Selling high. Maximizing value. The terminology is often used interchangeably, but in practice they are not always the same thing.

Over recent seasons, there have been certain trades that have left the NBA world astonished, whether because of the names involved, the return package, or the decision to pull the trigger. I have previously written about maximizing every dollar in a tight CBA and financial landscape. I have also written about maximizing optionality and flexibility. Now, it is time to write about maximizing value and selling high.

This piece will examine the historical precedent behind this philosophy and define what it truly means to sell high and maximize value in the NBA. It will map the concept across different player archetypes, from role players to Stars, while exploring how factors such as contract status and market perception influence these decisions. It will also explore how the league’s financial landscape and the constraints of the CBA have forced teams to evaluate players not only by on-court impact, but by the timing of their value.

Ultimately, this analysis will explain how value is no longer determined solely by talent, but by the intersection of talent, contract, organizational context, and timing. Understanding where these factors converge is at the heart of what it truly means to sell high and maximize value across the tiers of the NBA market.

The Background

On February 10, 2022, the San Antonio Spurs traded Derrick White to the Boston Celtics. At first glance, the transaction appeared straightforward. White was entering the first season of the extension he had signed the previous summer, and his role and reputation had steadily grown with each passing year. At the same time, San Antonio was in the midst of a rebuild, on pace for a third consecutive sub-.500 season, and trending away from contention. For the Spurs, White’s trade value had begun to outweigh both his timeline and his on-court value within the organization’s competitive window. The opportunity to capitalize on White’s value was simply too strong to ignore.

From Boston’s perspective, White was viewed as an ideal complementary piece alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, adding defense, secondary playmaking, and versatility. Both organizations accomplished their objectives. San Antonio acquired value for a player who no longer aligned with its timeline, while Boston acquired a player who helped elevate its championship core.

Pulling back, Boston acquired the fifth-year guard in exchange for matching salary and the rights to two 1st Round picks. One was a top-four protected 2022 1st, a relatively standard inclusion. The second, however, was where the intrigue lay: a top-one protected 2028 pick swap. The inclusion of a pick swap was not unusual in and of itself. What was unusual was its inclusion as a mechanism to facilitate the acquisition of a role player rather than of an established Star.

This trade represented an important turning point in NBA transactions. It marked the beginning of organizations becoming willing to include a different class of draft asset in trades, not only for Stars, but for elite role players as well. The next stage in this evolution arrived just months later, when the Minnesota Timberwolves acquired Rudy Gobert during the 2022-23 offseason, further redefining how the league valued impact relative to traditional star power.

At the time of his trade, Gobert had won three Defensive Player of the Year awards and had earned multiple All-Star selections. That said, the staggering price Minnesota paid, five 1st Round picks and five players, redefined what organizations were willing to surrender for elite impact outside the traditional superstar tier. Additionally, it expanded what franchises were willing to surrender to complete an in-house core and transform into a legitimate contender (in the Wolves’ case, one built around Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Anthony Edwards).

From Utah’s perspective, the organization had reached the playoffs in six consecutive seasons, finishing as high as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference in 2020-21, yet never advancing beyond the second round. The trade marked a turning point. The Jazz elected to step back and begin a long rebuild, a new competitive timeline that Gobert no longer fit.

While Gobert had higher Star name recognition than White, when viewed together, these two transactions laid the groundwork for a new trend based upon maximizing value. However, additional factors have since accelerated the rise of these types of trades throughout the league, particularly on the financial front.

A Key Distinction

Selling high and maximizing value neither carries the same meaning nor motive for every player tier. With role players, the concept is relatively straightforward: teams are attempting to capitalize on a player’s peak market value, extracting the maximum possible return before that value declines or stabilizes. Star-level players represent a different calculation. In these situations, organizations are not necessarily betting that the player’s impact has peaked; rather, they are evaluating whether the current combination of performance, perception, contract, and market demand represents the highest-value opportunity that they may receive.

For role players, the goal is to sell high. For Stars, the objective shifts toward maximizing not only the player’s value, but the value of the organization’s position.

The Financial Shift

Franchises are no longer evaluating players in isolation. They are evaluating players as assets within a broader financial ecosystem.

In a league where financial considerations play a major role in roster construction and organizational decision-making, contracts have become one of the primary drivers of player valuation and, by extension, one of the primary drivers behind franchise-altering decisions. However, the financial component extends beyond a player’s salary alone. It can be broken into three interconnected factors: the value of the contract itself and its impact on a team’s Cap Sheet; the growing scrutiny surrounding Secondary Stars and the weight of Max contracts; and the Salary Cap’s comparatively modest rate of growth. Together, these factors have fundamentally changed how organizations evaluate players, as well as the assets required to acquire them.

The Dollars and Cents

The first component is the contract itself: what is the player actually costing an organization?

Salary has become an extension of player value. In the current CBA environment, organizations are no longer evaluating contracts solely by their dollar amount, but by the relationship between the salary slot occupied and the production generated. A player’s value is increasingly tied not only to what he provides on the court, but also to the flexibility, or the limitations, created by his contract.

As teams navigate the Apron system and heightened roster-building restrictions, Front Offices have increasingly shifted from evaluating players solely through the lens of production to evaluating the salary slot attached to that production. While the 2nd Apron is not technically a Hard Cap, many organizations now treat it as one, recognizing the significant roster-building penalties that accompany sustained Apron spending. As a result, the question is no longer simply how good a player is, but whether the value generated by that player justifies the percentage of the Salary Cap allocated to that roster spot.

This dynamic has created an additional incentive to maximize value. Rather than waiting until a deal becomes restrictive or a player’s production no longer matches the salary, teams may instead choose to capitalize while the combination of performance, perception, contract, and market demand remains favorable. The goal is not necessarily to move off players because they lack talent, but because the opportunity cost of maintaining that salary slot may eventually outweigh the benefits of continuity.

In certain situations, the affordability of a contract becomes an asset in its own right, thereby increasing the overall market value of the player.

The Weight of Max Contracts

The second component is whether the salary slot is producing enough value.

The implications of contract value become most significant when evaluating Max contracts. While organizations will almost always prioritize retaining true franchise cornerstones, the evaluation becomes considerably more difficult when a player commands Star-level compensation without consistently producing a winning impact at the level required by that commitment.

This challenge is particularly relevant with Secondary Stars. These players are talented enough to command high-end compensation and provide significant on-court value; however, questions may exist regarding their ability to consistently serve as the primary driver of a championship team. The issue is not whether these players are good enough to justify a significant investment; rather, it is whether allocating that level of financial resources represents the optimal use of a team’s limited roster-building flexibility.

Once a team commits a substantial portion of its Cap Sheet to one player, the margin for error across the remainder of the roster shrinks. Supporting contracts must provide value, development pipelines must consistently produce contributors, and every roster decision becomes increasingly important. A salary slot allocated to one player cannot simultaneously be used elsewhere, whether that means adding depth, retaining flexibility, or acquiring complementary talent.

The introduction of the 2nd Apron has only intensified this dynamic. While Max contracts have always required careful roster construction, the current financial environment has significantly increased the consequences of carrying multiple high-salary players. The challenge is not simply the amount of money being spent, but the opportunity cost associated with that spending.

As a result, organizations have become increasingly willing to evaluate whether maintaining that salary slot remains the best pathway forward. In certain situations, a player’s market value may reach its peak before the contract itself becomes a limitation. Rather than waiting until a deal becomes restrictive or a player’s production no longer matches the salary, teams may instead choose to capitalize on the highest point of that player’s value.

This does not mean that every Max contract is viewed as a mistake, or that teams should move on from every high-level player. Instead, it reflects a growing recognition that timing and contractual weight matter. The optimal moment to maximize value may come when a player is still highly productive and highly regarded, but before financial constraints begin to outweigh the benefits of continuity.

Cap Growth

The final component is whether that salary slot will become heavier over time.

The growth of the Salary Cap itself has become an important factor in evaluating contracts. In two of the last three seasons, the Cap has failed to increase by the maximum allowable 10%, with a 6.67% as most recently exemplified in 2026-27. This matters because contracts are not evaluated in isolation; they are evaluated relative to the Cap environment. When the Cap grows slower than the annual increases built into contracts, those deals consume a larger percentage of the team’s Cap Sheet over time.

Even small growth in Cap allocation can compound across multiple large contracts, further tightening roster-building margins. This is particularly true for teams attempting to operate within the Aprons. The difference between a contract occupying 34% of the Cap versus 35% may appear minimal in isolation; however, when multiplied across multiple seasons and multiple large salaries, the cumulative impact becomes significant.

Ultimately, teams must evaluate not only what a player costs today, but what that salary slot represents in future Cap environments.

The Role Player Side

Given this overall backdrop, what are the factors that drive sell-high trades involving role players?

The selling team’s competitive timeline matters. More often than not, these transactions involve an organization that is rebuilding or pivoting toward a different direction. While the player may still be highly productive, the Front Office determines that the long-term value of the assets it can acquire exceeds the value of retaining a player who no longer aligns with the organization’s competitive timeline. Once the return reaches a certain threshold, that opportunity becomes too significant to ignore.

The player’s contract also plays a role in driving that value. Certain high-end role players on team-friendly deals have become some of the league’s most desirable trade targets. Because they occupy a much smaller percentage of the Salary Cap than a Max-level player while still providing significant on-court impact, contenders are often willing to surrender premium draft capital to acquire them. The affordability of the contract becomes an asset in its own right.

From the acquiring team’s perspective, these trades require conviction. Surrendering multiple premium assets for a role player should only be justifiable when a Front Office believes its existing in-house core is firmly established and that the acquisition represents the missing piece to legitimate championship contention. Without that certainty, the downside of sacrificing future flexibility for a non-Star increases dramatically.

The Mikal Bridges trade represents perhaps the clearest example of this framework in action. From the selling perspective, Brooklyn had pivoted toward a rebuild and ultimately determined that the draft capital offered by New York outweighed Bridges’ long-term value within its new competitive timeline. From New York’s perspective, Bridges was viewed as the final complementary piece alongside an established championship-caliber core, while his team-friendly contract further enhanced his value. Operating close to the 2nd Apron, acquiring high-end production at a manageable salary slot made Bridges even more valuable. At the time of the trade, he was earning approximately $20M, roughly 14% of the Salary Cap. For an elite two-way wing who rarely misses a game, that contract was itself an asset. The affordability of his salary increased his trade value.

Desmond Bane’s deal, however, is less clear-cut. While Orlando acquired Bane under many of the same principles, including a manageable 25% Max contract, the organization had not yet established itself to the same degree as New York. Questions surrounding the fit of its young core created uncertainty regarding whether Bane represented the final piece to a championship foundation. Unlike the Knicks, Orlando had not yet reached the stage where one major acquisition could complete an established contender. After a disappointing first season following the trade, this debate remains unresolved.

The final two recent noteworthy acquisitions that fall under this umbrella include Ivica Zubac and Walker Kessler. Zubac satisfies many of the framework’s conditions on paper, including a favorable contract (roughly 12% of the Cap), a selling team shifting timelines, and an acquiring team believing its existing core is capable of competing for a championship. Whether Zubac ultimately joins Bridges, as a successful example, or Bane, as a debated one, will be determined over the coming seasons.

