Front Office Originals

We're only about halfway through the 2024/25 season, but the top contenders for this year's All-NBA teams have already begun to emerge, with a handful of perennial candidates having already been removed from consideration due to injuries that will cause them to fall short of the 65-game minimum.

The race for one of the final spots on an All-NBA Third Team isn't one many fans will be watching closely, but it's extremely meaningful for certain players who have the ability to increase the value of their next contract by tens of millions of dollars by earning All-NBA honors this season.

With that in mind, we're taking a closer look today at which star players have already been eliminated from qualifying for 2025 end-of-season awards and which All-NBA candidates have big-time money on the line depending on whether or not they make the cut.

Let's dive in...

The players affected by the 65-game rule

This is the second season in which a player must appear in at least 65 games to qualify for end-of-season award consideration. The rule had an impact in its first season on players like Donovan Mitchell, who averaged 26.6 points and 6.1 assists per game for the 48-win Cavaliers, but only appeared in 55 contests. In past seasons, Mitchell would've received All-NBA votes and possibly earned a spot. In 2024, he wasn't on the ballot.

Several star players will find themselves in a similar boat this season. If we look at the 49 players who have made an All-Star or All-NBA team in the past three years, we can already rule out eight of them for this year's All-NBA squads due to the 65-game rule. The following players from that group have missed too many games to qualify for end-of-season awards:

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There are plenty of obstacles standing in the way of a Jimmy Butler deal being finalized before the February 6 trade deadline.

Butler is 35 years old. He has aggressively pushed for trades multiple times over the course of his NBA career. He hasn't played more than 65 games in a season since 2016/17. He's earning $48.8MM this season and will be seeking another significant payday this summer.

On top of that, his team, Miami, is prohibited from taking back more salary than it sends out in any deal, which will complicate the Heat's ability to work something out with certain potential trade partners.

Still, when he's healthy and committed, Butler is an All-NBA caliber talent. And given how messy the situation in Miami has gotten, it's hard right now to envision a scenario in which he returns to the Heat and finishes out the season.

A trade seems to be the most likely outcome, so we're going to dig in today on what a Butler trade might look like, running through all 29 other NBA teams to determine whether or not they could be a fit.

Let's dive in...

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The NBA's league-wide salary guarantee date is January 10, but if a team wants to avoid paying a player on a non-guaranteed contract his full-season salary, that player must be cut on or before January 7 in order to clear waivers prior to the guarantee deadline. That means teams around the league have nine more days to consider whether or not to retain the 23 players without fully guaranteed salaries.

There were 24 players on that list before the Timberwolves waived PJ Dozier on Saturday. Because Dozier's contract included a $1MM partial guarantee for 2024/25, there was little incentive for Minnesota to release him earlier in the season -- since that $1MM guarantee represented nearly 67/174ths of his full $2,613,120 salary, the Wolves would've taken on on $1MM in dead money whether Dozier was cut on the first day of the season or the 60th day.

But once the 67-day mark passed, Dozier's cap hit continued to increase beyond the initial $1MM guarantee and the Wolves decided they didn't want to continue paying him. It's likely no coincidence that he was cut on the 68th day of the season.

Minnesota is far from the only team that will have a decision to make on a non-guaranteed salary in the coming days. Let's take a closer look at which players on non-guaranteed deals should be safe and which ones are in more danger of being waived by Jan. 7.

Brooklyn Nets

• Keon Johnson
• Jalen Wilson

As their trades sending out Dennis Schröder and Dorian Finney-Smith have clearly signaled, the Nets are fully in rebuilding mode, so my first instinct is to assume they'll be inclined to hang onto players like Johnson and Wilson, both of whom have been regular parts of the rotation as of late (in Friday's loss to San Antonio, they both started and played at least 37 minutes).

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We had our first flurry of major in-season roster activity within the past week or so, with two trades finalized and a series of roster moves completed by the Pistons, who yo-yoed over and under the minimum salary floor multiple times in the span of three days.

That series of moves, along with the upcoming 10-day contract window and some trade rumors involving Michael Porter Jr., have us considering a few specific elements of the NBA's salary cap and Collective Bargaining Agreement. We're rounding up our thoughts up below, discussing the Nets' trade, Porter's contract, the Pistons' cap machinations, and more.

Let's dive in...

How the Nets acquired De'Anthony Melton

When the Nets sent out Dennis Schröder ($13,025,250 cap hit) for De'Anthony Melton ($12,822,000) in their trade with the Warriors, there were three ways Brooklyn could have taken on Melton's salary:

1. Using their existing $23,300,000 traded player exception created in July's Mikal Bridges deal.
2. Using the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception.
3. Using Schröder's outgoing salary for matching purposes.

Using the Bridges exception wouldn't have made a ton of sense. It would have left the Nets with trade exceptions worth $10,274,750 (the amount left on the Bridges TPE) and a $13,025,250 (Schröder's outgoing salary). Since exceptions can't be combined, those separate TPEs wouldn't have been as valuable as simply having the original $23.3MM exception, which will allow the team to take back a more significant salary.

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On Sunday, we published the first half of our breakdown of this season's presumed trade deadline sellers. In that article, we covered our first two groups of sellers -- teams likely to listen to inquiries on pretty much anyone, including the Nets and Bulls, and teams who should be open to discussing most, but not all, of their respective rosters, such as the Hornets and Trail Blazers.

In the second half of our two-part series, we'll dig into the potential sellers whose next steps ahead of the February 6 trade deadline are less obvious.

In the space below, we'll take a closer look at teams who should be willing to selectively trade away pieces without holding a fire sale or throwing in the towel on the season. We'll also examine several wild-card clubs whose results in the coming weeks and months will go a long way toward determining which direction they go at the deadline.

Let's dive in...

Selective sellers

New Orleans Pelicans

After winning 42 games in 2022/23 and 49 last season, the Pelicans swung a blockbuster trade for Dejounte Murray over the summer and entered this season hoping to take another step toward title contention. Instead, the club has opened the year by losing 21 of its first 26 games and sits dead last in the Western Conference.

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The 2025 NBA trade deadline is still nearly two months away, but with more than a quarter of the season in the books and several dozen players set to become trade-eligible in a week, it's just a matter of time until negotiations between teams start to get more serious.

With that in mind, it's worth checking in on which clubs around the league will be looking to sell at this season's deadline.

It has gotten a little tougher to find in-season sellers in recent years. Before the NBA introduced the play-in tournament, it wouldn't be uncommon for a team hovering around the 11th or 12th spot in its conference to throw in the towel in February, recognizing that climbing into the top eight to earn a playoff spot probably isn't realistic.

Now, with 10 teams in each conference technically advancing to the "postseason" via the play-in tournament, that club holding the 11th or 12th seed is often less inclined to sell, given that it would only take a short winning streak for that club to re-enter the play-in picture.

Still, with several teams in rebuilding mode, a strong 2025 draft class on the horizon, and a handful of clubs potentially trying to hang onto protected draft picks, several prospective sellers are emerging as trade season approaches. In a two-part series, we'll take a closer look at which teams fit the bill and what percentage of their rosters they'll be willing to discuss with would-be contenders, breaking them up into four separate groups.

In part one today, we'll take a look at the two groups of teams who are most likely to be open for business when buyers come calling. Keep an eye out for part two later in the week.

We'll listen on anyone

Brooklyn Nets

The Nets, whose preseason over/under was widely set by oddsmakers at 19.5 wins, have been more competitive than expected -- at 10-13, they're already halfway to their projected win total. Still, given how the front office operated during the 2024 offseason, that hot start may actually make the team more - not less - motivated to sell.

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