NBA trade buzz and intel – Next in the Butler saga, Nets moves
As the NBA world steps into 2025, and into the final five weeks before the Feb. 6 trade deadline, trade discussions around the league will officially kick into gear.
And while there have been a couple of deals so far — both involving the rebuilding Brooklyn Nets — it remains to be seen whether any superstar moves are going to happen, or whether there will be a series of smaller deals between now and the deadline.
Plenty is happening on the court, too. The West-leading Oklahoma City Thunder begin a four-game stretch against the Eastern Conference’s top three teams; the New York Knicks on Friday, the defending champion Boston Celtics on Sunday and the NBA-leading Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday before another meeting with New York on Jan. 10.
Let’s get into what other trades could be coming for Brooklyn, the latest in the Jimmy Butler-Miami Heat saga — stoked by Thursday night’s news that Butler wants a trade out of Miami — and why the Knicks and Golden State Warriors have league GMs, executives and scouts buzzing for different reasons.
Jump to intel:
Next steps in the Butler-Heat saga
More deals coming for Brooklyn?
Execs on Knicks’ run | Warriors’ slide
Why scouts are buzzing about the Cavs
What’s next in the Jimmy Butler-Pat Riley standoff?
Windhorst: Butler is in a slow-moving chess game with the Heat, and the latest maneuver came Thursday when, after dancing around the issue for several weeks, he directly made it clear to the Heat front office he wants to be traded.
Here is where the rest of the NBA, especially teams that would have interest in trading for Butler, have their popcorn out. There is no executive in American sports like Pat Riley, as his Heat front office operates with a bluntness and strength toward star players that is not of this era.
When rival teams saw the statement Riley released last week openly declaring the Heat would not be trading their franchise player, there was widespread reaction to the unorthodox but classic Riley move — and to what could come next in this saga.
“That is how you project strength as an organization,” one general manager told me.
Added a prominent agent: “You cannot intimidate Pat Riley.”
Bontemps: The focus was on the court Wednesday night, when Butler returned for the first time in nearly two weeks against the last-place New Orleans Pelicans.
But while Butler played, it wasn’t exactly a commanding performance. Across 25 minutes, Butler had nine points on 3-for-5 shooting in Miami’s 119-108 win and didn’t play in the fourth quarter. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said postgame that he “went with the group there in the fourth that was giving us the most and to see if that group could close it out.”
Multiple sources from around the league who watched the game thought Butler looked disengaged. He missed badly on a one-legged corner 3-pointer in the first quarter, didn’t score until the end of the first half and had a usage rate of 12%.
Then came Thursday’s loss to the Indiana Pacers, during which Butler was minus-27 in 27 minutes and then declared after the game that he “wants to find his joy again.”
Can he do that in Miami? “Probably not,” he told reporters.
Windhorst: Riley has long been unafraid to tell his star players no. In 2010, when LeBron James hinted he wanted Riley to replace coach Erik Spoelstra, as told to author Ian Thomsen in the 2018 book “The Soul of Basketball,” Riley shut him down in the moment. He let Dwyane Wade walk in a contract dispute. There are many other examples over the decades. This Butler situation is going to be another chapter.
“The Heat make mistakes and sometimes have issues with players just like everyone else,” the GM said. “But they do not get pushed around.”
Bontemps: For all the noise around a potential Butler trade, no one is more secure in their seat than Riley in Miami.
“You never want to get in a fight with someone who has nothing to lose,” one rival executive told me. “And Pat has nothing to lose.”
The other thing to consider: The argument of “it’s better to get something than nothing” no longer applies in today’s NBA. As we wrote last month, Miami does not want to be stuck with money it can’t move on its books in a Butler trade.
The flexibility the LA Clippers created in letting Paul George walk this summer marks a viable path for the Heat — presuming no one meets their asking price for Butler’s services.
Was Brooklyn’s flurry of moves a sign of things to come?
