NBA trade deadline – Lakers headline winners, losers of wild week
Now that the dust has settled on perhaps the busiest week of in-season trading in NBA history, it’s time to take stock of who came out ahead and who might regret making their deadline moves — or doing nothing.
Saturday night’s shocking deal sending superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for a package headlined by fellow incumbent All-NBA pick Anthony Davis set the tone for what was to come. De’Aaron Fox (San Antonio Spurs), Zach LaVine (Sacramento Kings), Jimmy Butler (Golden State Warriors), Brandon Ingram (Toronto Raptors) and Andrew Wiggins (Miami Heat) are all former All-Stars still playing near that level who moved teams.
Notably, the league’s best teams were relatively quiet. Only the NBA-leading Cleveland Cavaliers, who acquired De’Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks, made a significant trade from near the top of the standings. Unless Doncic and fellow newcomer Mark Williams can jell with LeBron James more quickly than expected or Davis lives up to the Dallas Mavericks’ expectations for pairing him with Kyrie Irving, the title race probably didn’t shift much over the past week.
Nonetheless, there’s a lot to unpack as we consider winners and losers of the NBA trade deadline — starting, of course, with the Doncic trade.
Winner: The new-look Lakers
Let’s not overthink this.
Had the Lakers given up Davis, both of their tradeable first-round picks (2029 and 2031), a swap in 2030, Max Christie and Dalton Knecht for Doncic alone, nobody would have blinked an eye. That’s how valuable Doncic is after finishing third in MVP voting last season at age 25.
Instead, the Lakers managed to use those young players and picks to land not just Doncic but also Williams as a replacement at center. I’m still not entirely sure how good this Lakers team — now fifth in the Western Conference and just two games out of third — will be this season. They’re betting big on Doncic (due back soon from a calf strain suffered on Christmas Day) and Williams staying healthy.
Looking beyond the duration of LeBron James’ contract, the Lakers are undoubtedly better positioned for their next era with Doncic and the 23-year-old Williams as centerpieces.
Winner: The NBA’s on-court product
Remember the first two months of the season when most of the dialogue was about how many 3s NBA teams were taking and fretting about TV ratings? The conversation has instead turned to the blockbuster trades we’ve seen over the past week, most notably the shocking Doncic-Davis swap.
Within reason, players changing teams increases interest because it serves to shake the NBA’s snowglobe. Growing up, I remember my interest in the league being piqued by a Sports Illustrated feature highlighting transactions during the summer of 1992. Although that offseason did see Charles Barkley traded to the Phoenix Suns, where he’d win MVP and lead the Suns to the Finals, most of the big trades that summer wouldn’t move the Richter scale now.
The Lakers will be appointment viewing once Doncic returns from a calf strain. Same with the Mavericks and Davis, the Spurs with Fox and the Warriors with Butler. Midseason trades are one way to elevate the importance of regular-season games, particularly during a part of the schedule that could otherwise feel like a slog.
Losers: Midseason trade skeptics
Since last summer, we’ve heard about how difficult trading was going to be under the new collective bargaining agreement. Depending how some multi-team deals are ultimately structured, we’ll have seen around 20 trades in the past week featuring 60-plus players — about one seventh of the league.
The hard cap placed on teams adding more salary than they send out in a trade did make it more difficult to execute two-team trades, certainly. But a lesser-discussed element of the new CBA was allowing teams to use their exceptions to add salary in trades in addition to signing free agents. That opened up the pool of third teams available to step in and facilitate larger deals, like the Utah Jazz‘s involvement in the Doncic-Davis swap.
The arc of the salary cap is long, but as we have seen this week, it bends toward more transactions, not fewer.
Winners: Simmons, Brown and other buyout candidates
Post-deadline buyouts tend to be overrated in terms of their importance to the playoff race because they often feature big names past their prime, but several teams made moves designed to chase players who could come available as free agents.
The Heat and Philadelphia 76ers both maneuvered their way below the lower luxury-tax apron, giving them the ability to sign buyout players who previously made more than the $12.8 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception. Bruce Brown Jr., sent from the Raptors to the New Orleans Pelicans, would easily be the most attractive player in that group if he’s bought out by the Pelicans.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Thursday that Ben Simmons and the Brooklyn Nets are working toward a buyout. At this point in his career, however, the former No. 1 pick and Rookie of the Year is averaging a career-low 8.9 points per 36 minutes on a Brooklyn team that could use shooting and has attempted just 26 free throws in 33 games.
Although the Milwaukee Bucks can’t sign a player who was making more than $12.8 million, their series of moves this week allowed them to offer other buyout candidates up to $3.2 million using their taxpayer midlevel exception. The Oklahoma City Thunder (room midlevel) and Houston Rockets (non-tax midlevel) are two contenders who also have the ability to bid more than the minimum.
Loser: Teams below the tax
Teams that don’t pay the NBA’s luxury tax split 50% of the taxes paid by the league’s highest-spending teams. Early in the season, ESPN’s Bobby Marks was projecting that distribution at around $18 or $19 million. By virtue of three teams (the Cavaliers, Pelicans and 76ers) avoiding the tax and joining the distribution and other teams making moves to cut their tax bills, that’s diminished significantly.
For now, non-tax teams should get about $11.6 million, though that will increase slightly as teams fill out their rosters after opening spots. That’s going to end up in the same range as 2023-24, when the distribution to non-tax teams was $12 million and far shy of the 2022-23 record of more than $15 million.
Winner: The East’s best team
Given their talented rosters, the Thunder and Boston Celtics had no need to add at the deadline. But Oklahoma City had the flexibility to surround its young core with even more talent and decided to stand pat. The Thunder acquired veteran center Daniel Theis to get a draft pick from New Orleans only to waive him Thursday, freeing a roster spot for the buyout market.
In that context, the Cavaliers have to feel great about landing a quality role player in De’Andre Hunter to potentially fill out their starting five alongside three 2025 All-Stars (Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley) and former All-Star center Jarrett Allen.
As I noted last week, eventual champions rarely add key players via trade in-season. We have, however, seen deadline pickups translate into plenty of Finals runs — including the Mavericks after dealing for Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington this time a year ago. It’s possible Hunter could be that kind of difference-maker this spring in Cleveland.
Loser: Cam Johnson’s summer prospects
Johnson is precisely the kind of quality role player who could have helped a contender. Instead, he’ll be watching the playoffs from home after Brooklyn opted against moving him prior to the deadline.
Presumably, Johnson will be a trade candidate again this summer with two years remaining on his contract and the Nets in the early stages of a rebuild. He’s one of several players whose names came up this week that might be moved during the offseason, a list headlined by Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant. Durant at least has something to play for the rest of the way, with the Suns battling for play-in position in the West. Johnson likely won’t see much action the rest of the way as Brooklyn prioritizes lottery odds.
Source: espn.com