NBA trade deadline: Execs, scouts on the aftermath of a wild week

The NBA trade deadline was expected to be quiet. Until a week ago, there had only been one trade all season.

Then the floodgates opened.

No, there was no retaliation like the real event last season, when Luka Doncic was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of the night. But there was There is a lot of movement across the league – most of it coming unexpectedly.

While several star players — including Trae Young, Anthony Davis, Jaren Jackson Jr., James Harden and Darius Garland — have changed teams, three main themes have emerged in the activity this trade deadline, starting with the ongoing Giannis Antetokounmpo drama that will likely extend into the summer, and perhaps beyond.

Giannis is still a Buck…what now?

Over the past few weeks, virtually every conversation with sources around the NBA has included one question:

Will Giannis Antetokounmpo be moved?

But for all the talk about two-time MVPs 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 matters.

“It’s not a surprise that this was one of the outcomes,” an Eastern Conference official told ESPN, “and it was probably a more than 50 percent likely outcome.”

This result means the ongoing debate over Antetokounmpo’s future will continue into the summer and perhaps beyond; he can sign a contract extension on October 1. Antetokounmpo gave his own take 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 leaving!”

But, as one executive said later Thursday, “You know, in the movie, he’s gone.”

In a similar saga last season, the Phoenix Suns discussed trading Kevin Durant at the deadline before ultimately moving him this 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 praise for how they handled the situation.

“I think they’re winning if they don’t do anything,” said one Eastern scout. “They got all the information they could about the situation and they can go out and make a deal later.”

And none of the top contenders — 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 part of the season after returning from his calf injury.

The Bucks will almost certainly be out of the playoff race by then, and the team is trying to maximize their draft position. (Antetokounmpo has suffered four different lower leg injuries over the past 18 months and has a great opportunity to get his body back in order, especially without international competitions this summer.)

Bad teams plan ahead

It’s rather remarkable that during a trade deadline that saw big names being moved, the only star that ended up on a current playoff team was Harden. Instead, the dominant theme of the deadline was the Utah Jazz (Jackson), Washington Wizards (Davis and Young) and Indiana Pacers (center Ivica Zubac), who were preparing to improve in 2026-27.

The deals with Wizards and Jazz 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 most intriguing 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 he lands anywhere in Nos. 5-9, he’ll go to the Clippers; if he lands in the top four or numbers 10-30, he stays with Indiana and the Clippers will get an unprotected 2031 pick instead.

That led to extensive debate among multiple sources Thursday afternoon about what the Pacers would do for the remainder of this season.

Indiana could try to stay in the top three in lottery odds and have a slightly better than 50% chance of keeping its pick. This, however, carries the risk of losing a mid-lottery pick in a loaded draft.

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Clippers mall Ivica Zubac to Indiana Pacers

Shams Charania reports that the Los Angeles Clippers are the Indiana Pacers’ Ivica Zubac mall.

Indiana could try to win games instead. With Zubac, Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, an excellent coach in Rich Carlisle and a slew of tanking teams alongside them in the standings, it’s doable.

In this scenario, the Pacers would attempt to go as high as 10th in the lottery rankings, where they would have a 100% chance of retaining the pick and an 11% chance of landing in the top four, which has happened in two of the last three years starting at 10 or lower (Atlanta from 10th in 2023 and Dallas from 11th last year).

“If it were me, I would tank and get the best odds possible with the highest pick,” one Eastern executive said. “But if they choose to get to 10, I think they could.”

In fact, there hasn’t been much debate over whether Indiana could coming in at No. 10 — that’s quite the indictment of the impending chariot race, considering the Pacers enter Friday’s game in Milwaukee with a 13-38 record. Instead, the debate was over whether Indiana would be.

Regardless, adding Zubac came with a steep price tag, especially compared to what Washington gave up to take on Anthony Davis. Washington gave up what will likely be the 30th pick this year, plus a top-20 pick for the Warriors in 2030.

The difference is that Zubac is four years younger than Davis and will make a total of $40 million over the next two seasons. Davis is listed for $120 million.

“I don’t blame Washington for the cost of entry to get Trae and AD, it’s basically nothing,” said one Western Conference scout. “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’re the same.”

One lottery-bound team that couldn’t make the move it hoped for was Memphis, who ended up keeping Ja Morant until the deadline.

And while there was mild surprise across the league that Morant stayed put after weeks of speculation, the Grizzlies struggled to find a deal they cared about. (Miami was a rumored destination, but the Heat were not a real option, according to sources.)

“I’ve never seen where [Morant] was going to land,” a West executive said.

Perhaps Morant can rebuild his value in the final months of the season, but the Grizzlies will have a strong incentive to join tanking teams — a group expected to grow to the point that several sources expect the league to soon consider adjustments to curb the annual race to the bottom.

“It’s going to be a brutal, ugly race,” said one Eastern leader. “So many good players will be out. … It will be a story every night.”

The teams at the top largely held their ground

Among the 10 teams with the best records in the league on Thursday, only one traded a first-round pick for a player: the Oklahoma City Thunder.

That’s not to say the NBA’s best teams weren’t active this week. The Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns have all avoided the luxury tax. The Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors, who sit just outside the league’s top 10, also did so.

And Minnesota saved a lot of money by trading Mike Conley and a pick swap. (Conley, however, appears likely to return to Minnesota after being traded a second time and waiving Thursday.)

But largely, the teams at the top were either lacking trade assets, waiting for a potential Antetokounmpo deal or feeling the constraints of the luxury tax and its aprons.

“These aprons are difficult to build,” said a Western scout. “That means teams are going to have to negotiate harder moving forward.”

But, as a result, many of these teams at the top are heading into the playoffs largely as they were constructed at the start of the season. This inactivity raises questions about what will happen when these teams start failing to achieve their stated goals.

Cleveland, responding to concerns about Donovan Mitchell’s future beyond 2026-27, the final guaranteed year of his contract, traded for Harden.

Conley’s move saved Minnesota money, as it worked hard to enter the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes with minimal assets, only to add a good depth player in Ayo Dosunmu of the Chicago Bulls. But that deal meant moving on from Rob Dillingham, the No. 8 pick in 2024 who the Wolves traded up to select.

The Detroit Pistons, who added some much-needed shots to their deal for Kevin Huerter, are facing restricted free agency for early All-Star center Jalen Duren. The Knicks are facing enormous 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.

These stakes could make for an unpredictable race to the final. And with so many business sagas still unresolved, a summer may be even wilder.