Bontemps: In the first two weeks since the unofficial start of trade season on Dec. 15, we have seen a pair of trades, both involving the Nets and following a similar pattern.
Both deals — guard Dennis Schroder to the Golden State Warriors, and two-way forward Dorian Finney-Smith to the Los Angeles Lakers — involved veterans on midtier contracts. Schroder is making $13 million, while Finney-Smith is making $14.9 million with a $15.3 million player option for next season.
And neither deal involved a first-round pick, which removed the hurdle many contending teams are facing as they compete for players with limited first-round picks to offer in trades.
Windhorst: The Nets were 10-15 when they traded Dennis Schroder and are 3-9 since. They made their second trade, dealing Finney-Smith to the Lakers, then promptly lost to the Toronto Raptors, who were on an 11-game losing streak and whose previous six defeats were by an average of 26 points (they did pull out a quality win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday). More trades might be coming as they position for the draft.
Nets wing Cameron Johnson could be one of the more coveted players leading into the deadline. He’s 6-foot-8 and regarded as a good and versatile defender who is averaging a career-high 19 points and shooting a career-best 43% on 3-pointers.
However, these talks are expected to be more complex than Brooklyn’s previous deals. The Finney-Smith trade led to a bidding war between the Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies, with hard feelings emanating from both the Grizzlies and the Nets for the way it played out. Johnson has many more suitors, and the Nets have made it clear it will be a steeper price to get Johnson, league sources told ESPN.
One of the factors is that the Nets, currently projected to have more than $60 million in cap space next summer, are planning on going star searching either in free agency or by using that room to acquire a big name via trade. Brooklyn has made it known it sees Johnson as either a very good fit as a role player next to a star or an attractive player to use in a trade to get that star, sources said. The point being, the price is higher because the Nets don’t have to trade Johnson.
“That’s all good to say, but they’ll trade him if they get what they want,” a rival executive said. “They like him as a player and a person and all that, but they built his contract specifically to be able to trade him by next summer.”
Johnson’s deal, signed in 2023, reduces by $2 million next season, ideal for a contending team managing salary cap challenges. He has two years and $43 million left after this season.
Bontemps: To that end, I asked several people around the league how many players making more than the $22.5 million that Johnson makes will be traded between now and Feb. 6., a question that lumps in all the names bandied about over the past few months (Jimmy Butler, Zach LaVine, Brandon Ingram, others). The answers were all in the same ballpark.
“Not many,” one executive said.
“Maybe two?” another said.
For all the reasons we’ve repeatedly laid out in this space, the current environment is pointing toward a quiet trade season — at least from the standpoint of big names trading places.
Things are looking great in Manhattan …
Windhorst: The league’s two hottest teams play Friday when the Knicks, winners of nine straight, play the Thunder, winners of 13 (not counting their NBA Cup final loss, per league rules) in a row.
The Knicks are 17-4 since a flat 6-6 start, getting spectacular production from preseason pickup Karl-Anthony Towns and with Mikal Bridges, their major summer move, emerging from a shooting slump that plagued him early in the season.
Internally, the Knicks believe one of their perceived weaknesses, their lack of depth, has turned into a strength. Four of the top 25 players in the league in minutes so far this season are Knicks — Bridges, Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby — and Towns isn’t far behind. New York’s starters have played 150 minutes more than any other five-man lineup in the league this season.
All that time together has helped solve the Knicks’ lack of continuity after three huge trades over the past 11 months. It’s a fast-tracked process Knicks coaches expected to take much longer. The players’ defensive unity has markedly improved, and their comfort level within the offense is unquestioned. During the winning streak, the Knicks are third in the NBA in both offense and defense. Over their first 20 games, the Knicks ranked 22nd in defensive efficiency.
… and not so great in The Bay Area
Bontemps: The Warriors have struggled offensively during their fall back to .500, going 2-7 across a 10-game stretch and had the 24th-ranked offense in the league over that period. Golden State sent some second-round picks to Brooklyn to land Dennis Schroder, with the hopes of having someone else besides Stephen Curry who can generate offense.
