be new to playing on a bad team. Since he took over as a starter all the way back in 2015, his numbers haven’t really fluctuated much.  Expect him to put up his same standard of about 45% from the floor, near 40% from beyond the arc, and 20-22 points.

Given the lack of talent around him, that last one could be even a bit higher, simply due to him having to do everything. And if he gets traded? Who cares, he’ll still be the same guy, just in another new city. This one is easy, so I’ll keep it short. You won’t want to watch him play, but you’ll be perfectly happy with him on your team.

4. Michael Porter Jr. to the Brooklyn Nets

As promised, here’s the other side of the Cam Johnson trade. The reason that I put MPJ a few spots higher is just because he should have more opportunities with his new team. The Nets are in full rebuild mode and have an absurd amount of rookies on the team. We’ll see them trying out all kinds of lineups to see what potentially sticks, but Porter should be the offensive focal point in nearly all of them.

Cam Johnson led the team in PPG last season, and that was with more competition than there is now. Like I said earlier, MPJ offers more offensive upside, and now that he’s out of Jokic’s shadow, I think he’ll put up career numbers. He’s talking a plenty big game in the offseason, so let’s hope that he can back it up. Personally, I think he can easily surpass 20ppg, while maintaining or even improving his other base stats as well. Like McCollum, these will be mostly empty box scores, as the Nets are not going to win a bunch this year.

As another fun aside, both he and Cam Johnson come from the same draft class. And while MPJ has received a lot of criticism as an injury-prone player, he’s actually been slightly more reliable than Johnson when it comes to suiting up. As they say, availability is the best ability.

3. Kristaps Porzingis to the Atlanta Hawks

While the term “unicorn” is starting to get thrown around a bit too much to still have any meaning, I think Porzingis still fits the bill. As always, health is the only blight against KP.

Everyone is still going to have a bitter taste in their mouth over his performance in the playoffs last season when a mystery respiratory illness made him look like a shell of himself while on the court. Part of the reason he looked so bad, though, is because of just how good he had been playing prior to that. Last year, he actually set a career high shooting percentage from three, while also nearly posting a career low in turnovers per game. While he was in Boston, he did see a downturn in both rebounds and blocks per game, but part of that has to do with the scheme and keeping him out on the wings more than down low.

In Atlanta, I expect his usage to be more similar to his time in Dallas, playing way more pick and rolls, and spending a bit more time defensively down low. He should still put up great personal numbers, and really could help elevate Atlanta as contenders in the East. For anybody wary of the lingering effects of that illness, I suggest watching his highlights from Eurobasket this summer, where he looked just like his old self.

2. Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic

The Magic took what was probably the biggest swing this summer when they gave up 4(!!!!) first-round draft picks, along with another first-round pick swap, Cole Anthony, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, all for Desmond Bane’s services. Now, in a vacuum, do I believe that Bane is worth all of that? Probably not, but then again, nothing happens in a vacuum.

The Magic were already a very good, very young team, with a burgeoning superstar in Paolo Banchero. Their biggest hole was consistent outside shooting. Cue Bane. He already shoots a career 41% from beyond the arc, has improved as a facilitator, and plays a tough brand of defense. The best part is that at only 27 years old, we likely haven’t really touched his ceiling yet.

Bane could see a slight downtick in scoring with so many mouths to feed in Orlando, but he will make his mark where it counts. Yes, the asking price was a lot, but sometimes you have to put your chips all in if you want to make a run. The Magic could be very good for many years to come with this move.

1. Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets

It’s Kevin Durant, need I say more? Ok: Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant. Boom, he just appeared in Houston.

You don’t need any stats to sell this one. Of all the dudes on this list, he’s the only Superstar. The Rockets were already very good, and now they are adding one of the greatest players to ever walk the Earth. While it didn’t work out exactly as expected in Phoenix, the Rockets were already a better team than the Suns before getting him, and now full-blown contenders with him.

I don’t have any questions about KD this season, other than just how much longer he’ll want to keep doing this. He’ll be 37 at the start of the season, but somehow still playing at an elite level. No, he’s not the best he’s ever been, but 90% Kevin Durant is still better than 99% of everyone else.

*Bonus Round* Luke Kornet to the San Antonio Spurs

While I don’t think he’ll be much for Fantasy, I wanted to include this in here because this man needs his props. He was never in consideration for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, seeing as how he has never averaged more than 18.6 minutes per game (that 18.6 being his career high last year), but statistically speaking, Kornet’s improvement as a player has been nothing short of amazing.

Over his past three seasons in Boston, he’s doubled his assists-per-game, more than doubled his steals-per-game, and practically doubled his rebounds-per-game. Before this second stint with the Celtics (which did technically start at the very end of the 2021-2022 season), he never shot better than 48% from the field in a season. These last three years? 66.5%, 70%, and 66.8%. Sure, he’s still not putting up big numbers, but they show why he was such a hot commodity this summer and one of the first players to get signed.

Kornet won’t be fantasy relevant without a Wembanyama injury, unless your league gives bonus points for two-handed contested shots. He will be impactful, though, because he’s going to make Wemby even better. I don’t expect him to start for the Spurs, but he will share the floor at times with Wembanyama, which will make it even more of a nightmare for opposing teams to try and enter the paint. He’s going to make Wemby better simply by helping share the load a bit on defense, and should also allow for Wemby to space the floor more, just like he did for Porzingis and Horford.

Also, as a totally irrelevant stat that shows the craziness of rookie deals, Kornet will only be making about $2 million less than Wemby this year on their contracts. Crazy world, right?