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Fantasy Basketball: Will Pablo Prigioni Be Fantasy Relevant In Houston?

By Mike Marteny

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In one of the deals that has a bigger impact in real life than in fantasy, the Houston Rockets acquired PG Pablo Prigioni from the New York Knicks. The full trade looks like this:

The Rockets missed out on both Amare Stoudemire and Goran Dragic, so they settled for K.J. McDaniels and Pablo Prigioni. On the surface, it looks like they made a deal just to make a deal. When you look a little closer, you see why they did it.

Prigioni was not part of the Knicks’ rebuilding plans, so it makes perfect sense to deal him for picks. When you are in the middle of a full rebuild, picks are more valuable than anything else.

Houston gets a reliable veteran backup to Patrick Beverley, who has battled nagging injuries all year long. Prigioni fits the scheme better than the departed Isaiah Canaan or Alexey Shved. He will still battle veteran Jason Terry for minutes, but I would think that he is the primary guy behind Beverley. That makes him a strong candidate to play around 20-25 minutes a game.

If he does that, he will be worth adding in all deep leagues. He is even worth a look in 12 team or larger category leagues because of his ability to shoot from outside. He is also a solid passer, which can provide a small boost in assists.

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The wild card here is Shved. He was a solid fantasy player with the Timberwolves last year after the injury to Ricky Rubio, but has not been able to carve out any meaningful minutes with either the 76ers or Rockets this year. He may get a chance to do that with the Knicks. He is still young enough that he may fit in with the Knicks’ plans if he can do well in his court time. He will still be behind Langston Galloway and Tim Hardaway Jr, but he could see around 20 minutes per game. I would like his chances a whole lot better if the Knicks had dealt Jose Calderon like most of us thought they would.

Shved is not worth adding anywhere right now, but you deep leaguers need to keep a close eye on his minutes going forward. If he does carve out a role on this Knicks team, he will be worth adding to most fantasy rosters. After all, the rebuilding Knicks have turned Cole Aldrich, Jason Smith, Lance Thomas, and Langston Galloway into household names in the fantasy community so far this year.

There you have it! The fantasy impact of all the deadline wheeling and dealing in the NBA. Stay tuned for all of the daily FanDuel lineups!

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