The problem is that Schroder has only generated more struggles for Golden State. He shot 22-for-74 (29.7%) overall, including 7-for-34 (20.6%) from 3-point range over his first seven games with the Warriors, and averaged almost the same number of turnovers as he did with the Nets while generating half as many assists.
Golden State has been outscored by a staggering 23.9 points per 100 possessions in 193 minutes with Schroder on the court and is outscoring opponents by more than six points per 100 possessions in 188 minutes without him. Scouts watching the Warriors have wondered whether the clunky fit will continue.
“If you turn your team over to him and play to his strengths, he can be effective,” one scout said. “But that’s not how the Warriors play.”
Schroder isn’t going to shoot that poorly all season long, as shown by Thursday’s performance in a blowout win of the Philadelphia 76ers. He had 15 points, 6 assists, 2 steals, no turnovers and was plus-17 in 25 minutes. But one game isn’t going to erase more than a month of offensive struggles for the Warriors, who are still 5-13 over their past 18 games.
Why less is more for Donovan Mitchell and the Cavs
Windhorst: Mitchell is leading the Cavs through a dream regular season and winning high praise across the league while apparently “doing” less than ever. This is both what the team had planned at the beginning of the season and what has impressed league scouts tracking the Cavs.
“He was an All-NBA [level] player last year because of how much he did for them and having to play a lot at point guard,” one advance scout said of Mitchell, who missed too many games in 2023-24 to be considered for postseason awards.
“This year, he’s probably going to make All-NBA because he’s pulling back and encouraging his teammates to have bigger roles. … I’ll tell you what, they were a lot easier to defend last year when he was a one-man show.”
Mitchell is averaging a career-low 31.5 minutes, his fewest number of shots and his lowest usage rate since his rookie season in 2017-18. The Cavs just went 12-1 in December and are thriving on their current eight-game win streak, having won each game by double figures. Mitchell is averaging just 16 shots in that stretch, four below his career average.
Cleveland runs a high-speed, quick-passing offense that generates open 3-pointers by the barrel. Seven Cavs average at least four 3-point attempts per game and five average at least five assists. Mitchell zips the ball around, reducing the isolation-heavy game he deployed often last season when he played nearly 60% of the possessions at point guard because of injuries on the team. This season, that number is down to 43%. The Cavs have the No. 1 offense in the league and are the No. 1 3-point shooting team. Mitchell is making a career-best 3.9 3s per game at a career-best 42% rate.
Bontemps: Monday’s game at Golden State was a sign of how far Cleveland has come. The Cavaliers didn’t play particularly well, by their own admission, yet they still took the lead with some suffocating defense in the second quarter and ran the Warriors off their own floor in the third quarter, a frame once dominated by the Warriors during their dynasty.
That win, combined with the victory over LeBron James and the Lakers the next night, has the Cavs entering their first game of 2025 — Friday at the Dallas Mavericks — on a 72-win pace.
“We got to continue to stay humble and stay who we are,” Mitchell said after Cleveland’s win against Golden State. “It’s still December. We still got time to get better, figure things out. We’re not perfect, by far. So I think the biggest thing is having appropriate fear for each team, having appropriate respect, and understanding that just because you get to big leads doesn’t mean the game’s over with. Just continue to play and build our habits.”
Windhorst: Mitchell and Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson developed a plan during the preseason to keep Mitchell fresher for the long haul and reduce stress on his knee, which limited him frequently last season. That plan has provided more space on offense for Evan Mobley and Darius Garland, who are both contenders to join Mitchell on the All-Star team.
“Donovan is so selfless and he empowers people. [Curry] is like this, too. They’re so positive, they know how to uplift others around them,” said Atkinson, who was an assistant with Curry’s Warriors over the previous three seasons. “That’s the ultimate leader, right?”
Source: espn.com