Kessler’s situation was unique because of his RFA. Rather than simply evaluating whether to retain him, Utah leveraged the RFA process to maximize Kessler’s market value, ultimately forcing the Lakers into a sign-and-trade. From Utah’s perspective, while Kessler still fit the organization’s competitive timeline, the team ultimately determined that the return outweighed the value of retaining him. From Los Angeles’ perspective, the calculus mirrored many of the role-player acquisitions discussed above. The Lakers were not simply acquiring a starting center; they were betting that Kessler could become a foundational defensive piece alongside their existing core, making the acquisition worth the premium required to complete the transaction.

At their core, all of these moves were about capitalizing upon when a player’s value reached its theoretical peak, or when the return became too significant for a Front Office to ignore.

The Star Side

The Star side is different.

Unlike role-player transactions, Star-level value-maximization decisions are rarely driven by a single factor. Instead, they occur when financial commitment, organizational conviction, market demand, and timing converge to create a value-maximization opportunity. When attempting to maximize the value of a Star, organizations are not necessarily betting that the player’s on-court trajectory has peaked. That distinction separates a maximize-value trade from a traditional sell-high trade. Instead, the team is evaluating whether the current combination of performance, perception, contract, and market demand represents the highest-value opportunity they may receive.

This is where the broader discussion surrounding Secondary Stars becomes actionable. Once a Front Office determines that a player occupies one of these increasingly difficult salary slots, the question shifts from evaluation to decision-making. Is this a commitment worth maintaining, or has the player reached the point where the organization can maximize the value of the situation itself?

This is why Front Offices have become increasingly proactive. Rather than reacting after leverage declines or downside risk crystallizes, organizations can attempt to get ahead of potential value inflection points while they still control the process. This is not a bet against talent. It is a recognition that the value of an asset can change categories over time.

The two most prominent offseason examples of Star trades fitting the larger value-maximization framework are Jaylen Brown and LaMelo Ball.

The Brown discussion is inherently nuanced. A player of Brown’s caliber, production, and championship pedigree will almost always carry significant value, and whether Boston truly maximized value is complicated by the fact that the return package came below what many expected for a player of his stature.

However, several factors may explain the decision. First, Boston may have believed that Brown’s market had already reached its maximum before future contractual obligations reduced the pool of potential buyers, recognizing that waiting could further diminish his value. Second, Brown’s contract represented a larger long-term consideration beyond his current salary. His eligibility for another 2-year 35% Max extension represented an even greater long-term financial commitment. If Boston was not comfortable allocating that level of resources, the question shifted from whether Brown was a great player to whether he was worth the salary slot he occupied.

Third, pairing Brown’s and Tatum’s 35% Max contracts would consume roughly 70% of the Celtics’ Salary Cap, before accounting for the rest of the roster. For an organization operating under the current CBA environment, the question became whether a sustainable championship roster could be built while allocating such a significant portion of resources to two players. Finally, with Brown’s contract growth outpacing Cap growth (even if only by a percentage point), these financial pressures only intensify over time.

These factors are why the Jaylen Brown situation was more about maximizing value than selling high, as it did not necessarily mean selling at the absolute peak of perceived value. It meant maximizing the highest point of value available to the organization.

Ball represented a different calculation and set of underlying motives but still fits within the maximize value framework.

Charlotte appeared to possess one of the league’s more promising young foundations, marked by flexibility, an in-house core, and future assets. Yet the organization elected to pivot away from Ball, his contract, and the timeline built around him. Several factors likely drove Charlotte’s decision. It may have questioned whether Ball, given his injury history and inconsistency on-court, was the right player to build a championship timeline and foundation around, independent of where his trade value stood. While Ball remains an elite talent, the organization may have questioned whether he was the right central figure for its specific timeline, or whether that uncertainty was better resolved on Charlotte’s own terms than left to compound.

The financial component also mattered. Rather than waiting for the uncertainty surrounding Ball’s durability, consistency, and long-term fit to affect the organization’s flexibility, Charlotte chose to address the question directly while its optionality remained strong. This is the essence of the Secondary Star discussion. The question was not whether Ball is talented, but whether he could serve as a central figure on a championship-contending core. Charlotte ultimately bet that its long-term outlook on fit and readiness outweighed the value of continuing to build around Ball. To that end, it chose to resolve that uncertainty before it hardened into a roster-building constraint, impacting Ball’s market as a result.

Unlike Brown, where the primary concern centered around financial allocation, Ball represented a bet upon uncertainty. Charlotte was not necessarily trading the Star because his value had peaked statistically; it was trading him because the organization believed the risk of future value erosion outweighed the benefit of maintaining the status quo.

Wrap-up

Selling high and maximizing value have become less about predicting a player's future and more about recognizing the moment when talent, contract, organizational context, and timing intersect. Organizations that consistently maximize value will increasingly be willing to act before those variables shift against them. Value is no longer static. Neither is what it means to maximize it.

The Boston Celtics face a choice. Between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 seasons, the organization reached three Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals, ultimately capturing a championship in 2024. However, over the past two seasons, the playoff success that defined that era for Boston has waned. Now, the Celtics Front Office faces a decision: either reinforce an identity and foundation that has been as successful as any in the NBA over the last decade, or fundamentally reshape that foundation, potentially by trading superstar Jaylen Brown.

This analysis will present an examination of the Celtics’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason, using it as a backdrop to frame the larger Brown trade discussion. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. I will then focus upon the Brown trade dynamics, as well as the organization’s primary offseason strategies and objectives.

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Celtics head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $34.2M under the 2nd Apron, $21.2M under the 1st Apron, and $13.2M under the Tax, with 14 standard contracts on the books (excluding draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have one UFA and zero RFA, six players with a TO (three of which were exercised), and zero with a PO. Finally, the organization used two draft picks, one in the 1st Round (#27), as well as a 2nd Round pick (#40). These roster spots and salary slots must be accounted for.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet is lacking due to proximity to the Tax and Aprons. However, because most of the rostered players are under contract, there is an added layer of optionality gained, which gives the organization wiggle room within which to work. Operating below both Aprons and the Tax, Boston can retain full trade and roster-building flexibility, as well as access to the full NTMLE, the BAE, and previously created TPEs, of which it has two ($27.6M and $8.2M).

Using any of these exceptions would lead to a 1st Apron Hard Cap. However, the organization may view becoming an Apron and Tax team to be a non-starter since, throughout the 2025-26 season, it worked to maneuver under both thresholds to completely duck the Tax. Boston would need to be under the Tax by the end of the upcoming 2026-27 season to completely reset the Repeater clock, which could be of importance.

Finally, regarding its complete pick collection, Boston has three outright tradeable 1st Round picks and four 2nd Round picks to trade.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, at surface-level, the Celtics do not have a lengthy consequential offseason to-do list. The headliner decision is Brown’s extension eligibility. He will be able to tack on 2 years, $139M to his current 35% Max contract, a sizable amount. This inflection point is one of the most consequential of any team on the league landscape given the sheer size of the potential contract. However, this decision may be taken out of the Celtics’ hands.

As for Free Agents, the team has only one player from its fifteen-man roster, Nikola Vucevic, on track to hit Free Agency. A Trade Deadline acquisition, Vucevic’s limited time in Boston never quite clicked. This might be, in part, due to a broken finger, which caused him to miss much of the remaining regular season. That said, in the playoffs, Vucevic only averaged 19 minutes-per-game and was played off-court. The organization will hold his Full-Bird rights. He is extension eligible through June 30th.

Former Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard is extension eligible. His current 4-year $30M contract has aged into one of the best value-deals in the entire league, putting him on course to receive a meaningful salary raise. Pritchard was a key cog on the 2024 Championship roster. And given that he remains under contract for an additional 2-years for a combined $16M, his value to Boston figures to be high. This is particularly due to the team’s proximity to the financial thresholds and its need to maximize value up and down the roster. Although extending role players with multiple years left on their current deal is not prevalent, Boston could look to reach such an agreement. The question becomes whether Pritchard would agree. Waiting would increase the monetary value of the potential extension and give him the chance to increase his own value. His current deal left him underpaid, which could lead to a desire to cash in and maximize his next payday. He will have to weigh the value of the extension versus the value of what he could get by waiting.

The final smaller group of decisions that must be addressed are headlined by the six Celtics players with TOs (Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh, Amari Williams, Max Shulga, Ron Harper Jr., and Dalano Banton). Queta and Walsh figure to be the most important as they are rotation players, however the other four players matter as well from a financial perspective, specifically pertaining to maximizing flexibility and space.

Starting with Queta, who experienced a break-out season where he started 81 games across the regular season and playoffs, finishing fourth in the Most Improved Player voting. His non-guaranteed $2.6M TO represents great value for a Boston team that needed to find contributors to navigate the 2025-26 season, one in which it shed significant salary to get under the 2nd Apron. As stated in previous offseason outlooks, his deal represents the precise type of low-cost roster bet that generates surplus value that organizations seek to identify while navigating the constraints of the current CBA landscape. And because of his play, Queta has earned a raise that better reflects his level. If the Celtics view him as a long-term piece on the roster, the question becomes when will Boston want the new deal to begin? The choices are in 2026-27 by declining the TO and re-signing Queta, or in 2027-28 by exercising the option (which it did) and extending him (either in the offseason or in-season). Or the franchise could simply wait and see how he plays in the regular season and then decide. This path may be motivated by what was a disappointing playoff performance from Queta.

Walsh follows a similar pathway to Queta regarding exercise or decline, in other words, either start a new deal in 2026-27 or wait to have it begin in 2027-28. At the heart of both situations is the Celtics’ financial positioning for the upcoming season and what the team wants to do with its remaining space, as having either (or both) of these contracts beginning now would have eaten away at what could prove to be precious flexibility.

For Harper, Shulga, Williams, and Banton, at surface-level, these back-of-the-roster contracts and subsequent TOs may appear marginal. However, depending on the exercise-or-decline decisions, they could yield small Cap savings for the Celtics, or long-term value plays if extended. Harper’s $2.584M salary sits slightly above the projected two-year veteran minimum Cap hit for 2026–27. That said, Boston re-signed Harper on a 3-year $9M deal. For Shulga and Williams, both remain Two-Way eligible, allowing Boston to retain them via that mechanism instead of occupying standard roster slots if needed.

Relevant Questions

• What is the next step in the roster-building plan and how should the Front Office evaluate the 2025-26 season? Is it viewed as a success given the murky pre-season projections, or a disappointment because of how it ended?

• How can Boston close the gap between itself and the top of the conference? Should Jaylen Brown or Derrick White be traded in a sell-high move? Should Brown be extended?

• Who is a part of the core and viewed as legitimate foundational building blocks?

• Team-building wise, will Boston attempt to duck the Tax to reset the Repeater clock? Will it use its draft capital to add talent via trade? What should be done with the mid- to back-of-the-roster decisions?

The Big Trade Factor

Over the past several seasons, a relatively significant number of Stars have been traded. Certain of these trades were expected, while others came as complete shocks. Boston has not made a traditional Star trade in that span; however, it has executed several out-of-nowhere deals to bolster its standing and better position itself to compete. Depending upon its internal evaluation, the Celtics may once again be on the verge of such a transaction. This time, however, Boston may be the team moving the Star rather than acquiring one.

