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Let’s make a Super Bowl prediction for this weekend! I’ll go with the Seattle Seahawks winning 23-21, with Kenneth Walker III as the Super Bowl MVP. I also expect to eat 30 wings, a few slices of pizza and be wildly uncomfortable the rest of the day.
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Trade Deadline
Who made the best and worst moves?
The NBA trade floodgates opened up over the last few days. We ended up with nearly 30 trades for the 2025-26 season. There have to be winners, and there have to be losers. Let’s name ’em!
Winner: The theoretical Wizards
Probably the most valuable trade pieces Washington gave up in acquiring both Anthony Davis and Trae Young were a 34-year old CJ McCollum and a top-20 protected Warriors first-round pick in 2030. That’s not bad. The idea of this Wizards team is pretty intriguing. AD helping Alex Sarr get to the next level. Young making scoring easier for Sarr, Tre Johnson and Kyshawn George. But … are we sure both All-Stars will actually play much for this team? Is AD going to try to work a trade to a new home this summer? Will Young suit up this season? Will these two see time together at any point? It’s a great idea, in theory.
Loser: Bulls
After the deadline, the majority of the internet was making fun of the Bulls for fielding so many 6-foot-3 guards. Their only big men are Zach Collins and Jalen Smith. Some of these guards could be good. I like Jaden Ivey and Collin Sexton. We still don’t know the plan for the Bulls, other than touting second-round picks.
Winner: Jonathan Kuminga
He got away from Steve Kerr and to a front office that believes in him. Hawks executive Onsi Saleh was working for the Warriors when they drafted Kuminga. At worst, Kuminga will get a shot to show Kerr he messed up by not trusting him to play over guys like Gui Santos, Will Richard and Pat Spencer.
Winner: Timberwolves
Grabbing Ayo Dosunmu without really having to give up anybody valuable in their rotation is a massive win for the Wolves. Dosunmu is the exact type of guard they need. It means relying less on Bones Hyland and having an impact 3-and-D guard. Plus, they’re probably signing Mike Conley back for the locker room presence.
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Loser: Pistons
I really wanted the Pistons (37-13) to be aggressive by the deadline because the East is so open. They swapped Ivey for Kevin Huerter. The Knicks got better. The Celtics got better. The Cavs got … different? Pistons didn’t improve at all.
Winner: Pacers
Yes, they gave up Bennedict Mathurin and two first-round picks (possibly this year’s if it’s in the 5-to-9 range), but to get Ivica Zubac as the big man of the future is huge. Tyrese Haliburton will be back next season, and Zubac is a great center to tie it all together.
Loser: Star point guards
Young went for McCollum and Corey Kispert. No draft compensation. Ja Morant had no market and couldn’t even get Sacramento to trade for him. Not great for mid-20s star point guards.
Winner: Celtics
Anfernee Simons found his groove with the Celtics (33-18), but they desperately needed some interior help. Getting Nikola Vučević for Simons while also lowering the luxury tax bill was brilliant. Plus, they might get some of that perimeter scoring back with Jayson Tatum.
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Check it out: Joe Vardon gave his winners and losers of the deadline.
The last 24
⏪ Be kind, rewind. Every year, I look back on the previous year’s trade deadline. Bad news for Dallas.
🗣️ My bad? Kerr spoke about the Kuminga experience. “Definitely things I could have done better.”
🗽 Title time? The Knicks got the backup guard they wanted at the deadline. Is this their championship push?
✏️ What didn’t happen. We always grade the trades that happened. I graded the non-trades, including Giannis and Ja.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
Insider trading
Hollinger takes us behind the curtain
How do we get those trade final decisions and press releases?
Luckily, we have a front-office secret weapon at The Athletic. John Hollinger isn’t just one of the best in the business at analyzing the league. He also spent seven seasons in the Memphis Grizzlies front office as the vice president of basketball operations. So he really knows how the sausage is made.
