NBA trades encompass the entire predictability spectrum. On one end, you have deals like the Luka Dončić blockbuster, so earth-shattering and stunning that the widespread assumption upon its reveal was that someone had hacked Shams Charania’s phone. Trades like that are rare, but surprises as a concept really aren’t. That deal came only months after the Karl-Anthony Towns-for-Julius Randle blockbuster, after all.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have deals like Brooklyn’s decision to trade Dennis Schröder last season. Brooklyn, having just reacquired its 2025 first-rounder in a deal with Houston, was winning too many games early. They were desperate to offload veteran talent, so on literally the first day Golden State was legally allowed to match salaries, the Nets dumped Schröder on the Warriors. It was about as predictable as trades get.
NBA surprise trade candidates: Zion Williamson, Trae Young among players who could shockingly be moved
Sam Quinn
The latter are the sort of deals we’re going to focus on today. Going into a season, for one reason or another, there are usually a handful of players who are exceedingly likely to get traded. These players are almost never superstars. While a trade for someone like, say, Lauri Markkanen is certainly possible, the sheer size of a deal involving someone like that is so significant that a trade can never be classified as obvious ahead of time.
No, these are mostly rank-and-file players in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they land in the right situation, things can change quickly. Just look at Schröder. The Golden State trade was a miss, but once he got to Detroit, he proved critical in a second-half Pistons surge. We can’t say where these players will end up, but these are the players most likely to be moved between now and the trade deadline on February 5, 2026.
NBA players most likely to be traded
Jonathan Kuminga
He’s not even under contract yet and we know where this is going. The Warriors seemingly have no intention of keeping Kuminga for the long haul. Steve Kerr has openly bemoaned his fit with Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler. There has been extensive reporting about the Warriors wanting Kuminga to waive the implicit no-trade clause that would come with certain contract offers they’ve made. This isn’t even the first time the Warriors have run this playbook. Remember when they swore up and down that they landed D’Angelo Russell, intending to keep him? How’d that one turn out?
If Kuminga ultimately signs his one-year qualifying offer, he gains the right to veto any trade. Expect him to exercise that right, as a trade would strip him of Bird Rights on a new team. But unrestricted free agency isn’t an obvious victory for either side. The Warriors would lose him for nothing in that world unless they could construct a complicated sign-and-trade. Kuminga would be betting on cap space that has largely been absent over the past few offseasons.
A contract compromise makes the most sense here. Where exactly that lands, we still can’t say. But these are two sides that would eagerly part today if it made sense. It doesn’t at the moment, but with a hefty cap number during the season, it almost certainly will. If Kuminga signs any contract besides the qualifying offer, expect a move. Once he’s under contract, the Warriors can play the Suns and Kings against one another to try to secure a better deal mid-season. For now, given his free agent status and all of the complicating factors involved in a sign-and-trade, that just isn’t feasible.
Anfernee Simons
The Celtics accomplished two things with the Anfernee Simons-Jrue Holiday swap. First, they saved several million dollars off their 2025-26 payroll, which is pretty significant given the second apron issues they were facing. Second, they shaved two very expensive years owed to Holiday off of their payroll by turning him into the expiring Simons contract. Those are already two fairly big wins that they didn’t really have to pay for.
But surprisingly, there’s another potential financial goal on the horizon for Boston. When they dumped Georges Niang, they got within $12 million of the luxury tax line. If they manage to duck the tax this year and next, they reset their repeater tax clock entirely. That’s enormously significant for a team that figures not to contend this year, but hopes to have a long runway ahead afterward. The new repeater tax is the most punitive financial measure the NBA has ever introduced. If they can get below the tax line, they’ll try to do so. There are a number of ways they could try. If they were to revisit blockbuster talks for Jaylen Brown or Derrick White, for instance, they might make that a prerequisite for future negotiations. They could get most of the way there by trading Sam Hauser into someone’s mid-level exception.
But the cost-cutting measure they’re probably most eager to take is dumping Simons. Sure, he’s reasonably young and a good player, but with White and Payton Pritchard in place, there’s really not much room for another guard making starter money long-term. Reports have indicated that they’re still open to moving him. If they can do so without taking on any longer-term money, it’s very much in play.
Kyle Kuzma
The Bucks are in desperation mode. You don’t eat over $100 million in dead money to waive Damian Lillard unless you believe it’s the only feasible way to convince Giannis Antetokounmpo to stay in Milwaukee. Myles Turner is a start, but he’s a Brook Lopez replacement. Perhaps an improvement, but he does little to replace what Lillard brought to the team. For all of Milwaukee’s flaws last year, they had an All-Star-caliber guard generating offense for them. This year, their best shot-creating guard is… Kevin Porter Jr.? Cole Anthony? Even in this weakened Eastern Conference, the Bucks aren’t good enough yet. They have to have at least one more meaningful move coming before they can credibly call themselves even a surefire playoff team.
Where is that move coming from? The Bucks have four players earning more than $5.2 million. One of them is Antetokounmpo. He’s, for now at least, a nonstarter. They just signed Turner. They’re not trading him. Bobby Portis isn’t exactly tied down, but he’s a fan favorite on a reasonable cap number that’s still fairly productive. It’s hard to imagine the Bucks doing much better in that slot. That leaves Kuzma as their only significant cap figure at $22.4 million. If they’re going to add someone notable, it probably starts with moving his salary.