Over the past few weeks, the headline centered around Giannis Antetokounmpo, a superstar who would have given Boston the interior presence that the roster lacks and ostensibly wants to address. Giannis represented arguably the highest-ceiling player available, and Boston reportedly explored pathways to a deal. While Antetokounmpo ultimately landed in Miami, the Celtics’ involvement is noteworthy. It demonstrates that the Front Office was at least willing to entertain the possibility of building around Jayson Tatum without Brown. Just because the Giannis pursuit is over does not mean the broader organizational evaluation is. If anything, it may have accelerated it.

This circles back to the self-evaluation that the Front Office must have conducted, determining how far away a healthy version of the roster is from competing with the NBA Champion New York Knicks, the team that also eliminated Boston from the playoffs in 2024-25. There are additional layers to this analysis, including where Boston projects to be within an increasingly competitive Eastern Conference and how it stacks up against the league’s elite teams, as a whole. Is the current core, once healthy, still capable of winning another championship? Or has the league shifted enough that a more significant organizational pivot is required? The answers to those questions will ultimately shape Boston’s direction.

If the organization concludes that meaningful change is necessary, Brown naturally becomes the focal point of that conversation.

Brown is coming off arguably the best season of his career. The former Finals MVP earned All-NBA Second Team honors while carrying an injury-depleted Celtics roster to the #2 seed. A homegrown star who has spent nearly a decade in Boston, Brown has been instrumental in establishing one of the NBA’s premier organizations. At the same time, he is also the franchise’s most valuable trade asset outside of Tatum, making him the logical centerpiece of any blockbuster conversation.

Beyond his on-court value, Brown’s contract situation introduces another layer to the equation. He will become extension eligible during this offseason, forcing Boston to determine whether it is comfortable committing an additional two years of 35% Max money into his mid-30s. That decision is not simply about Brown as a player, but about the long-term construction of the roster, financial flexibility under the 2nd Apron, and whether the current championship window is best served by maintaining the existing core or reallocating those resources elsewhere.

There is also the concept of “selling high.” Following arguably the best season of his career, Brown’s trade value may never be greater. Trading a player immediately after an All-NBA campaign is uncomfortable, particularly when it involves one who has accomplished as much as Brown has in Boston. However, Front Offices are tasked with maximizing organizational value. If Boston believes Brown’s current market value exceeds what he will provide relative to his next contract, this calculus inevitably enters the discussion.

There is an interpersonal component as well. Brown is known for being outspoken about and confident in his standing within the league. Public trade discussions can have ramifications beyond basketball operations. Even if no trade materializes, serious organizational exploration of a player’s market may influence future negotiations or alter the relationship between player and franchise. While every situation is unique, it introduces another variable Boston must consider as it evaluates Brown’s future.

Ultimately, this is not simply a basketball decision. It is a question of organizational philosophy. Does Boston believe the Tatum-Brown era still represents its clearest championship pathway, or is Brown’s combination of age, production, contract status, and league-wide value, coupled with the roster-building flexibility and optionality gained from a potential trade, compelling enough to justify a franchise-altering trade? The Giannis discussions may have ended; however, they may also have revealed that Boston is more open to asking this question than many previously believed.

Boston has shown a willingness to get out ahead of difficult decisions involving foundational, identity players before (most notably with Marcus Smart). The question becomes whether history will repeat itself, or whether the Celtics see Brown’s presence as irreplaceable, with his value and fit keeping him insulated from the same conversation.

Strategic Approach and Negotiation Dynamics

Boston’s overarching offseason goal is straightforward and revolves around how the organization can return to legitimate contender status and assemble a roster capable of winning sixteen playoff games. What cannot be denied is that the organization needs more talent. The question is whether that talent injection should come at the top of the roster to raise the ceiling, or in the middle to solidify the floor. This creates two distinct pathways: one involving a franchise-altering transaction, and another centered around making complementary moves to build a stronger foundation around the Stars already on the roster.

This dynamic sits at the heart of the Brown conversation.

Before making the argument for why Brown could be traded, let’s start with what the Celtics might look to do if Brown were to be retained. This would involve Boston strengthening the foundation. As stated earlier, the team has $34.2M in 2nd-Apron space; however, in practice the team is likely to operate within its $21.2M of 1st Apron space. This is because if Boston were to use either the NTMLE or a previously generated TPE, it would be Hard-Capped at the 1st Apron. In this pathway, Brown could be retained. After all, he did just finish the best season of his career, remains in the middle of his prime, and has already proven he can be a top-two player on a championship team. If Boston believes the current gap is one of depth rather than top-end talent, moving Brown could create more problems than it solves.

At the moment, in a straight-up transaction, if Boston were to sign a player in Free Agency using the full $15.1M NTMLE, it would consume most of its available 1st Apron flexibility and significantly reduce the likelihood of simultaneously leveraging a TPE. However, there are still pathways where the team could preserve optionality and utilize both routes in tandem. For example, in either the NTMLE or TPE pathway, Boston could structure a deal where it sends out salary in a matching framework, rather than purely absorbing incoming money into its exception. That would allow the team to retain a degree of Cap flexibility while still preserving the ability to deploy both mechanisms and keep sufficient Apron space intact by sequencing transactions.

Through this pathway, Boston could still use draft capital to target specific, more attainable upgrades, but it would not be for a Giannis-caliber player. Instead, it would be a more measured consolidation of assets, aimed at improving the rotation and strengthening the foundation rather than swinging for a singular franchise-altering acquisition.

The same line of thinking can be applied to a Brown trade framework as well. The Celtics must determine whether Brown is truly off the table, or whether their willingness to discuss him in a Giannis deal signals a broader organizational openness to reshaping the roster. Could there be a scenario where Brown is moved not for another star, but as part of a broader retool centered around multiple high-level contributors, additional assets, and greater financial flexibility? In theory, yes. However, trading Brown should not be done simply because the opportunity exists. Rather, the organization would need to believe that reallocating Brown’s value across multiple roster spots, assets, and financial flexibility ultimately produces a team that is better positioned to compete around Tatum, both immediately and over the long term. Anything short of that begins to veer away from consolidation and into fragmentation, which does not align with Boston’s current competitive window.

To state the obvious, if the Celtics ultimately explore the possibility of trading Brown, the objective would not be to initiate a rebuild. Rather, it should be an attempt to reallocate resources around Tatum while addressing the financial realities created by the NBA’s financial landscape. Any deal would need to keep Boston firmly among the league’s contenders while simultaneously creating greater roster flexibility and long-term optionality.

The first priority would be ensuring that Tatum remains positioned to compete for championships throughout his prime. Trading Brown for future assets alone would be difficult to justify given Tatum’s age, stature, and importance to the organization. Instead, Boston would likely seek a package centered around high-level rotation players capable of contributing immediately, allowing the team to remain competitive in both the short and long term.

Financial considerations would inevitably play a major role as well. Brown’s contract represents one of the largest commitments in the league and moving it could provide meaningful relief from the constraints imposed by the apron system. Beyond simply reducing payroll, the Celtics could look to diversify their Cap Sheet, replacing one massive salary slot with multiple contracts that offer greater flexibility and roster-building avenues in future seasons.

A Brown trade could also serve as an opportunity to address organizational depth and replenish assets. Over the course of several deep playoff runs, Boston has prioritized talent over asset accumulation. Converting Brown into multiple rotation pieces, draft capital, and contractual flexibility could strengthen the supporting cast around Tatum while providing the Front Office with additional tools to navigate future transactions.

Taken together, these objectives illustrate what Boston would ultimately be seeking in any Brown trade. Ideally, the Celtics would seek a combination of immediate contributors, financial flexibility, and future assets, while ensuring that any deal preserves their status as a legitimate championship contender around Tatum. Should a potential return fail to satisfy these criteria, the organization would need to question whether the trade meaningfully improves its championship outlook or simply weakens the roster in pursuit of change. I believe, as a result, that Boston should also establish a clear internal walk-away threshold, a defined return standard that any deal must meet in order to be considered viable, ensuring Brown is not moved unless the trade materially advances the team’s position and accomplishes its objectives.

The challenge is not identifying reasons to trade Brown, but lies in determining whether a realistic trade package exists that simultaneously improves Boston’s financial outlook, deepens the roster, replenishes assets, and maintains a championship-caliber foundation around Tatum. If such a deal exists, it becomes a legitimate organizational discussion. If it does not, retaining Brown may remain the clearest path toward contention.

Potential Trade Partners

After 53 years, the New York Knicks captured their third NBA Championship following a dominant playoff run. With this win, the Front Office’s roster vision was fully realized. The focus now shifts to defending the title in a league where repeat titles have become increasingly rare. This means maximizing the core of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart. That said, the overall offseason will not be straightforward.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the Knicks’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. To that end, I will focus upon the team’s potential main strategies and objectives and present my own perspective about how New York could approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

New York Knicks 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

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Season Recap

Record: 53-29 (3rd place in the East), won NBA Championship

Notable Moves:

• Signed Guerschon Yabusele via the TMLE, later (indirectly) traded for Jose Alvarado

• Signed Jordan Clarkson and Landry Shamet to 1-year veteran minimums

• Extended Mikal Bridges on a 4-year $150M contract

• Drafted Mo Diawara with pick #55

Main Offseason Questions

• Does winning a championship translate to an increased willingness to cross over the 2nd Apron threshold for this roster?

• What are the next steps for New York in its team-building process and pursuit of defending its championship? Will it try to completely run it back?

• How will the organization prioritize its key Free Agents? Can it keep all of them despite the tight financial situation and likely open-market interest?

• What happens with extension eligible players? Will Towns take a potential discount?

• What happens with Deuce McBride? Is there a willingness from both sides to extend? If yes, is the agreement reached? If no, what happens?

• Will the organization look to extend Towns and/or Hart, and can it get them to agree to take discounted deals?

Biggest Needs

• Additional bench pieces and overall complementary depth

• To continue to surround core players with pieces that fit on-court skillset, player profiles, and overall team identity and timeline

• Front court depth

• A ball-handler

• Value in the margins

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Knicks head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $16.5M under the 2nd Apron, $3.5M under the 1st Apron, and $4.4M over the Tax, with nine standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The team will be a standard Tax team for one more season. The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have four UFAs and two RFAs, zero players with a TO, and one with a PO. As a result, the offseason appears straightforward from an optionality perspective, but not necessarily from a roster-building lens, with a minimum of five spots needing to be filled. Finally, the organization has one 1st Round pick in the upcoming draft (#24), as well as two in the 2nd Round (#31 and #55).

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet lacks optionality due to proximity to the Aprons. It is helpful that it has a majority of its core under contract, with the five core players occupying the five largest salary slots. That said, the team has a dearth of mid-sized tradable contracts, causing the books to be top-heavy. Due to its financial positioning, the team could have access to the TMLE. Although using it would result in a 2nd Apron Hard Cap, stripping the organization of the ability to go over the threshold as well as giving it a finite amount of space to fill out the roster.

Finally, New York has one outright tradeable 1st Round pick, three available for swaps, and seven 2nd Round picks to trade.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, there are four main Free Agency decisions with Mitchell Robinson being the headliner. The longest-tenured Knick has witnessed a complete organizational turnaround and has been a major part of the team’s identity and success. Robinson is currently extension eligible and will remain so through June 30th. As such, he can sign a 4-year $87M contract. The team holds his Full-Bird rights. Click here to read my in-depth breakdown of Robinson’s Free Agency.

