NBA trade deadline week is over, and if that felt like a whirlwind, I can’t argue. But it was more like a weirdwind, too. In so many ways, this was an unorthodox, atypical deadline.
After having just one trade the entire season up until the end of January, the NBA cooked up 28 in the seven days preceding the trade deadline. That shatters the record of 21 set in 2018-19, according to the NBA. Seventy-three players were traded, another record; 27 of the league’s 30 teams made a trade (only the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat sat the week out), and 44 draft picks were exchanged, including 35 second-rounders (all of which went to the Chicago Bulls).
Basically, we can sort things into four types of trades, and here’s where things really get weird.
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The first are the money dumps. We see them every year, but they were more prominent this time around because 14 teams entered the week in the luxury tax (payroll over $187.9 million). By Thursday afternoon, the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic all had wriggled out. Additionally, the Cleveland Cavaliers got out of the second-apron threshold (payroll above $207.8 million), and the Minnesota Timberwolves sharply cut their tax bill with two salary-cutting trades. Even the profligate LA Clippers cut money, although governor Steve Ballmer showed just how little he cares about this concept by having his squad finish a mere $1 million and change over the tax line, both triggering the repeater tax and keeping it in play for more years ahead.
The second type of trades are the type that we might call “pre-agency,” where teams acquired a free-agent-to-be’s Bird rights in hopes of making it easier to manage their salary cap while potentially re-signing them. Again, not a new concept. The Charlotte Hornets’ acquisition of Coby White, Minnesota’s pickup of Ayo Dosunmu, and the Golden State Warriors’ trade for Kristaps Porziņģis all fall under this category.
Notably, however, the third type of trade was virtually invisible this year. In terms of contenders “going for it,” we had one obvious example in the Cavs trading Darius Garland for James Harden … and then all we had was the Los Angeles Lakers trading for Luke Kennard, the New York Knicks getting Jose Alvarado and the Detroit Pistons getting Kevin Huerter. Woof. The Oklahoma City Thunder getting Jared McCain arguably qualifies, too, and if you squint, you can make a case for Vít Krejčí in Portland.
Between tax aprons, the tax itself and the fact that most of the league’s contenders already traded their draft picks a long time ago, most of the contending class was shedding money rather than going for it. They certainly weren’t in a position to make emphatic moves for starting-caliber or All-Star players. Instead, the teams that went all-in were the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Indiana Pacers. What? The teams with three of the bottom-six records in the league as of the deadline? Those were the ones pushing in their chips?
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Yes, and that takes us to a fourth type of trade we saw this year, which, in fact, was the overarching theme of the deadline: The too-late trade.
Never have more teams overplayed more hands for less return. It’s amazing how many players who were traded this week should have been moved months or years earlier and instead brought back 11 cents on the dollar.
Trae Young, the year’s first trade domino and one the Atlanta Hawks had been noodling over moving for years, went for basically expiring money and a stealth salary dump of Corey Kispert’s extension.
The Dallas Mavericks should have traded Anthony Davis the day they won the Cooper Flagg lottery; whatever they got for him this summer, it surely would have been more than “salary relief and the 30th pick in the draft.” Alas, the Mavs needed to replace Nico Harrison’s “vision” with something less blindered before they could move on from Davis. All they did was win too many games for half a year while watching his trade value wither.
That, in turn, explains how the Wizards could go in for those players; it barely cost them anything. The biggest expense might be the fine for potentially holding them out of March and April games with “back spasms” while the Wizards keep their top-eight protected first-round pick.
Elsewhere, remember when the Warriors were haggling with the Kings over first-round pick protection on a Jonathan Kuminga trade? That was a time. Golden State ended up with no draft picks and only Porziņģis’ Bird rights out of the eventual Kuminga swap with Atlanta, along with dumping $3 million of guaranteed money to Buddy Hield if they weren’t going to keep him next year. (At least Kuminga’s saga is now over; this trade wins the Ben Simmons Memorial Thank-Goodness-This-Is-Finally-Over Award for 2026.)
