The NBA’s trade deadline was expected to be quiet. Until a week ago, there had been only one trade all season.
Then the floodgates broke open.
No, there wasn’t a reprisal of last season’s true stunner, when Luka Doncic was moved from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of the night. But there was a lot of movement across the league — much of it coming in unexpected ways.
As several star players — including Trae Young, Anthony Davis, Jaren Jackson Jr., James Harden and Darius Garland — changed teams, three main themes to this trade deadline’s activity emerged, beginning with the ongoing Giannis Antetokounmpo drama that will now likely extend into the summer, and possibly beyond.
Giannis is still a Buck … now what?
For the past several weeks, virtually every conversation that took place with sources around the NBA included one question:
Will Giannis Antetokounmpo get moved?
But for all the discussion of the two-time MVP changing teams this week, it wasn’t a shock to the league when the Milwaukee Bucks signaled midday Thursday that they were moving on to other pieces of business.
“It isn’t a surprise this was one of the outcomes,” an Eastern Conference executive told ESPN, “and this was probably a more than 50% likely outcome.”
That outcome means the ongoing debate about Antetokounmpo’s future will continue into the summer and possibly beyond; he can sign a contract extension on Oct. 1. Antetokounmpo put his own spin on things with a social media post shortly after the 3 p.m. ET deadline that included a famous clip from “The Wolf of Wall Street,” with Leonardo DiCaprio’s character shouting, “I’m not f—ing leaving!”
But, as one executive said later Thursday, “You know, in the movie, he left.”
In a similar saga last season, the Phoenix Suns discussed trading Kevin Durant at the deadline before finally moving him in the summer. The Boston Celtics did the same with Paul Pierce in 2013, before sending him and Kevin Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets in a blockbuster deal a few months later.
Despite some desire for Giannis Watch to be over, the Bucks also earned some praise for how they’ve handled it.
“I think they’re a winner for doing nothing,” an East scout said. “They got all the information on the situation that they could, and they can go out and make a deal later.”
And none of the top suitors — the Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks — did anything at the deadline that would prevent an Antetokounmpo blockbuster this offseason. Other teams could easily join them.
For Milwaukee, there was no opportunity cost for waiting, but there will likely be some uncomfortable conversations ahead if Antetokounmpo wants to play the final stretch of the season after returning from his calf injury.
The Bucks will almost certainly be out of the playoff chase by then, and the team is trying to maximize its draft position. (Antetokounmpo has had four different lower leg injuries in the past 18 months and has a prime opportunity to get his body right, particularly with no international competitions this summer.)
Bad teams are planning ahead
It is rather remarkable that during a trade deadline that saw big names get moved, the only star who wound up on a current playoff team was Harden. Instead, the dominant theme of the deadline was the lottery-bound Utah Jazz (Jackson), Washington Wizards (Davis and Young) and Indiana Pacers (center Ivica Zubac) loading up to improve in 2026-27.
The Wizards and Jazz deals were announced Wednesday, while the deal that sent Zubac from the LA Clippers to the Pacers for guard Bennedict Mathurin and two first-round picks is one of the more fascinating in recent history.
One of the two picks the Clippers will receive is the Pacers’ unprotected selection in 2029. The other has unique protections: If it lands anywhere in Nos. 5-9, it will go to the Clippers; if it lands in the top four or Nos. 10-30, it stays with Indiana and the Clippers will instead get an unprotected 2031 pick.
This led to a wide-ranging debate among several sources Thursday afternoon over what the Pacers would do the rest of this season.
Indiana could try to stay in the top three of the lottery odds and have a slightly better than 50% chance of keeping its pick. That comes with the risk, however, of losing a mid-lottery pick in a loaded draft.
1:16
Clippers trading center Ivica Zubac to Indiana Pacers
Shams Charania reports the Los Angeles Clippers are trading center Ivica Zubac to the Indiana Pacers.