After having been signed to consecutive 1-year veteran minimum contracts, Landry Shamet will hit with Early-Bird rights. The sharpshooter shot a staggering 47.5% from 3 during the playoffs, including 11-12 during the Eastern Conference Finals. When coupled with his tenacious perimeter defense, Shamet’s playoff performance elevated him into a major rotation role and positioned him for the most lucrative contract of his career. Shamet has been a journeyman, so his performance came at the perfect moment.

Next is Mo Diawara, whose situation I have written about extensively. His RFA is quite complicated. Diawara faces what is going to be a complex Arenas Provision situation given his Non-Bird Rights coupled with the team’s likely standing over the Tax threshold. The Knicks are restricted regarding what the team can offer Diawara directly and what it can match via an offer sheet, namely via the TMLE. If New York were to utilize the TMLE in any capacity, it would Hard-Cap itself at the 2nd Apron. This restriction would complicate the broader roster picture, affecting both pending Free Agents and players already under contract. Viewed through this lens, Diawara’s situation becomes consequential.

After being acquired at the Trade Deadline, Jose Alvarado assumed back-up PG duties, which he held down throughout both the stretch run and subsequent playoffs. The native New Yorker shone when the lights were brightest during the NBA Finals, and now approaches his own inflection point regarding a $4.5M PO. If Alvarado opts in, he becomes extension eligible for a 4-year $92.8M extension in September. If he opts out, he enters Free Agency with Full-Bird rights. New York prioritized acquiring Alvarado at what was a vitally important Deadline for the organization given its aspirations, and he has a clear affinity for playing for his hometown team.

Jordan Clarkson played a role during the championship run, albeit an inconsistent one. He could likely be brought back on a veteran minimum. If he is re-signed on a 1-year deal (or a 1+1), he would have a Bird-Veto written into his contract, giving him the ability to veto an in-season trade (although he could agree to waive this right). The same can be said for Jeremy Sochan, who will also be a UFA. Both players have Non-Bird rights. The last Free Agent from the fifteen-man roster is Ariel Hukporti, who was the third center for the Knicks. He can be re-signed via a standard contract, or via a Two-Way since he remains eligible. I would not expect the team to give him a QO since it would be higher than his applicable veteran minimum.

Finally, extension conversations will need to occur for Towns, Hart, and McBride. Towns had an up-and-down season that featured several perceived low points. However, his season ended on the loudest possible high note, an incredible playoff stretch where he was a driving force behind the championship. The narrative around Towns as a player has shifted dramatically in six months. Questions about his playoff viability and long-term value have largely been replaced by discussions about the magnitude of his importance to New York’s championship window.

The more relevant question is whether the Knicks’ internal valuation of Towns has changed. Six months ago, an extension may have been viewed as a difficult proposition. Today, the calculus looks different. More importantly, would the team be able to get Towns to agree to a form of discount to help the organization out, financially speaking, in a move similar to what Brunson did on his previous contract. If yes, this would dramatically shift New York’s future financial positioning.

Hart faces a similar situation when he becomes extension eligible. The heartbeat of the team has played as important a role across the last number of seasons as any (outside of Brunson) and will become eligible for a 4-year $131.2M extension on August 10th. The same question applies: would Hart be willing to take a discount for the betterment of the team? Or is his situation different? Hart’s career earnings are a fraction of Towns’, which could act as a stronger incentive to maximize his next payday. Unlike Towns (who has a PO which gives him a large degree of leverage), Hart has a TO, which inherently favors the Knicks.

McBride will be the least significant of the three from a financial perspective; however, his situation could prove to be the most complicated given his current contract. He has 1-year $3.9M left on his deal and would be eligible to extend in-season on December 30th for 4-years $92.8M. Is there a number that both sides feel comfortable with? Will McBride seek to maximize his salary given the steep discount his current contract proved to be? If the answer is yes, then his future with New York could become murkier.

And this leads the conversation to the most important inflection point for New York: its navigation of the 2nd Apron.

The 2nd Apron Factor

The 2nd Apron forces organizations into difficult decisions. The Phoenix Suns, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Minnesota Timberwolves have all crossed into the territory before quickly backtracking after experiencing its restrictions. Yet for the Knicks, crossing the threshold may be the price of keeping a championship-caliber roster intact. New York must decide whether preserving flexibility is worth sacrificing overall continuity.

An argument can reasonably be made both ways. Going over the 2nd Apron would likely allow the Knicks to retain essentially the same rotation that just won a championship. The cost would be severe roster-building restrictions and a lack of mechanisms for external additions. Staying below the threshold preserves flexibility but creates a finite pool of resources with which to fill out the roster, likely resulting in the loss of at least one key contributor. The result would be a lot of work with not a lot of room to do it. Most importantly, there would be no guarantee that the resulting roster would be as sturdy as the one that just won a title.

So, what would go into the decision to become a 2nd Apron team?

A viable strategy and timeline are essential. Ideally, the window lasts no more than two seasons: long enough to maximize a core, but short enough to avoid the most punitive downstream effects. Beyond that point, the calculus shifts. The longer a franchise remains above the threshold, the more likely the eventual costs outweigh the original competitive benefits. Viewed through this lens, the question is not simply whether ownership is willing to spend, but whether the organization has built a timeline capable of surviving the restrictions it knowingly assumed.

Understanding the 2nd Apron as both a window and a threshold reframes how teams that cross it should be evaluated, particularly when separating a window into two timelines: an on-court window and a financial one. The on-court window is fluid, capable of expanding, shrinking, or closing unexpectedly as circumstances evolve. The financial window is rigid by design. Once a team enters the 2nd Apron, the two windows become intertwined, with the financial window limiting the organization’s ability to react to the unpredictability of the on-court one. That is the central risk of the 2nd Apron: not merely that it limits spending, but that it limits adaptability when reality inevitably diverges from the plan.

Thus, crossing into the 2nd Apron is just as much about creating and preserving pathways back below the threshold as it is about crossing it in the first place.

As reigning champions with most of their core under contract, the Knicks’ on-court window is clearly open. The question is whether the organization believes its financial window is sufficiently aligned to justify accepting the restrictions that come with crossing the threshold. The answer will impact every aspect of the offseason, from Draft decisions and Free Agency negotiations to trades and extension talks. Even seemingly minor decisions, such as the salary slot of the 24th pick or whether a 2nd Round selection receives a standard contract or a Two-Way deal, become meaningful variables.

The 2024 Boston Celtics team was arguably in a position most similar to New York. Following its 2024 title, Boston pushed deep into the 2nd Apron, betting that its core would continue to contend. The decision appeared apt after a 61-win season, but unforeseen circumstances (such as Kristaps Porzingis falling ill, as well as the impact of age on Al Horford’s and Jrue Holiday’s play) ultimately derailed the title defense. When it became clear that the financial and roster-building burdens were no longer justified, Boston’s Front Office successfully worked its way back below the threshold through a series of strategic moves while preserving a pathway back to contention.

This comparison is relevant because the Knicks may be even better positioned to take the gamble, given their core rotation players are all 31 or younger and the Front Office’s demonstrated creativity in roster construction and Cap management. It reinforces the central premise that entering the 2nd Apron is not just a binary cost decision, but a question of timing and durability.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

The Knicks’ goal is to defend their title. No team has been successful in this effort over the last eight seasons, so New York must figure out how to position itself in the best place to accomplish this objective. In my opinion, the pathway that accomplishes this is going over the 2nd Apron, as long as the Front Office is comfortable with the contracts that it gives to Robinson and Shamet.

Before turning to this pathway, it is worth exploring the alternative. As currently constructed, the Knicks have $16.5M in 2nd Apron space, three draft picks (only one of which, #24, carries a guaranteed salary slot), key rotation Free Agents, and at least five roster spots to fill. If the goal were simply to complete the roster and duck the threshold, veteran minimums and draft picks could accomplish that. The problem is that Robinson and Shamet will command more than the minimum, while Diawara could potentially do the same. Unless New York moves salary from its core rotation, it is unlikely to retain all three players while remaining below the 2nd Apron.

That reality forces prioritization. The organization would need to evaluate the Free Agent market and trade landscape (specifically through the lens of the Cap mechanisms that New York has access to with limited flexibility), and the Draft to determine which Free Agents are hardest to replace and therefore more important to retain. Any departure would carry downstream effects elsewhere on the roster, as this could lead the organization toward trading rostered salary to fill the gap. And while the team would avoid the 2nd Apron’s punitive restrictions, due to limited space and the need to fill out five roster spots, it would still be tied from a roster-building flexibility perspective.

For example, if Shamet is re-signed and Robinson departs, New York would be forced to replace its center with no “clean” pathways forward. The Draft would require trusting a rookie in a meaningful rotation role, the Free Agent market would be trusting a veteran minimum player, while the trade market would be constrained by the Knicks’ lack of mid-sized tradable salaries, significantly limiting flexibility and narrowing the pool of realistic targets. A potential framework could be to use McBride (or another small salary attached to assets) to acquire a lower-cost center such as Yves Missi. This scenario raises questions about whether the resulting roster would actually be both less complete and less competitive than simply retaining Robinson and crossing over the threshold.

All things being equal, I would prioritize retaining Robinson because of his importance to the team’s foundation and overall impact. However, he is also likely to command a larger contract, which would consume a greater share of the Knicks’ remaining room below the 2nd Apron. As a result, the financial realities of filling out the rest of the roster could ultimately reduce the likelihood of his return. For this reason, if this is the pathway selected, I believe that Shamet would be the more likely player to be retained, with the roster subsequently filled out with re-signings, rookies, and veteran minimums.

If the Knicks choose to go over the 2nd Apron, then the $16.5M in space matters less. In this scenario, retaining both Robinson and Shamet should be a priority, assuming the contracts remain reasonable and the Front Office does not identify a comparable replacement. If either receives an unexpected offer that clearly should not be matched, plans can change. If both players want to stay on acceptable deals, New York should bring them back. I would aim for a combined AAV in the $20-24M range (Robinson between $12-16M, and Shamet between $6-9M), which would push the team over the threshold and bring the standard roster to eleven players (potential offers can be found in the deliverable version of this analysis). After filling out the remaining spots, the Knicks would likely sit upwards of $10M above the 2nd Apron. This is a meaningful figure, but one that can be navigated if necessary.

Contract structure would become relevant in this scenario. If New York is committed to operating above the 2nd Apron in 2026-27, would it front-load contracts? Would it intentionally create larger salary slots to improve future trade flexibility? If so, I would explore that route with Shamet while attempting to keep Robinson within the NTMLE range so that he could theoretically be moved into such an exception if necessary. That said, to align with a two-year 2nd Apron window while protecting the team against injury, regression, or other unforeseen risks, I would structure all above-minimum contracts (Robinson, Shamet, and potentially Alvarado) as two- to three-year deals.

The two curveballs are Diawara and Alvarado. If Diawara receives an offer sheet above what his Non-Bird rights permit New York to match, the Knicks would be powerless to prevent his departure. Regardless, the team should attempt to retain him via the Non-Bird offer, which plays out to around 4-years $11.3M. Alvarado presents a different challenge. If he opts out, seeks a larger deal, and is brought back, the Team Salary increases further. In response, New York could look to move salary from the back-end of the roster and then backfill via the Draft. If Alvarado opts in, he could seek to extend, similar to what Hart did in 2023.

