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The 10 Best NBA Players Who Changed Teams This Offseason – Bleacher Report
When hoop historians look back upon the 2023 NBA offseason, they may not remember it as a splash-filled summer of dramatic changes.
Now, the trade market could change that yet—trade requests from Damian Lillard and James Harden are still outstanding—but so far, we haven’t seen the cosmic shifts the basketball gods sometimes put into play. Well, not in trades or free agency, that is. (The arrival of a basketball-playing alien is a different discussion.)
We have, however, seen several notable hoopers change teams this season. And, through a combination of statistical analysis and the old, reliable eye test, we can spotlight—and rank—the 10 best players to switch uniforms this summer by way of trades or free-agency signings.
If we were merely using advanced analytics for this discussion, Jordan Poole might not even get an honorable mention. Almost none of the stats providers were fans of his 2022-23 season. RAPTOR, for instance, had him tied for 236th among the 250 players who logged at least 1,137 minutes.
So, why select him? Because his scoring prowess is significant (career-high 20.4 points per game this past season), and he could be primed for a bounce-back campaign now that he’s out of Golden State’s shadow (and away from Draymond Green’s right hand).
Yes, Poole’s shot-selection can be ambitious, his handle can be loose and his defensive attention can be…uh…inattentive. Still, at 24 years old, he pairs slithery dribble moves with deep, pull-up shooting to form quite the point-producing package. In terms of traditional, per-game averages, his 2023-24 numbers could rank among the best of everyone on this list.
Honorable mentions: Dillon Brooks, Houston Rockets; Jevon Carter, Chicago Bulls; John Collins, Utah Jazz; Jock Landale, Houston Rockets; Monte Morris, Detroit Pistons; Obi Toppin, Indiana Pacers; Gabe Vincent, Los Angeles Lakers
Donte DiVincenzo had to settle for a prove-it pact when he hit free agency in 2022, since he hadn’t quite looked the same since injuring his ankle in the 2021 playoffs.
He then promptly proved his worth to the Warriors—averaging their most steals (1.3), fourth-most assists (3.5) and sixth-most minutes (26.3)—and wound up rewarded with a four-year, $46.9 million contract from the Knicks.
Even with the pay hike, it’s easy to imagine the 26-year-old will have no trouble earning his keep.
“He’s the type of player who can do everything,” Jalen Brunson, DiVincenzo’s college teammate, told reporters. “He wants to win, he’s doing whatever it takes to win.”
DiVincenzo may not have a standout skill, but his ability to adapt to however his team needs him is a critically important trait for a high-end role player. He is an effortless defender who can spark an offense with transition attacks, timely triples and secondary playmaking.
The 2022-23 season was a strange one for Grant Williams, who saw his role reduced—and sometimes eliminated—under first-year Boston Celtics skipper Joe Mazzulla.
We’re still willing to give Williams some benefit of the doubt here, though, since we have seen the impact he can make on winning at a high level.
He is, at worst, a three-and-D power forward who can slide up or down a spot in spurts. He has also shown flashes as a screener, dribble-handoff playmaker and post scorer to suggest he can grow out of this (valuable) niche role.
The 24-year-old can defend multiple positions and owns a 40.3 percent three-point splash rate over the past two seasons. No wonder he’s been credited with a healthy 9.5 win shares during this stretch, a top-90 mark overall and the seventh-best tally among players with 50 or fewer starts.
An offseason trade from the Memphis Grizzlies to the Wizards should have Tyus Jones on track to become a full-time starter for the first time in his career. Chances are, he won’t need much time to show he should have found his way into a starting lineup long before.
He was, perhaps, the single biggest reason why the Grizzlies not only survived but also sometimes thrived without All-Star point guard Ja Morant the past few seasons. Jones might not be the same caliber of scorer, but he is a brilliant ball-mover who has perpetually improved as an outside shooter.
Maestros might be in awe of the way the 27-year-old conducts things on the court. He essentially plays mistake-free basketball (career 3.9 assists against only 0.7 turnovers per game), and he’s becoming even harder to defend with a more reliable three-ball (37.9 percent over the past two seasons).
This should be the year in which the NBA’s best backup point guard becomes a rock-solid (or better) starter.
The Pacers threw a ton of cash at Bruce Brown this summer (two years, $45 million—team option on the second season), and it’s possible he won’t live up to the paycheck. His impact can be subtle, and he doesn’t play the kind of game that always reaches the stat sheet.
Still, Indiana forked over that fortune for a reason. He is quietly among the best Swiss Army knives in basketball, a two-way connector who can make his presence felt in nearly all facets.
Brown defends multiple positions, rebounds, attacks off the dribble, cuts off the ball, races in transition, feeds open teammates and sinks spot-up threes. He doesn’t tap into the entirety of that exhaustive list every night, but the fact that he can access so many different elements of the game highlights his value as a do-it-all glue guy.