And then we have the Bulls. Sigh. Chicago finally pivoted into a hard rebuild right after the Bulls had already won too many games to make it likely to get a top-four pick in a loaded draft. They also waited so long to trade Dosunmu, White, Alex Caruso, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević, and they amazingly received zero first-round picks for them. Waiting until White and Dosunmu only had two months left on their deals was particularly egregious; you could see their free-agency train coming a mile away.
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In keeping with the theme, the Bulls do seem positioned for a hard tank the next two seasons … just in time for 2027 and 2028 draft classes that many scouts think are some of the weakest in years. It remains unclear why the Bulls didn’t try to be bad for the 2025 and 2026 classes as well, instead of chasing the Play-In Tournament.
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But wait, there’s more: We also have the guys who weren’t traded at all. Forget Giannis Antetokounmpo, we can go way deeper. In a sea of trades, somehow Ja Morant, Domantas Sabonis, Andrew Wiggins, Cam Thomas and DeRozan didn’t change teams … because the time to move them had long passed, and their value had shriveled to zero.
The Memphis Grizzlies’ non-trade of Morant stood out most. Morant was once considered untouchable in Memphis; now the rest of the league considers him untouchable, but only because he’s radioactive. Ironically, as longtime Memphis columnist Geoff Calkins pointed out on social media this week, Morant’s lack of reliability forced the Grizzlies to trade the two guys they could count on (Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr.) and completely start over. That’s how Utah could push chips in at this odd moment (even with its own top-eight protected pick to keep tanking for) and take advantage to acquire Jackson.
Memphis, by the way, still has to figure out how to move Morant and the two years and $87 million left on his deal after this season, even if it’s not at all clear how they can soft tank the rest of this season and still improve his trade value.
However, the pièce de résistance, the cherry on the trade deadline sundae (or Thursday?) was the Brooklyn Nets cutting Thomas immediately after the deadline. How many chances did they have to get something for him in the last five years?
So yeah, you never want to trade a player too soon. But there’s a real cost to trading them too late.
With that said, let’s get to some of my other trade deadline superlatives:
Best decisions to cut bait: Sixers
Oklahoma City’s trade for Jared McCain was shrewd; with a huge tax bill coming in future seasons, the Thunder needed a cost-controlled player on a rookie deal, and one who can make open shots. It’s easy to imagine them putting McCain into Isaiah Joe’s role as Designated Sixers Castoff Bench Shooter and moving off Joe and one or two other vets to ease their tax burden and impending roster crunch. They need spots just to absorb their future first-round picks.
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Nonetheless, Philly made the right choice. McCain’s value was never going to be higher as a Sixer, because he was the fourth guard behind Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes, and even if Grimes left as a free agent, he’d always be stuck behind the other two. Additionally, the league has frowned in general on smallish, combo-guard offensive players; acquiring a late first-rounder and three good seconds for McCain is a pretty solid return in that light. As long as he was in Philly, his trade value was only going to decline.
Best rappel out of luxury tax: Celtics
Boston made three different trades to extricate itself all the way out of the tax — the Celtics will end up clearing it by just a few dollars — including a particularly inventive one with Utah. The Celtics traded Anfernee Simons for Vučević to cut their $12 million overage roughly in half, and that’s when the real fun began. Swapping out the minimum deals of Josh Minott, Xavier Tillman and Chris Boucher weren’t complicated maneuvers, but figuring out how to replace them was.
The league requires teams to carry at least 12 players at all times and to have 14 for all but 14 days of the season. So the Celtics were left with three empty roster spots to fill; signing a veteran into those spots would have carried them right back over the tax. Even signing an undrafted rookie would have cost the same in the league’s tax calculation.