Speaking of the Draft, the Knicks’ approach could go in almost any direction. New York could use its picks to add young, cost-controlled talent to backfill the roster, or trade back (or out entirely) to replenish its asset base. If the franchise is looking to trim salary, it could move off pick #24, which carries a guaranteed first-year salary in the $2.2–3.3M range depending on contract structure. Alternatively, it could work the board in the 2nd Round, where the 2nd Round pick exception and Two-Way contracts provide significantly greater flexibility. Pick #31, for example, holds real value both as a draft asset and a trade chip. Finally, the organization could prioritize drafting in-house replacements for impending free agents. Everything is on the table. I would look to utilize at least one of the top two picks to collect additional (future) assets.

The larger conversation with the bigger names, however, revolves around extensions. The Knicks have a history of players taking discounts for the betterment of the team. Brunson accepted a $113M discount, while Bridges took roughly $6M less than the maximum total available amount. Given the Championship, the question now is whether Towns and Hart would be willing to act similarly. If they are, it could significantly alter New York’s long-term financial outlook and improve its ability to navigate the 2nd Apron and lower its Repeater Tax payment.

Towns’ situation is particularly important. Depending upon how his $61M PO in 2027-28 is handled, he could become eligible for either a 3-year $208M extension or a 4-year $272M extension. The question is whether New York can reduce the AAV. For example, I would push to bring it down to approximately $50M (ballpark 30% of the Cap), which would have a meaningful impact. This, in part, depends upon how Towns and his representation view his future market. If they do not project another full Max contract, the possibility of accepting a slightly lower annual salary in exchange for security becomes more realistic. Given the momentum generated by the title, this offseason may represent the ideal opportunity to begin those conversations. Similar logic applies to Hart, albeit on a smaller scale. Of the two, the Knicks should press Towns more given the sheer scale of the numbers.

McBride’s future also looms large over the equation. If New York agrees to pay Shamet and Alvarado, where does the money for McBride ultimately come from? Discounts from Towns and Hart could create additional flexibility, but every additional dollar will be magnified by Repeater Tax penalties beginning in 2027-28. Even if the combined salaries are reasonable, allocating significant resources to the Shamet-Alvarado-McBride trio could eventually create a financial and roster imbalance.

In the short-term (2026-27), when determining 2nd Apron standing, the most important decisions relate to upcoming Free Agents. Overall, extensions will ultimately determine whether crossing this Apron becomes a one-year stay or a longer-term commitment. If the organization can secure meaningful discounts, there is a realistic pathway back below the threshold in 2027-28 even while retaining players such as Robinson and Shamet. That outcome would significantly reduce the long-term risk associated with going over in 2026-27 while also lowering future Repeater Tax payments.

Finally, regardless of financial positioning, the end of the roster must be maximized using available mechanisms. If the franchise operates above the Apron, its internal development infrastructure becomes critical due to limited avenues for external additions. If the team remains below it, finding value in the margins becomes equally important because every dollar of flexibility matters. The door should remain open to bringing back Clarkson, Sochan, and Hukporti due to familiarity with the system. Attempting to identify value on the minimum market is also important. Players at the back of the roster should help address specific needs while bringing at least one identifiable, bankable skill.

All-in-all, in an offseason about maximizing a championship-core, the constraints of staying under the 2nd Apron may ultimately pose a greater risk to future title contention than crossing over it. For this reason, I would cross the threshold and work to retain the core, as long as the contracts handed out are deemed positive value by the Front Office. If the organization is wary of re-signing Robinson or Shamet at the number they will command, then the calculus may change.

Targets

When an organization wins a championship, it is easy to forget that the NBA clock and calendar never stop. There are always inflection points and difficult decisions to be made. This is the reality that the recently crowned New York Knicks face, beginning with its longest-tenured player.

Mitchell Robinson is one of the NBA’s most unique players. As Karl-Anthony Towns recently said: “He’s one of a kind. I don’t know if there’s maybe another Mitch Robinson in the league. I only think there’s Mitchell Robinson. There’s only one of him.” Few players impact games in the way that Robinson does. When healthy, he has been a stalwart for the Knicks, a foundational piece of the team’s identity. Robinson was a key driver of the organization’s turnaround over recent seasons, which culminated in a 2026 NBA Championship. Now, for the second time in his career, he enters Free Agency.

This analysis will paint a clearer picture of what a realistic negotiation and eventual contract structure could look like. It will profile Robinson, his value, and relevant contract comparables, while also examining New York’s broader financial outlook and roster-building strategy.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Mitchell Robinson Ufa Outlook

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The Financials and Inflection Points

Before diving into Robinson’s situation, it is important to give an overview of the Knicks’ financial position.

As currently constructed, the Knicks head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $16.5M under the 2nd Apron, $3.5M under the 1st Apron, and $4.4M over the Tax, with nine standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The team will be a standard Tax team for one more season. The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have four UFAs and two RFAs, zero players with a TO, and one with a PO. As a result, the offseason appears straightforward from an optionality perspective, but not necessarily from a roster-building lens, with a minimum of five spots needing to be filled. Finally, the organization has one 1st Round pick in the upcoming draft (#24), as well as two in the 2nd Round (#31 and #55).

Regarding in-house decisions, the top-end of the roster is under contract, with the core five players occupying the five largest salary slots. That said, the Knicks still project to have a relatively complex offseason to-do list, with Robinson being the headliner inflection point. The team holds his Full-Bird rights. Beyond Robinson, there are several additional circumstances worth monitoring. Trade Deadline acquisition Jose Alvarado has a $4.5M PO. If Alvarado opts in, he becomes extension eligible. If he opts out, he enters Free Agency. The postseason play of Landry Shamet has added intrigue to his upcoming Free Agency, as his lights-out shooting and pesky perimeter defense represent a skillset that every organization seeks. The Knicks hold Shamet’s Early-Bird rights.

On the extension front, there is much to do as well. In addition to Alvarado (depending upon his PO situation), Karl-Anthony Towns (PO in 2027-28), Josh Hart (TO in 2027-28), and Deuce McBride (UFA in 2027-28) will all be extension eligible at various points. Robinson is currently extension eligible and will remain so through June 30th. As such, he can sign a 4-year $87M contract.

Finally, intriguing rookie Mo Diawara will be an RFA and faces what is going to be a complex Arenas Provision situation given his Non-Bird Rights coupled with the team’s likely standing over the Tax threshold. In simple terms, there is a chance that the team could face restrictions regarding both what it can offer Diawara directly and what it can match via an offer sheet.

Arguably the most relevant financial point for the Knicks is the degree of the team’s willingness, or lack thereof, to enter 2nd Apron territory. Despite consistently having one of the league’s most expensive rosters and having little wiggle room, the Knicks Front Office has done a great job of navigating the Aprons over recent seasons, in part due to paying attention to minute details. The margin for financial error has at times been extremely small, and yet the organization has never gone above the threshold. Given the even tighter financial situation coupled with multiple rotation players hitting UFA, the question now becomes whether the franchise will cross the threshold, particularly after winning a title.

The Knicks’ offseason revolves around this single Apron decision: whether to operate below the 2nd Apron and preserve flexibility at the cost of roster continuity, or to cross it and preserve the core at the cost of long-term optionality. Mitchell Robinson sits directly at this intersection. As a result, every roster decision carries broader implications for New York’s financial trajectory. The Front Office must weigh each move not in isolation, but as part of the evolving Cap architecture that could become increasingly constrained over time. This dynamic ultimately circles back to Robinson.

Robinson’s Profile

Relevant Questions

• Is the plan to go over the 2nd Apron? Does winning a championship translate to an increased willingness to cross over the threshold for this roster?

• What are the next steps for New York in its team-building process and pursuit of defending its championship? Will it try to completely run it back?

• How will the organization prioritize its key Free Agents? Between Robinson, Shamet, Diawara, Alvarado (potentially), and Clarkson, who would be the easiest to replace, either in-house, via the Draft, or on the open market?

• Will Robinson have a robust market? Will his injury history impact team interest and his subsequent valuation? Would a team give him more than the NTMLE, or is this exception his contractual ceiling?

The Infrastructure Factor

A team needs an internal infrastructure in place when signing a player like Robinson because, given his injury history, there is an understanding that his workload will need to be managed. In an ideal world, Robinson is available for every game. Realistically, however, teams must prepare for stretches where Robinson is unavailable or operating under restrictions. As a result, maximizing Robinson’s value is not simply about having him on the roster, it is about building a system capable of supporting both his presence and his absence.

This dynamic creates a unique roster-building challenge. Teams need capable frontcourt depth players that can absorb meaningful minutes when Robinson is sidelined, while also potentially being comfortable shifting into smaller roles when he returns. Depending upon Robinson’s availability, these players may need to fluctuate between starting and reserve roles, between playing heavy minutes and spot minutes. Throughout Robinson’s tenure, the Knicks consistently worked to strike that balance, ensuring that the team could survive stretches without him while still maximizing his impact when healthy.

If this infrastructure in an interested team does not already exist, pursuing Robinson becomes more complicated than simply evaluating the player himself. A Front Office must also evaluate the cost of building the environment necessary to support him. The acquisition effectively creates an additional roster-building requirement, one that may involve allocating resources toward backup centers, frontcourt versatility, or lineup flexibility that otherwise would not be necessary. For certain organizations, Robinson’s talent may justify those accommodations. For others, the added complexity may serve as a deterrent, particularly when paired with availability concerns, making the decision less about Robinson’s ability and more about whether the team is equipped to optimize it.

Negotiation Dynamics

There are two parts to this discussion: the Knicks’ broader 2nd Apron strategy and financial outlook, and Robinson’s individual Free Agency profile.

The Knicks’ financial decision-making process will largely revolve around the 2nd Apron. For years the team has ducked the threshold. However, if the organization wants to keep its core together, the franchise will have to cross into the Apron as it only has $16.5M in space. There are several factors behind the decision to become a 2nd Apron team.

A viable 2nd Apron strategy and plan are a must. An ideal window is no longer than two seasons: long enough to maximize a core, but short enough to avoid triggering the most punitive downstream effects. Beyond that point, the calculus shifts. The longer a franchise remains above the 2nd Apron, the greater the likelihood that the eventual exit costs exceed the original competitive upside.

Understanding the 2nd Apron as both a window and a threshold reframes how teams that cross it should be evaluated. The question is not simply whether an organization is willing to spend, but whether it has built a timeline capable of surviving the constraints it knowingly accepted while preserving a path back to flexibility.

This distinction becomes clearer when separating a team’s title window into two timelines: an on-court window and a financial one. The on-court window is inherently fluid, capable of widening, shrinking, or closing unexpectedly as circumstances evolve. The financial window is rigid by design. Once a team enters the 2nd Apron, the two timelines no longer move independently. The financial window begins to constrain the organization’s ability to react to the on-court window’s unpredictability. That is the central risk of the 2nd Apron: not merely that it limits spending, but that it limits adaptability when reality inevitably diverges from the plan.

Thus, crossing into the 2nd Apron is just as much about creating and preserving pathways back below the threshold as it is about crossing it in the first place.

As reigning champions with most of the core under contract, the Knicks’ on-court window is clearly open. The question now turns to whether the organization believes that the on-court window and financial window are sufficiently aligned to justify crossing the threshold and accepting the punitive restrictions that come with it. If yes, the team is more likely to cross into 2nd Apron territory. If no, it signals that the Front Office prioritizes flexibility.