While it will take time getting used to seeing Marcus Smart in anything other than the Boston Celtics’ green-and-whites, he sort of feels right at home with the grit-and-grind Grizzlies.
His defensive tenacity is top-notch—he was 2021-22’s Defensive Player of the Year—and his fearlessness could be a valuable tone-setter for this up-and-coming club.
“It’s great to have someone like that who can play both ends, who’s been in a championship environment,” Memphis star Jaren Jackson Jr. told reporters. “We know what he brings to a team, that passion, that heart, and he knows a lot about the game as well. His mind is gonna be working great for the locker room, all that type of stuff.”
Smart’s playmaking is underrated (6.3 assists against 2.3 turnovers this past season), but his sporadic scoring does put a cap on his impact. For his career, he has managed just 10.6 points in 30 minutes per game to go along with an equally uninspiring 38.6/32.3/77.7 shooting slash.
It’s a testament to his defense, distributing and leadership that the 29-year-old still ranks this high even with clear offensive limitations.
Chris Paul might be on the decline. And if he wound up on the open market, he certainly wouldn’t collect the $30.8 million he’s set to receive this season.
Still, being overpaid isn’t relevant to this discussion. And being a lesser form of what he once was only does so much damage to his ranking when he’s coming down from such a lofty position on the hoops hierarchy.
Stardom might forever be behind the 38-year-old, but solid-dom is right in his wheelhouse. While this past season may have been the least productive of his career, he still went for 13.9 points and 8.9 assists per night with just 1.9 turnovers and a 44/37.5/83.1 shooting slash.
In doing so, Paul became just the third player ever to average at least 13 points and eight assists with two or fewer giveaways per game.
Bradley Beal is a tremendous offensive talent. If that was all we were evaluating, he might be a lock for the No. 1 spot.
He has tailed off a bit since posting back-to-back 30-plus-point scoring seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21, but that just means he’s gone from being a great scorer to a very good one. Throw in his above-average distributing (5.5 assists per outing over the past five seasons), and you’ll find a stat sheet like few others. Over the past two seasons, he’s one of just 10 players to average at least 23 points, five assists and 1.5 three-pointers.
Two obstacles prevent him from ranking any higher, though.
The first is leaky defense. Perhaps not having to carry such a heavy offensive load in Phoenix will allow the 30-year-old to give better effort on the game’s less glamorous end, but we’ll need to see it before we believe it.
The second is his so-so efficiency. For an offensive specialist with a fiery jumper, his percentages don’t quite land high enough. Among the 28 players to average at least 23 points over the past two seasons, only four have a worse true shooting percentage than Beal’s mark of 56.8.
Fred VanVleet may not have as much name recognition as Beal and Paul, but what he lacks in stature, he makes up for with substance. He has filled a key role on a championship team and masterfully handled floor-general duties at both ends.
His lack of size (6’0″, 197 lbs) can be a hindrance at times, most notably torpedoing his two-point shooting percentage (career 43.4). Yet, he adds so much as an on-ball defender, outside shooter and on-or-ball offensive weapon that he has proved time and again, he can overcome any physical limitations.
The Toronto Raptors fared better with him than without in six of his seven seasons north of the border, and the net differential for his entire tenure was a robust plus-4.0 points per 100 possessions.
VanVleet isn’t a superstar—despite the Rockets paying him like one—but he has just about everything you could want in an undersized lead guard. His statistical impact didn’t reach quite as high as the No. 1 player on our list, but he did pace all players in this exercise in the RAPTOR (plus-5.0) and LEBRON (3.25) catch-all metrics.
Some might scoff at this selection, and if Kristaps Porziņģis can’t stay healthy, that skepticism could prove warranted. But last season was a testament to the supersized impact a healthy Porziņģis can make, and we’re hoping that’s a sign of better luck to come on the medical front.
The 2022-23 campaign was essentially a reminder about his unicorn-like blend of size and skills. In 65 games—the most he’d played since 2016-17—Porziņģis scored, swished and swatted his way to full-fledged stardom. While he didn’t get an All-Star nod, he did receive top-20 rankings in player efficiency rating (23.1, 17th), estimated plus/minus (plus-5.1, 18th) and box plus/minus (4.3, 19th). He also posted the league’s second-ever stat line featuring at least 23 points, eight rebounds, two three-pointers and 1.5 blocks.
While injuries threatened to throw his entire career off-track at one point, this was (hopefully) a sign that it’s suddenly full steam ahead for the 7’3″ center. If he’s anywhere near this productive with the championship-chasing Celtics, he could wind up booking his first All-Star trip since 2018 or, in a best-case scenario, even challenging for his first All-NBA honor.
Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference, NBA.com, Dunks & Threes, FiveThirtyEight and BBall-Index.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.