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I asked John for a little look behind the scenes on how deals come to be and what the call with the league is like to verify said trades. He took time out of watching Vit Krejčí tribute videos to give some great insight.
You’ve been in the throes of a trade call with another team. What’s it like going through the stages of getting a deal agreed to?
John: I once got a deal done in a single, one-sentence call, 10 minutes before the trade deadline.
That is a glaring exception. Usually, it’s a much more extended dance that involves repeatedly checking in with teams on who is available, what they’re looking to do and what their price points are on various players. Complicating this matter is that everyone lies until about 48 hours before the trade deadline.
Typically, the conversations aren’t GM to GM; the second- and third-in-command guys — assistant GMs or VPs or whatever title inflation has them calling themselves now — from one team are calling the ones they’re friendly with on other teams to dig and get this information.
The GMs are more likely to get involved late, or sometimes a bit sooner if it’s a major deal. If it’s trading Marc Gasol, the GM is going to be running that show. If it’s “the rights to Ricky Sanchez for Dexter Pittman and cash,” yeah, they’re OK letting Hollinger handle that one.
Once the deal is agreed to, what is the official trade call with the league like?
John: Much less arduous than it used to be. In the past, the league office would read an absolute mountain of boilerplate legalese that would cause the call to take up to 30 minutes. Now, it’s over in a fraction of that time.
Teams can’t send any news releases or have their officials comment publicly on a trade until the trade call completes. Basically, the call certifies the terms of the deal, the fact the two sides have exchanged medical information and the terms and timing of any cash payments that might be involved.
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A league official reads out the terms of each player’s contract. Each team also reads aloud any medical conditions the player they’re trading has had that they’re aware of (even though this was already exchanged), which is the most tedious part. Then each team verifies to the league that there were no side deals or other arrangements.
Finally, the two teams agree on timing for players to complete physicals and teams to approve them, which is usually 48 hours. Sometimes teams will agree to waive physicals entirely — usually in money deals — in which case the trade is certified as completed immediately.
Otherwise, the trade isn’t certified as final until the players have reported to their new teams, completed a physical and it is approved by the team. Players in the final year of their deals, and their agents, also have to sign a certification that there were no side deals for the year(s) beyond. That’s why players often take two to three days before they appear in a game with their new teams.
Read John’s column on the best and worst of this year’s trade deadline.
What the Buck?
Strange reactions from Giannis, Milwaukee
As expected, the Bucks did not trade Giannis Antetokounmpo … yet. They did their intel-gathering by taking trade calls for what packages are available now and what they might look like in June. And now they’ll wait for Giannis to get back from his right calf injury before trying to fight their way into the Play-In Tournament. Bucks fans were happy to not see Giannis go yet, and yet something curious happened.
The Bucks were … gloating? Giannis was … pretending? The social media and news conference performance by the Bucks, Doc Rivers and Giannis was just a bizarre way to handle the aftermath of the deadline.
First, the Bucks tweeted out a “yawn” emoji with about 2 1/2 hours left in the deadline.
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Then, Rivers addressed the media to “give a Giannis update.” That update was that he’s coaching in the All-Star weekend Celebrity Game, where our old friend and current ESPN reporter Shams Charania will be playing on Giannis’ team. Doc made a joke that Giannis was putting Shams on the trading block. He thought he killed it with that joke, but it was not good. Didn’t even get the forced laughter from the media.
Then Giannis tweeted out “Legends don’t stray. They attract,” with the scene from “The Wolf of Wall Street” where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character decides not to step down from his company. The character will later get arrested and federally indicted for a bunch of crimes. This part is confusing because … the Bucks are going to trade Giannis this summer. That’s the whole point of taking the trade calls now!
Can you have a victory lap if everybody outside of Milwaukee is just going to point to this odd moment in four months when you move your star player for hopefully a massive trade package? He wants to be there, but not on the roster that can’t even compete with Chicago and Charlotte for the Play-In Tournament. And that’s the only roster they’ve got. They got their intended engagement, so I guess good for them? Just feels like an odd way to handle the situation.