The answer to this question will impact potential negotiations, both with Robinson and with other Free Agents. If the Knicks are committed to staying under the 2nd Apron, then, as currently constructed, the team will have a finite amount of money to both fill out the roster and negotiate with Free Agents. This would mean choosing between Robinson and other Free Agents (such as Shamet) or players already under contract. An additional wrinkle comes from the Diawara RFA situation.

If New York were to utilize the TMLE in any capacity, it would Hard-Cap itself at the 2nd Apron, significantly constraining its financial flexibility. This restriction would complicate the broader roster picture, affecting both pending Free Agents and players already under contract. Viewed through that lens, Diawara’s situation becomes particularly consequential. If the Knicks were forced to rely on the TMLE to match an Offer Sheet, it would restrict wiggle room and alter how the team approaches its other decisions.

The last main Knicks-based negotiation point has to do with replacements. Given the tight finances, if Robinson were to leave, questions would emerge about replacements. The team could look to the Draft or the open market to find a replacement center. However, given its projected resources and limited flexibility, the franchise would not likely find a player who completely fills the Robinson void. This is an important factor and could determine how the Knicks prioritize their Free Agents (Robinson, Shamet, Diawara, potentially Alvarado, and Clarkson), specifically in terms of who would be the easiest to replace. It could also lead to trading rostered-salary to fill the gap.

Moving on to Robinson’s profile, the value is clear. The NBA has evolved into a possession-based league. Teams care about ball security, turning opponents over, smart clock management, and generating as many extra possessions as possible through offensive rebounding. Robinson has a legitimate case as one of the most impactful offensive rebounders in league history. His mere presence completely alters opponent game plans.

When coupled with his defensive upside, Robinson becomes one of the most impactful role players in the sport. If negotiations were based solely upon on-court impact, Robinson would be positioned for one of the strongest markets among this summer’s UFAs. And yet, as stated above, the other side to the story is Robinson’s injury history, which has caused him to miss significant time and be load-managed. It is a very relevant factor because a lack of consistent availability impacts dollars and cents. This will likely impact negotiations.

Finally, the open market aspect will inevitably play a role in shaping Robinson’s Free Agency. This summer’s class is expected to feature centers (as detailed in a slide in the deliverable version of this analysis), creating a landscape in which teams will have multiple options. The availability of comparable players could suppress demand and strengthen New York’s negotiating position by limiting the number of teams willing to aggressively pursue Robinson. However, if a team identifies Robinson as one of the more attractive options within this tier, competition will emerge. For example, if an organization views Robinson as a starter, this could alter its valuation of him.

New York will need to assess the market to determine which organizations could emerge as threats to sign Robinson, and which Cap resources these teams have that could realistically be utilized. Ultimately, Robinson’s Free Agency is not simply a valuation exercise. It is part of a greater referendum on how aggressively New York intends to pursue continued contention; how comfortable it is operating in 2nd Apron territory; how the organization views long-term financial and roster-building flexibility; and how the league at large views him.

Approach and Valuation

So, how should Robinson be valued? Before diving into specific comparables, it is important to establish the broad contractual lanes that could shape negotiations. This is not to suggest that Robinson will necessarily receive a contract at any of these maximum figures, but rather that they represent potential frameworks from which teams, agents, and decision-makers may be operating. In this case, the most relevant benchmarks are the extension that Robinson is eligible to sign through June 30^th and the NTMLE.

Regarding the extension, the numbers are less important than the concept of Robinson being eligible to sign a new deal before Free Agency. That said, even without extension language, the 2023 CBA establishes that Robinson would be eligible to negotiate with the organization as a Free Agent the day after the NBA Finals end. And since Robinson has Full-Bird rights, the team would, in theory, be allowed to sign him for whatever amount up to his applicable Max.

Turning to comparables, there are certain recent, relatively direct situations that provide clean precedent for anchoring Robinson’s market. The most relevant examples are centers who reached UFA, with the next closest tier consisting of players who agreed to extensions prior to hitting the open market. From this pool, I selected several of the most notable and instructive examples.

These four examples span a variety of contractual structures and negotiating environments. One comp happens to be Robinson himself, specifically the deal that he is currently on (signed as a 2022 UFA). Poeltl represents the other UFA agreement, whereas both Adams and Gafford were signed via extension. (Adams signed the extension weeks before he was supposed to become a UFA.) The Adams and Gafford comparisons are the most relevant as they were signed in the current league landscape with a heightened knowledge of the implications and restrictions of its financial system, which resultantly tightened negotiations and squeezed the markets.

Each of these players shares similarities to Robinson, whether that be profile, role, or skillset. As a result, Robinson’s valuation combines these comps while interpreting where he fits within this greater tier of centers in the market landscape. Based upon this information, my valuation approach and potential offer is the following.

It is difficult to pinpoint a precise valuation for Robinson given the push-pull between his on-court impact and his availability concerns. That said, the $13.5–16.5M annual range aligns with the projected $15.1M NTMLE and reflects both recent positional comps and the projected market spending abilities of other organizations. The preferred contract structure would be capped at 3-years, with a stronger preference for a 2-year structure (either a straight 2-year deal or a 1+1). From a Knicks perspective, this aligns more cleanly with a potential two-year 2nd Apron planning window.

Compensation would scale directly with term: longer deals would carry a lower AAV, while shorter commitments would translate to a slightly higher AAV. Thus, the preferred structures are either a 3-year $42M deal with a third-year TO, or a 2-year $30M deal. The Knicks should push to have both deals feature a form of team and/or injury protection (TO, non-guaranteed salary, Exhibit 3 language, etc.). Both offers would be roughly 8-9% of the projected Cap. For comparison, this salary would place Robinson alongside other rotation centers such as Gafford, Adams, Isaiah Stewart, and Onyeka Okongwu.

This structure would protect New York from both a term and monetary standpoint. First, a 2-year framework would align with a potential two-year 2nd Apron window, allowing New York to push across the threshold (if it ultimately chooses to do so) while preserving a pathway to get back under in 2028-29. That said, putting draft pick salary slots and the remainder of the roster build aside, either framework would consume much of the team’s remaining 2nd Apron flexibility and position the organization to head above the threshold.

Both of these structures would provide a degree of downside protection while maintaining future tradability. If necessary, Robinson’s contract could be traded into an NTMLE, creating another mechanism for the organization to navigate the Apron landscape. To reiterate a point made earlier, operating above the threshold is just as much about preserving pathways to get back under it as it is about crossing the line in the first place.

Could a different Front Office look past the injuries, trust its medical staff, and offer Robinson a deal well above this valuation range? Yes. However, doing so would require several factors to align: an organization needing a center of Robinson’s profile, viewing him as a starter or more than a 20-minute-per-game player, and having the infrastructure necessary to support him (potential suitors can be found in the deliverable).

And none of this addresses the financial side of the equation. Any team looking to exceed the maximum NTMLE would generally fall into one of two categories: those with Cap Space or those with a large TPE. In either scenario, Robinson could be signed into the Cap Space or signed-and-traded into a pre-existing TPE, with the Knicks receiving a form of asset compensation in return. In theory, New York could also agree to a sign-and-trade with a team that does not possess a pre-existing TPE, receiving salary back through sign-and-trade matching rules. However, such a transaction would trigger a 2nd Apron Hard Cap for the Knicks, and since New York would have to agree to the deal, it is unlikely.

Even in a tight financial environment, New York holds the keys to this negotiation so long as it is willing to operate above the 2nd Apron. Robinson has spent his entire career with the Knicks, the organization possesses his Bird Rights, and New York is likely the environment best positioned to maximize his value. The proof is in the championship pudding. However, if the Knicks elect to stay below the 2nd Apron, Robinson may no longer be a negotiation priority and could become a structural casualty of that decision, with the broader offseason framework shifting accordingly, leading to other downstream roster effects.

The Atlanta Hawks had a strange season. Entering the year, expectations were high. On paper, the roster appeared positioned to make a playoff push and climb the Eastern Conference standings. By season’s end, that objective had been achieved; however, the path Atlanta took looked very different from what many had anticipated. What began as a team built around Trae Young ultimately evolved into one centered on rising star Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. The emergence of this core helped establish a new foundation and generate momentum, which Atlanta now carries into the offseason.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the Hawks’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. To that end, I will focus upon the team’s potential main strategies and objectives. Lastly, I will present my own perspective about how the Hawks could approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Atlanta Hawks 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

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Season Recap

Record: 46-36 (6th place in the East), lost in six games in the 1st Round

Notable Moves:

• Traded Trae Young for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert

• Traded Kristaps Porzingis for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield

• Traded Luke Kennard for Gabe Vincent and a 2nd Round pick

• Traded Vit Krejci for Duop Reath and two 2nd Round picks

• A part of a series of larger transactions, acquired Kristaps Porzingis

• Signed-and-traded for Nickeil Alexander-Walker

• During the 2025 Draft, traded pick #13 to the Pelicans for pick #23 and a 2026 1st Round pick (most favorable of a selection)

Main Offseason Questions

• What is the next phase in the team’s roster-building plan and how should the Front Office evaluate the success of the 2025-26 season? Should Atlanta take a more patient approach and give this core another season or pursue a bigger move to accelerate the timeline?

• Where does Atlanta realistically project within next season’s Eastern Conference hierarchy?

• Should mid-tier salaries be utilized in larger trades?

• Should McCollum be re-signed, and if yes, what is a fair number?

• Which players are a part of the core and should be viewed as legitimate foundational building blocks?

• How will the team use its upcoming draft picks?

• How can it address its need in the front-court and perimeter?

Biggest Needs

• Front-court depth, as well as more positional size

• Additional higher-end bench pieces and overall complementary depth

• To continue to surround core players with pieces that fit on-court skillsets, player profiles, and overall team identity

• To roster players that fit desired timeline

• Spacing

• Half-court scoring and creation

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Hawks head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $68.9M under the 2nd Apron, $55.9M under the 1st Apron, and $47.9M under the Tax, with 10 standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have four UFAs and one RFA, two players with a TO, and zero with a PO. A minimum of four roster spots need to be filled. Finally, the organization has two 1st Round picks (#8 and #23) in the upcoming draft. These roster spots and salary slots must be accounted for, if utilized.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet remains relatively clean. Operating well below both Aprons and the Tax, Atlanta retains full trade and roster-building flexibility, and given options and Free Agents, has the ability to operate both under-the-Cap or over it. If the organization operates as a Cap Space team, it will mean renouncing the rights to its Free Agents to create space (as well as making additional moves pertaining to non-guaranteed money) and having access to the Room MLE. As currently constructed, the Hawks can open upwards of $30M in space, with the potential for more. If the team decides to operate as an over-the-Cap team, it will translate to access to the full NTMLE and the BAE, along with holding the rights to its Free Agents. It also has two TPEs of note ($11M and $6.7M).

Because of the distance between the franchise and the higher-end financial thresholds, the Hawks will likely not be deterred by potential transactions that carry Hard Cap implications. Finally, I do not believe that the organization will want to start a Tax-clock and will therefore look to work under the threshold.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, Atlanta has two key inflection points this offseason: one involving McCollum and the other, Kuminga.

Starting with McCollum, the 34-year-old veteran guard was acquired by Atlanta as the primary salary matching piece in the larger Young trade and was initially viewed as exactly that. Yet, he proved to be much more, emerging as one of the Hawks’ most reliable half-court scoring options, a credible secondary ball-handler, and a valuable veteran leader on an otherwise young roster. McCollum’s presence was particularly evident during Atlanta’s 1st Round series against the Knicks, where he played a significant role in the team’s two victories. The organization will hold his Full-Bird rights, and he is extension eligible through June 30th.

