Injuries have come to dominate the Fantasy landscape over the last few weeks, and we were dealt another big blow Tuesday, as the Washington Post reports John Wall will miss the next 6-8 weeks due to surgery on his left knee. This knee issue has been bothering Wall for years, and he had surgery on it in the 2016 offseason.
That surgery will effectively end Wall's Fantasy season, and it wasn't the only big piece of news to hit the Fantasy hoops community in the past 24 hours: You probably heard by now, but Blake Griffin is a Piston.
With the trade deadline looming, the league landscape could continue shifting, and values will continue to come up. For now, however, you need to know what the impact of these major pieces of news will be. Let's break them down:
Wall out until at least mid-March
This isn't considered a serious surgery for Wall, so that's the good news. There isn't any significant structural damage to repair, but Wall has been managing soreness in the knee since tweaking it early in the season. He has tried to get through the season, receiving various injections and to deal with the swelling and ultimately missing nine games, but the time for half measures has apparently come to an end.
If he returns on the shorter end of the timetable, Wall could be back by the middle of March. Unfortunately, plenty of league playoffs are set to begin in either Week 21 (March 5-11) or Week 22 (March 12-18), so your best hope is to get Wall back sometime around then. If the timetable pushed beyond that … Well, in a Rotisserie league, you could get a few months out of him. He's too valuable to sit, but there's a chance this might spell the end of Wall's season for our purposes.
The Wizards must move on without him, and while there's obviously no replacing a player of Wall's stature, they do have a solid backup in Tim Frazier. Frazier is averaging just 3.3 points and 3.6 assists per game on the season, and wasn't much more productive in 11 starts replacing Wall earlier in the season: He averaged 5.4 points and 4.2 assists per game. However, he also had an unsustainably low 11.8 usage rate, a number we should expect to increase as he takes on a bigger role. He's worth adding in all leagues.
Tomas Satoransky outperformed Frazier in the time Wall missed earlier in the season, averaging 8.4 points and 4.4 assists per game. Frazier has a longer track record of success, but Satoransky is an intriguing pickup as well as the duo will likely split time at point guard.
Of course, the Wizards are likely to run much of their offense through Bradley Beal over the next few months, so expect him to see a boost as well. Kelly Oubre and Otto Porter should be asked to take on more of a scoring load as well, so if Oubre is available in your league, he could be a useful option moving forward as well.
The Pistons acquire Blake Griffin in a six-player trade
This was a whopper. Blake Griffin, Willie Reed, and Brice Johnson to the Pistons. Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, and Boban Marjanovic to the Clippers. Three legitimate Fantasy relevant players moving in one deal is bound to upset the balance in your leagues, right?
Eh, probably not. Griffin is likely going to step into a very similar role in Detroit as he had in Los Angeles. Sure, you might worry about the fit next to Andre Drummond except, well, Griffin's got quite a bit of experience playing next to a lob-catching big man. If anything, you should expect Drummond's surprising improvement as a passer to take a hit next to Griffin, but both should remain very strong Fantasy options.
The Pistons will need someone to step up on the wings – possibly multiple someones. Stanley Johnson is already playing plenty of minutes (26.9 per game) and hasn't done much with them, so you won't want to run out and grab him. However, rookie Luke Kennard is someone to keep an eye on in category-based formats. The 21-year-old is shooting 43.0 percent on 3-pointers, and the Pistons will need some floor spacing with Harris and Bradley out of the picture. He could approach two 3-pointers per game from this point on, and is worth a look.
On the Clippers' side, expect Bradley and Harris to fill largely the same roles they had in Detroit. Maybe Bradley sees a dip in minutes given the Clippers' relative depth in the backcourt, but that's no sure thing -- with Lou Williams mentioned often in trade rumors, this is a team that could look very different in two weeks.
All in all, there isn't much for Fantasy owners to take from this trade, as big as the names involved are. There could be more dominoes yet to fall, but for right now, the status quo seems likely to remain in place in both Detroit and Los Angeles, for the most part.
