Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Bulls need a complete rebuild, the Knicks' options to find wing help, the potential cost for the Kings to land Cameron Johnson, Bradley Beal's future and more!
It hasn't exactly been a quiet start to 2025 on the NBA rumor mill, as Jimmy Butler's trade request has led to plenty of speculation about where the Heat star could land and how a potential deal could impact the rest of the market. But it may still be a couple more weeks before the in-season trade market truly heats up ahead of the February 6 deadline.
In the meantime, we're taking a closer look at a handful of cap-related topics that have been on our minds, including a scenario in which the Bucks aren't subject to second-apron restrictions, an under-the-radar team to watch as a deadline seller, and why cap room projections for the Nets are a little all over the place.
Let's dive in...
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included the Bulls' trade options with Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic, the price the Nets should demand for Cameron Johnson, the chances of the Suns trading Kevin Durant, the possibility of Jimmy Butler winding up in Phoenix and more!
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...
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included what the Nuggets might get in return for Michael Porter Jr., whether the trade market will be as lively as in past seasons, the Lakers’ next move after acquiring Dorian Finney-Smith, De’Aaron Fox‘s future in Sacramento and more!
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included what the Nuggets might get in return for Michael Porter Jr., whether the trade market will be as lively as in past seasons, the Lakers' next move after acquiring Dorian Finney-Smith, De'Aaron Fox's future in Sacramento and more!
Click here to read the transcript.
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
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).
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:
- Using their existing $23,300,000 traded player exception created in July's Mikal Bridges deal.
- Using the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception.
- 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.
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Nets got enough in exchange for Dennis Schröder, Myles Turner's future in Indiana, the Bulls' price for Nikola Vucevic, the Knicks' options with Mitchell Robinson and more!
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.
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included the teams most likely to be active before the trade deadline, the Pacers' search for a backup center, Jonathan Kuminga's future with the Warriors, the case for keeping the Pelicans' roster together and more!