Kuminga presents a different type of decision. Acquired at the Trade Deadline, Atlanta’s bet was centered on buying low on a talented young player who has yet to establish consistent production during his developing career. His 2026-27 TO, which was once a looming inflection point for the Warriors, has now shifted to Atlanta, with the organization required to make a decision before the June 29th deadline.

From an optionality standpoint, several pathways exist. The Hawks could simply exercise the TO and place Kuminga on a pathway toward UFA in 2027. Alternatively, the team could decline the option and attempt to negotiate a new contract using Kuminga’s Non-Bird rights at a number the Front Office finds more favorable. Kuminga has Non-Bird rights because he re-signed on a 1+1 contract, which, if traded (which he was), would result in his losing Full-Bird rights. Finally, the Hawks could decline the option and allow Kuminga to walk altogether. Ultimately, the decision, in certain ways, comes down to Kuminga’s value as a player and the value of the salary slot.

Overall, Atlanta will need to evaluate the external market for both players (McCollum and Kuminga) while balancing its own financial position, internal valuations, and each player’s fit within the roster when determining their respective futures.

Outside of those two decision points, the Hawks’ internal checklist does not contain any major franchise-altering questions. Center Onyeka Okongwu will be extension eligible from October 1st through the last day of the offseason, although he still has two years remaining on his current contract. He therefore would be able to add three years to his deal. Corey Kispert and Buddy Hield will also be extension eligible, although extensions currently appear unlikely. Hield’s contract is guaranteed for only $3M, with a full guarantee trigger date of June 25th. Depending upon the Cap path Atlanta chooses to pursue, the organization could either guarantee or decline to guarantee the remainder of his salary. Should the Hawks seek additional short-term flexibility, waiving-and-stretching Hield’s contract could also become a consideration.

The final smaller group of decisions that must be addressed is headlined by Mo Gueye’s TO and extension eligibility. Rather than simply exercising Gueye’s option and revisiting his future a year from now, Atlanta could explore the feasibility of a longer-term agreement. While Gueye remains largely unproven, he could be the type of player worth evaluating as a potential low-cost rotation piece for the future. This would represent the precise type of low-cost roster bet that can generate surplus value that organizations seek to identify while navigating the constraints of the current CBA landscape. Finally, Jock Landale and Tony Bradley are UFAs and Keaton Wallace is an RFA. Of the three, Landale was the most productive and played well after being acquired by the Hawks before suffering a season-ending ankle sprain.

The last point of note has to do with trades, where the Hawks have seven 1st Round picks (four tradeable) and eight 2nd Round picks. Additionally, if the organization wants to pursue a roster upgrade, it has tradeable mid-tier salaries which it can utilize (e.g. Kispert, Risacher, Hield, and Kuminga). The team can also leverage its two 1st Round picks in the 2026 Draft to move around the board, accumulate additional assets, or pursue a roster upgrade via trade.

The Risacher Factor

Zaccharie Risacher has not had the start to his career that many likely hoped that he would. The former 1st overall pick from the 2024 NBA Draft has struggled both to find consistency and to establish himself as a contributor on a Hawks team that needs his profile. This lack of development has already bled into his role (or lack thereof) with Risacher largely out of the rotation during the Knicks series, a damning outcome for a player with his draft pedigree.

That said, context matters. The 2024 class was widely viewed as weaker at the top, and Risacher was never considered a traditional franchise-altering pick. This complicates how his early career should be analyzed. Even so, Risacher has yet to reach the level Atlanta likely envisioned when selecting him. When compared to Stephon Castle (the 4th overall pick in the same draft) Risacher’s slow start becomes even more disappointing.

Despite all of this, it is too early to finalize realistic projections about Risacher and how his career will ultimately unfold. After all, he is just 21 years old, and development is far from linear. Even if Risacher never becomes a Star, this does not preclude him from becoming a reliable rotation player. Atlanta’s evaluation therefore becomes more layered, balancing short-term expectations against long-term developmental outcomes.

The Hawks face a choice: stay the course and have faith or explore the trade market. The “stay the course” path is relatively self-explanatory, aligned with the organization’s broader direction of maintaining strategic flexibility and continuing to build out a young core. In that scenario, patience with Risacher remains central, giving him time to develop into a contributor within the foundation.

However, there is a flip side. If Atlanta does not see a clear future fit for Risacher, then exploring the trade market could become a viable option, particularly given that he is only two years into his career. While Risacher’s value is murky, he can still be used as part of a larger deal to assist Atlanta in acquiring a player who is more immediately useful to its trajectory. In that sense, Risacher becomes an inflection point. His value may decline further if a third season produces similarly inconsistent results.

This would represent the Hawks getting out ahead of a decision to salvage as much value as possible. Tying all of this together is the broader team-building perspective. Based on what the organization chooses to do this summer, the key question becomes whether there will even be a clear, consistent role for Risacher to step into to accumulate meaningful minutes that allow for real developmental traction. If the answer is “no” (or even “maybe”) then that uncertainty only adds fuel to the trade conversation. In this scenario, it is not just about patience versus impatience, but about whether a pathway for Risacher’s development still meaningfully exists within the current structure.

Finally, it must be stated that the Hawks’ lead executive at the time of Risacher’s selection was Landry Fields, who is no longer with the organization. Onsi Saleh is now the man in charge. Even though Saleh was with Atlanta as an AGM in 2024, it remains to be seen whether he is meaningfully “tied” to the Risacher selection.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

Similar to other rising teams that I have previously written about (such as the Charlotte Hornets), Atlanta faces important decisions regarding its future direction. The Hawks have a young core, meaningful flexibility, and multiple potential pathways forward. However, the team operates within an Eastern Conference landscape that projects to remain highly competitive.

At its core, the question is straightforward: what comes next? Is the upcoming season about cementing itself as a playoff team, or about accelerating toward the next phase of contention? In either case, continuing to solidify the team’s identity and reinforce its foundational structure should remain the priority, with Johnson, Daniels, and Alexander-Walker in particular serving as the pillars of the foundation. Roster improvement is crucial as it appears that the team is still several steps away from where it needs to be to contend. That said, the organization cannot afford to skip these in-between steps. And if it is determined that this process will be slow-played, I would emphasize maintaining strategic creativity and flexibility, positioning the organization to capitalize on opportunities as they emerge.

Pulling back, the overarching decision is whether Atlanta will pursue a Cap Space path or operate as an over-the-Cap team.

This choice is closely tied to internal roster priorities, particularly which of its Free Agents it seeks to retain, and how it evaluates potential additions via the offseason landscape. These factors, combined with how the Front Office assesses the broader market, will determine which pathway is ultimately optimal.

The Cap Space route should be prioritized if Atlanta identifies a specific target player worth allocating meaningful resources toward. While a sign-and-trade remains an alternative, the associated complexities (such as salary matching requirements and potential base year compensation considerations) may make outright Cap Space execution the cleaner mechanism. Pursuing this path would also influence how the team utilizes Bird Rights with its internal Free Agents and would likely necessitate broader roster restructuring.

Ultimately, any external addition must align clearly with Atlanta’s timeline and organizational direction. If the Front Office views this as a multi-year build toward contention, then the idea of targeting specific players to add to and strengthen the core is more appealing than bringing in complementary players who are more about the surrounding ecosystem. In simple terms: if Atlanta identifies a player that it believes can be part of its eventual title-contending core, that player should be prioritized over a more transitional acquisition designed merely to bridge the gap. The proviso is that the asset cost of such a player must align with the Hawks’ valuation.

This creates a balancing act for the Hawks. The organization should be aggressive in pursuing upgrades, but not at the expense of its long-term vision and identity. It should prioritize players who can become foundational pieces while still preserving the flexibility necessary to build around its existing core. All in all, the organization has more roster-building optionality operating over-the-Cap, where: it gains access to the NTMLE; can use mid-sized salaries in trades; and retains the rights to Free Agents.

This brings me to McCollum, who falls into the complementary bucket. Unless the market materially exceeds Atlanta’s valuation, retaining McCollum, who has played a significant role, should be a priority on a short-term contract (which also matters because of the over-38 rule). For a roster that lacks the skillset that McCollum brings, losing him, without a replacement, would represent a significant setback. Naturally, discipline will be required in negotiations. Atlanta should establish a firm valuation for McCollum (such as $18-22M) and avoid exceeding it to maintain flexibility to use the NTMLE and build out the roster. I recommend a 1+1 structure with a TO on the second season.

Regarding Kuminga, the situation is twofold: value of the player and the value of the salary slot. If the TO is exercised (even if the Hawks do not view Kuminga as a $24M player), the salary slot remains useful both as a trade asset and as an expiring contract. This is the optimal route. If it is declined with the intention of re-signing him, one relevant point is the Bird Veto. If the team signs Kuminga on a one- or two-year deal (with the second year being an option), he would be able to veto a trade (unless he agrees to forgo this ability during negotiations). Kuminga’s Non-Bird rights limit what Atlanta can theoretically pay him. That said, if the option is declined with Kuminga being brought back, it should be at a lower number. Kuminga can still serve as useful depth.

Further down the roster, I would either decline Gueye’s TO and attempt to negotiate a longer-term agreement within the parameters of his Bird Rights, or exercise the option and explore an extension after. Landale would be a strong center option.

On the trade front, amid Kuminga’s TO, Kispert, and Risacher, the organization has $52M in salary that could realistically be utilized in trades. Add in Hield’s salary (if guaranteed) and the team can get to $60M. Three of these four players barely featured in the playoffs, and the fourth (Kuminga) struggled with consistency. If the Front Office can take these salary slots and turn them into more reliable contributors through transactions that align with the organization’s goals, then these pathways should be pursued. That said, keeping certain of the slots for in-season transactions is also plausible. Additionally, if the plan is to not contend this season, the idea of trading for bad-value contracts to acquire assets should not be ruled out.

Atlanta also possesses additional flexibility through the 2026 Draft. The picks that it controls provide the organization with multiple avenues to improve the roster, whether by moving around the board, accumulating additional assets, or utilizing the selections as part of a trade package for an established player. Given the Hawks’ blend of young talent and financial flexibility, these picks represent another valuable tool that can be leveraged in alignment with the organization’s broader roster-building strategy.

Regarding roster holes, the Hawks will need to evaluate the market and allocate draft capital, Cap tools, and trade assets based on positional availability in both the frontcourt and at guard. For example, the NTMLE or a TPE can be used for guard or wing depth if the right value option emerges in Free Agency, while the trade market may be prioritized for upgrading the front court. This represents a flexible approach.

All in all, because the Hawks’ core is under contract for multiple seasons, the organization does not necessarily need to go all-in this offseason. That contractual certainty allows Atlanta to continue building out the surrounding ecosystem while remaining patient in its search for additional foundational pieces. The Hawks appear to be on the right trajectory; however, the team is several steps away from true contention. Accordingly, the priority should be about preserving flexibility, continuing to strengthen the roster around the current core, and remaining opportunistic should a foundational piece become available. In many ways, patience and optionality are Atlanta’s greatest competitive advantages over the offseason.

