The origins of 2025's most valuable draft picks - the ones that could turn into top-10 selections - are pretty widely known. It's no secret that the Spurs control Atlanta's first-rounder because of their Dejounte Murray trade or that the top-six protected pick the Sixers owe the Thunder stems from an Al Horford salary dump.
But there are dozens of other 2025 draft picks likely to change hands, and the reasons that teams gave up some of those picks aren't quite so memorable. That's especially true of traded second-rounders, but it applies to a few first-round selections too.
For instance, if you're a Pistons fan, you likely haven't forgotten why Detroit owes its top-13 protected first-rounder to the Timberwolves, but if you root for another team, you may not remember that the Pistons originally gave up that pick in a 2020 deal with Houston that saw Detroit acquire Trevor Ariza and the draft rights to Isaiah Stewart.
Going down memory lane and revisiting past deals to see what sort of impact they'll have on this year's draft is a fun exercise, so we're going to run through all of this year's traded draft picks and identify the deal in which they were initially given up.
A couple caveats before we dive in: First, we're just looking at the initial trade in which the pick was moved, so if it has changed hands a few times since then, we're not covering all of those subsequent deals.
The one exception to that rule is if the pick was essentially traded twice by the same club -- for example, the Hawks sent their 2025 second-rounder with top-40 protection to one team and then dealt it with 41-59 protection to another team. We'll look at both deals, since that pick could still end up going to either one of those teams.
Second, we're not including the traded picks that are locks (or near-locks) to fall into their protected range this season, such as the top-14 protected first-rounder the Hornets owe Sacramento or the top-10 protected pick the Jazz owe Oklahoma City. We're just focusing on picks that will - or at least have a pretty good chance to - change hands this spring.
With all that in mind, let's revisit the deals in which teams gave up 2025 draft picks...
This was a treat, thanks Luke!
I missed it back in ’22 when the Heat traded their ’25 first to OKC for their own ’23 first. Do you see the Thunder doing more deals like this? Seems like they are in unprecedented territory for a franchise. With no roster needs, they could just punt year after year and dominate the draft for a decade, even if they don’t make many picks.
For sure.Having so many draft picks allows the Thunder to use them in two ways:
1. Continuing to roll them forward to make sure their stash stays plentiful.
or
2. Consolidating them to move up for a player they really want.
They’ve done #2 a few times in the last couple drafts (they moved up for Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell, and traded a bunch of future picks for Dillon Jones), but in years when they still have 3-4 picks and don’t need to use all of them (including possibly this year), I expect to see them keep doing #1 too.
A lot of research must have went into this. Great article! I also like that the official name for the penalty is ‘gun-jumping’.
Not sure that’s the “official” name in writing anywhere, but it feels a little more accurate than “tampering” when the violation is talking to a free agent a little too early instead of talking to a guy who’s still on a contract with another team.