There’s not going to be much interest in Kuzma, the player, unless he meaningfully bounces back early in the season. His contract descends in value, but isn’t expiring. Realistically, a major addition will have to include draft capital. The Bucks can trade a first-round pick in either 2031 or 2032. Given the general skepticism about Antetokounmpo’s future, a pick like that would generate meaningful league-wide interest. It could get the Bucks the upgrade they need to at least remain competitive. Giving it up would be an enormous risk in light of the uncertainty surrounding Antetokounmpo’s future, but if they’re all-in on convincing him to stay, it’s really the only weapon left in their quiver.
Maxi Kleber
The Lakers are walking a bit of a tightrope here. It’s an open secret that they plan to pursue All-Stars over the course of the next two offseasons, and to that end, maintaining cap flexibility is significant. Yet according to The Athletic’s Dan Woike, Luka Dončić’s extension and his strong Eurobasket performance have compelled the Lakers to act a bit more aggressively in the present. They have Dončić and LeBron James right now. That alone opens the championship window.
That doesn’t mean the Lakers are going to take on long-term deals left and right, but it does mean we should expect them to seek reinforcements on the fringes. It just makes no sense for a team this good to have an $11 million contract for a player it probably won’t use much. That isn’t to say Maxi Kleber is a bad player. He’s just an older one stuck in a body that can’t stay healthy. The Lakers may get use out of Kleber early in the season, but relying on him to make it through 82 games and four rounds would be foolhardy.
The Lakers like using the early season to see what they have. They rather frequently trade in December and January, and that’s probably how the Kleber situation plays out. Whether it’s perimeter defense, shooting or a better backup center, expect the Lakers to go shopping midseason and use Kleber’s contract as their primary salary-matching tool.
Terry Rozier
The Heat are this year’s preeminent team in limbo. They traded Jimmy Butler with no apparent plan to either replace him or take an organizational step back. The latter isn’t imminent. The Heat tend not to tank. But they’re aggressive in seeking even modest improvements. That’s what compelled them to trade a first-round pick for Rozier in the first place.
Now, Rozier is on an expiring contract, and he’s coming off of not just the worst season of his career, but one of the worst offensive seasons any guard of his reputation has had in recent memory. It’s hard to imagine him playing a meaningful role in Miami’s rotation at least once Tyler Herro comes back from his injury. The Heat could let his contract expire and try to build around 2026 cap space, but Andrew Wiggins’ player option cuts into that space significantly. They, like so many other teams, are likely eyeing 2027 as the summer to save money.
They’re not going to be comfortable treading water in the interim, so the simple solution here would be using Rozier’s cap figure to take on a better player whose contract lasts an extra year. Draft compensation may be involved depending on the player, but the Heat have fairly limited tools to improve with. If they aren’t willing to do so by taking on money, they don’t have many alternatives to work with.
The assorted tax dumps
We touched on Boston’s tax situation above, but the Celtics are $12 million above the line. For them, ducking the tax would be nice, but it may or may not be realistic. There are a number of other teams closer to the line who would love to duck back below it, but unlike the Celtics, they are close enough to doing so that it would be a pretty attainable goal. Here is a sampling of those teams and the players they could use to skirt the tax:
- Phoenix is only around $300,000 above the tax line. The Suns will get below it by the end of the season. That was one of the primary motivators behind waiving and stretching Bradley Beal. Nick Richards and his $5 million salary are the obvious suspects here. He’s now the No. 4 center in Phoenix behind Mark Williams, Oso Ighodaro and rookie Khaman Maluach.
- Like the Suns, the Nuggets are very close to the line, needing to shed only around $400,000. Denver is a contender, though, so it could plausibly add money in the right deal. Still, with monster tax bills looming in the 2026-27 season and beyond, the Nuggets would probably prefer to duck the tax if possible. They’d love to dump Zeke Nnaji for a slightly cheaper player, but his long-term contract will make that difficult. More likely, they see which of their young players can’t make the rotation and go from there. If, say, Jalen Pickett or Hunter Tyson isn’t getting playing time in February, they could be dumped and the Nuggets could replace them with a pro-rated minimum and 10 days to try to get under the line.
- Toronto is around $3 million above the tax line, but there is just no reasonable justification for paying the tax with that roster. Their cost-cutting move is essentially going to come down to who they can move. They’d love to save money in an RJ Barrett trade, but if interest existed, they likely would’ve made the deal by now. More likely, it’s someone like Ochai Agbaji or Ka’Kobe Walter that goes, a promising young prospect who could catch on elsewhere, but costs a bit too much for this oddly-constructed team.
- Orlando is a bit less than $6 million above the line. The Clippers, Rockets and Lakers are in that general range, but have no easily extraneous salary. But the Magic do. They’re paying Jett Howard $5.5 million without using him. They also have a ton of center depth, so they could theoretically, say, trade Goga Bitadze and his $8.3 million salary when Mo Wagner returns from his torn ACL in the middle of the season. The Magic may be good enough to justify paying the tax, but with Paolo Banchero’s max extension kicking in next summer, it would behoove them to delay their repeater clock as long as possible. They’re going to be expensive for a long time.
Broadly speaking, it doesn’t really make sense to hover just above the tax line. Either stay below and collect a payout, or go far above and maximize your chances of winning. These teams are in that middle ground where, if they can duck the tax, they’d probably like to. Even competitive teams do it fairly often. In a fun bit of irony, the 2021 Bucks ducked the tax line at the deadline and went on to win the championship. However, Jrue Holiday had a championship incentive in his contract that took them back above it. No team has ever been more justified in going above the tax line. In a perfect world, most teams near the line would operate this way. But it’s rarely that easy. Usually, teams have to make hard choices about who they can keep, but if they’re close to the line and not obviously in the championship picture, they do what it takes to get back under.