Indiana could instead try to win games. With Zubac, Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, an excellent coach in Rich Carlisle and a host of tanking teams alongside them in the standings, it is doable.
The Pacers in this scenario would try to get to 10th in the lottery standings, where they would have a 100% chance of keeping the pick and an 11% chance of jumping into the top four, something that has happened in two of the past three years from 10 or lower (Atlanta from 10th in 2023, and Dallas from 11th this past year).
“If it was me, I would tank and get the best possible odds at the high pick,” one East executive said. “But if they choose to get to 10, I think they could.”
There actually wasn’t much debate about whether Indiana could get to 10th — it’s quite the indictment of the impending tank race, given the Pacers enter Friday’s game in Milwaukee with a 13-38 record. Instead, the debate was over whether Indiana would.
Either way, adding Zubac came at a premium, particularly in comparison to what Washington gave up to take on Anthony Davis. Washington gave up what likely will be the 30th pick this year, plus a top-20-protected pick from the Warriors in 2030.
The difference is that Zubac is four years younger than Davis and will make a combined $40 million over the next two seasons. Davis is on the books for $120 million.
“I don’t blame Washington for the entry cost to get Trae and AD, it’s basically nothing,” a Western Conference scout said. “The quality of the picks makes a huge difference. You can’t say two picks for AD and two picks for Zubac and think they are the same.”
One lottery-bound team that couldn’t make a move it hoped to was Memphis, which wound up keeping Ja Morant through the deadline.
And while there was mild surprise leaguewide that Morant stayed put after weeks of speculation, the Grizzlies struggled to find a deal they felt strongly about. (Miami was a rumored destination, but the Heat were not a real option, according to sources.)
“I just never saw where [Morant] was going to land,” a West executive said.
Perhaps Morant can rebuild his value over the final months of the season, but the Grizzlies will be heavily incentivized to join the tanking teams — a group that is expected to grow to the point that several sources expect the league to soon look at adjustments to curb the annual race to the bottom.
“It’s going to be a brutal, ugly race,” an East executive said. “So many good players will be sitting out. … It’s going to be a story every single night.”
Teams at the top largely stood pat
Among the 10 teams with the league’s best records entering Thursday, only one traded a first-round pick for a player: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That’s not to say the NBA’s top teams weren’t active this week. The Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns all ducked the luxury tax. The Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors, who are just outside the league’s top 10 records, did too.
And Minnesota saved significant money by trading Mike Conley and a pick swap. (Conley, though, seems likely to return to Minnesota after getting traded a second time and waived Thursday.)
1:09
Windy: James Harden trade ‘all about money’
Brian Windhorst breaks down the Clippers trading James Harden to the Cavaliers for Darius Garland.
But largely, teams at the top lacked trade assets, waited on a potential Antetokounmpo deal, or felt the constraints of the luxury tax and its aprons.
“These aprons are tough to build around,” a West scout said. “It means teams are going to have to negotiate harder moving forward.”
But, as a result, so many of these teams at the top are heading into the postseason largely as they were constructed at the start of the season. With that inactivity comes questions about what will happen when those teams begin falling short of their stated goals.
Cleveland, addressing concerns about Donovan Mitchell‘s future beyond 2026-27, the final guaranteed year of his contract, traded for Harden.
The Conley move saved Minnesota money as it worked hard to get into the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes with minimal assets, only to add a nice depth player in Ayo Dosunmu from the Chicago Bulls. But that deal meant moving on from Rob Dillingham, the No. 8 pick in 2024 whom the Wolves traded up to select.
The Detroit Pistons, who added much-needed shooting in their deal for Kevin Huerter, are facing the restricted free agency of first-time All-Star center Jalen Duren. The Knicks face massive pressure after firing coach Tom Thibodeau in the offseason, but their only move was essentially replacing the now-injured Miles McBride with New Orleans Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado.
Those stakes could set up an unpredictable race to the Finals. And with so many trade sagas still unresolved, perhaps an even wilder summer.