The exception, however, is something called a “draft rookie” — a drafted player who is in his first season at the league minimum. Those players count against the luxury tax for barely half the amount that a veteran does. If Boston could somehow fill all three spots with “draft rookies,” at least for a short time, it would just barely skirt the tax.
Two of those rookies were already on hand in Amari Williams and Max Shulga, both of whom are currently on two-way deals. But Boston needed a third. Enter the trade of Boucher to Utah for the rights to two-way John Tonje, the 53rd pick in the 2025 draft.
Whether Tonje is actually any good at basketball scarcely matters; the key was that he gave the Celtics another draft rookie. It cost them a future second to unload Boucher and get Tonje back, but now Boston is out of the tax and can stay out; in fact, the Celtics can even add a veteran in the buyout market later this season once Tonje has burned some clock with a low-cost presence in that 14th spot.
If Boston stays out of the luxury tax again next year, the Celtics will reset the clock on the repeater tax; even if they don’t, they avoided a stiff repeater tax this year without materially impacting their basketball team.
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Most abrupt exit: James Harden
Houston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, the Clippers. Are you seeing a pattern? James Harden bailed again, this time exiting LA just as it was in a stretch of winning 14 out of 17. Instead, he eyed greener pastures in Cleveland, where he’d possibly be more likely to win a title and certainly would be more likely to get an extension.
Harden’s $43 million player option for next season gave him some security; even though only $13 million of it is guaranteed, it’s unfathomable that the Clippers would cut him after the year he’s having. Nonetheless, being able to opt out and sign a new deal in Cleveland this summer (he was not extension eligible) seemed his preference. It could help Cleveland, too, if he takes less money in 2026-27 and also entices Donovan Mitchell to extend his own deal (he has a player option of 2027-28).
For instance, a three-year, $110 million deal for Harden would likely allow the Cavs to stay below the second apron (and thus unfreeze the 2033 first-round pick that will get frozen this June) without needing to inflict too much pain on the rest of the roster. Such a move would allow Harden to stay with Mitchell in Cleveland until he quits on them too until the 2028-29 season, when Harden would be 39.
The one question for the Cavs is whether they took on too much age risk by going 10 years older in the Garland-Harden swap. It’s fair to ask if this was the old adage that, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Harden was virtually the only quality guard in the entire league where a straight-up swap with Garland worked despite tax apron restrictions on both sides. And arguments about Harden as a ceiling-raiser fall a bit flat when one looks at his playoff history.
But the positive case seems stronger. The Cavs are trying to contend right now and just couldn’t count on Garland to stay healthy. Also, Harden may fit this roster better. He’s hardly anyone’s idea of a great defender, but his size and strength negate the Cavs’ issue of having two small guards and constantly trying to hide them on defense. Cleveland just needs him to be its third-best player for two seasons. That feels doable.
Best pickup for free: Atlanta’s Jock Landale
Desperate for size due to Porziņģis’ lack of availability and a season-ending injury to third center N’Faly Dante, Atlanta somehow parachuted into the Utah-Memphis trade for Jackson and came away with productive center Jock Landale. He immediately delivered 26 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and four blocks in a close win over that same Jazz team (when it comes to tanking, that is some serious three-dimensional chess by Utah). Amazingly, all it cost the Hawks was minimal cash considerations.
Best confirmation of a terrible extension: Jakob Poeltl
How many moves would have been available to the Raptors if they had simply not extended Jakob Poeltl for three years and $62 million in additional guaranteed money this summer? Every entreaty by the Raptors to improve their frontcourt basically hit the same roadblock of no team wanting Poeltl’s contract; in the apron era, you simply can’t have $26 million in nonperforming money across multiple seasons, and the concern is that, if Poeltl is already this at age 30, what is he going to look like at 33?
If Poeltl had just stayed on his original deal, with a player option for $19 million this season, Toronto likely could have been in the market to flip him for Ivica Zubac or Sabonis or another quality center to cement its otherwise pleasantly surprising roster. Instead, Poeltl has become one of the league’s most untradeable players.