Targets

In early April, I profiled the combo guard, an archetype that I believe has moved from complementary piece to a central driver of winning basketball in the current league landscape. As part of the greater overview, through a combination of statistical and role-based analysis, I identified an upcoming Free Agent who appeared well-positioned to capitalize on the league’s growing demand for the profile. This player is 27-year-old Collin Gillespie of the Phoenix Suns.

The former Villanova Wildcat now heads into an intriguing market, one that sits at the intersection of league-wide demand, open-market competition, and Phoenix’s own roster-building priorities. How teams view Gillespie, and how aggressively the Suns work to retain him, could reveal just as much about the franchise’s direction as it does about his individual value.

To paint a clearer picture of what a realistic negotiation and eventual contract structure could look like, this analysis will profile Gillespie, his value, and relevant contract comparables, while also examining Phoenix’s broader financial outlook and roster-building strategy.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Collin Gillespie Ufa Outlook

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The Financials and Inflection Points

As currently constructed, the Suns head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $35.8M under the 2nd Apron, $22.8M under the 1st Apron, and $15.3M under the Tax, with eleven standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries a league-high $23.1M in waived salary (mainly due to the Bradley Beal waive-and-stretch) and $500k in unlikely bonuses, which count toward Apron calculations. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have three UFAs and one RFA, one player with a TO, and none with a PO. As a result, the offseason is relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of three roster spots needing to be filled. Finally, the organization does not have a 1st Round pick in the upcoming draft.

Regarding in-house decisions, while the top-end of the roster is under contract, the Suns still project to have a relatively complex offseason to-do list. Phoenix generated significant surplus value from its minimum-contract additions during the 2025-26 season, most notably Gillespie and Jordan Goodwin. Identifying and developing productive contributors at the end of the roster was a clear success. The challenge now shifts to determining what these players are worth on their next contracts and managing the transition from veteran minimum salary slots to potentially mid-tier commitments. The Suns will hold Early-Bird Rights on both players.

Mark Williams is the third main Free Agency decision as he hits RFA. Williams was acquired by Phoenix during the 2025 Draft, with the team sending out two 1st Round picks (the 29th pick of the 2025 Draft, and the least favorable pick of three in the 2029 Draft) and matching salary to facilitate the transaction. As for extension-eligible players, Dillon Brooks is arguably the most relevant name to monitor. He will be able to sign a 4-year, $125M contract and will remain eligible to do so throughout the season. Jalen Green and Royce O’Neale will also become extension eligible.

With respect to overarching decisions, the most important inflection point concerns Phoenix’s financial positioning within the broader league landscape. Given the team’s relatively tight situation from a flexibility perspective, any available spending room must be allocated carefully, which is particularly true with key players hitting the market. As currently constructed, Phoenix has limited ability to both fill out the roster and retain its key Free Agents, raising an important question: how willing is Phoenix to exceed the Tax threshold?

There are two layers to this discussion. First, will the Suns be competitive enough to justify operating as a Taxpayer? If the answer is no, will avoiding the Tax become a far more attractive path? Second, crossing the Tax line would trigger Repeater Tax status. Phoenix deliberately ducked the Tax during the 2025-26 season, taking the first step toward resetting its Repeater clock. Would the organization be willing to reverse course only one year later? Alternatively, could Phoenix structure its offseason in a way that allows it to exceed the Tax initially while preserving in-season pathways to get back below the threshold if necessary?

Finally, given its current standing, the team theoretically could open up access to the NTMLE; however, this could be at the cost of its Free Agents or other rostered players.

In turn, these decisions will have a cascading impact on Phoenix’s future positioning on the league’s financial landscape. The Front Office must determine how potential deals impact present and future financial planning and roster-building. All in all, each decision made will impact every other that follows, and will intersect with Gillespie’s Free Agency to a certain degree. As a result, understanding Phoenix’s broader financial and roster-building outlook is critical to understanding his market.

Gillespie’s Profile

Relevant Questions

• Among Gillespie, Goodwin, and Williams, how does Phoenix prioritize its own FAs? Is retaining both Gillespie and Goodwin realistic, or will the organization ultimately have to choose between them?

• Will Brooks receive an extension from Phoenix? Is there a meaningful gap between Brooks’ perceived market value and what Phoenix is comfortable paying? Could the Suns decide to delay extension talks and revisit Brooks’ future in-season since he will remain extension eligible?

• What is the realistic next step in Phoenix’s team-building process, and what are its goals for the upcoming season? How do those goals influence the team’s offseason priorities and decision-making?

• How does the franchise view its financial positioning? Does it have any interest in resetting its Repeater Tax clock, and if so, how would that impact roster-building plans and retention decisions? Does the team want access to the NTMLE?

The Combo Guard Factor

Combo guards sit at the center of several of the NBA’s most important strategic trends, influencing both offensive and defensive structures. As teams continue to prioritize versatility, the value of these high-end role players who can comfortably operate across multiple positions has increased. Combo guards often fall between traditional positional definitions, lacking prototypical wing size or the full-time playmaking responsibilities of a primary guard, yet providing meaningful contributions in both areas.

In my analysis of this archetype, I attempted to define what combo guards are, trace the factors that contributed to their growing importance, examine the recent valuations of players who fit this profile, and analyze the archetype through a statistical lens. To better understand what drives the success of these players, I examined a sub-group within the broader combo guard umbrella that met certain statistical thresholds in spacing, perimeter defense and pressure, secondary ball-handling, and playmaking. Within this sample, many of the combo guards on playoff teams graded out well in at least two of the three core skill verticals. Notable examples include Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Andrew Nembhard, Deuce McBride, Cason Wallace, and Stephon Castle.

Gillespie fits within this archetype. While he is not as established as many of the players who have helped drive the growing demand for the profile, he met several of the same statistical thresholds, with his underlying metrics across these areas suggesting that he possesses many of the traits associated with successful combo guards. The question now becomes whether the market’s valuation of Gillespie will reflect the increasing demand for the archetype he represents.

Negotiation Dynamics

While Gillespie will not be among the highest-paid UFAs of the summer, his negotiation dynamic could prove to be one of the more interesting given Phoenix’s financial positioning, the team’s other Free Agents, and the possibility of outside interest. Several interconnected dynamics could emerge.

For starters, the question of whether Phoenix will be forced to prioritize between Gillespie and Goodwin must be considered. If the organization is sensitive to crossing the Tax threshold, does that increase the likelihood that only one of the two is retained? Conversely, if ownership is comfortable operating as a Taxpayer (at least to begin the season) does the Front Office assign a combined valuation to both players and attempt to keep them within a predetermined spending range, or are the negotiations handled independently? If Goodwin ultimately departs, does a degree of financial flexibility created by that decision get redirected toward retaining Gillespie?

However, the discussion may extend beyond Gillespie and Goodwin. It may ultimately become a question about roster construction and resource allocation across the guard position overall.

Grayson Allen has been with Phoenix for three seasons and has 2 years, $37M remaining on his contract. The Suns already have significant financial resources committed to their backcourt through Devin Booker, Green, and Allen, while both Gillespie and Goodwin emerged as rotation-caliber contributors during the 2025-26 season. As a result, the organization must determine whether there is room, both financially and from a minutes-distribution perspective, to retain any or all of these players.

If Phoenix wants to bring back both Gillespie and Goodwin, does that increase the likelihood of Allen becoming a trade candidate? While Allen’s salary is too large to fit into the NTMLE, it does fit within several of the larger TPEs currently available around the league. In that sense, the order of operations could prove important. Does the organization first retain its preferred Free Agents and sort out the rest of the roster afterward, or does it create financial and rotational clarity before entering negotiations? Or could it hold onto everyone? The answer could have a meaningful impact on how Gillespie’s negotiation, and subsequent Free Agency, unfold.

One statistical factor that could come into play is Gillespie’s shooting split before and after the All-Star break. Prior to the break, he converted 42.3% of his 3s on 7.1 attempts per game. Following the break, his percentage fell to 35.8% (similar attempts). Whether this decline reflects a meaningful trend or simply the realities of a player navigating his first full NBA workload remains an open question. Gillespie appeared in 80 games, made 58 starts, and logged 2,282 minutes, all surpassing his previous career highs of 33 games, 9 starts, and 461 minutes. The Suns (and others) will have to determine how the late-season dip should be viewed. Additionally, Gillespie broke the Suns’ franchise record for 3s in a season (232), a factor to which his agents will surely point.

One factor working in Phoenix’s favor is the appeal of continuity. Gillespie has already established himself within the organization and demonstrated that he can function within the team’s offensive and defensive schemes. While continuity alone does not determine a player’s value, it can serve as an important factor when evaluating similarly priced alternatives on the open market, or when assembling an offseason prioritization list.

The final points worth mentioning are Gillespie’s trajectory, and the open market.

Starting with his trajectory, Gillespie has only been in the league for three seasons, and his break-out came relatively late. This relates not to years of service, but his age, which is 27. He is, in theory, entering his prime but has only one season of high-level play. Teams must determine whether Gillespie’s breakout season is the beginning of a new baseline or simply an outlier. That distinction could have a meaningful impact on his market.

Finally, we turn to the open market, which will inevitably play a role in shaping Gillespie’s Free Agency. This summer’s class is expected to feature several combo guards and 3&D profiles (as detailed in a slide in the deliverable version of this analysis), creating a competitive landscape in which teams will have multiple options to address similar roster needs. On the one hand, the availability of comparable players could suppress demand and strengthen Phoenix’s negotiating position by limiting the number of teams willing to aggressively pursue Gillespie. On the other hand, if several teams identify him as one of the more attractive options within that tier, competition could quickly emerge. The Suns ultimately will need to determine how Gillespie compares to the alternatives available on the market, while rival teams will be conducting the same calculation. As is often the case in Free Agency, Gillespie’s value may be determined not only by what he has accomplished, but also by how he stacks up against the other players available to fill a similar role.

Approach and Valuation

So, how should Gillespie be valued? Before diving into specific comparables, it is important to establish the broad contractual lanes that could shape negotiations. This is not to suggest that Gillespie will necessarily receive a contract at any of these maximum figures, but rather that they represent potential frameworks from which teams, agents, and decision-makers may be operating. In this case, the most relevant benchmarks are Phoenix’s Early-Bird Rights offer and the NTMLE, while the Room MLE serves as a secondary point of reference.

I believe that it is unlikely that Gillespie will receive either the full NTMLE or his full Early-Bird offer. That said, it is still important to illustrate the likely contractual lanes that his market will develop within.

As depicted above, the NTMLE and Early-Bird offers are quite similar, with the Early-Bird deal allowing the Suns to offer Gillespie roughly 500k more than what a team could give him on the open market via the exception. While the Early-Bird deal starts at a lower number (based upon 105% of the league’s average player salary), due to the 8% AAV increases (opposed to the 5% NTMLE), it ends with a higher total amount.

The question turns to comparables. There are certain recent, relatively direct comparable situations that provide clean precedent for anchoring Gillespie’s market. The most relevant examples are combo guards who reached UFA, with the next closest tier consisting of overall guards who instead agreed either to extensions prior to hitting the open market or reached UFA. From this pool, I selected several of the most notable and instructive examples (as depicted below).

These four examples span a variety of contractual structures and negotiating environments. Three of these players share one common denominator, which is that they were Free Agents last offseason. Nickeil Alexander-Walker was signed by the Atlanta Hawks via a TPE (which allowed them to give him slightly higher year-1 salary). Davion Mitchell was a Trade Deadline acquisition by the Miami Heat, which allowed the team to acquire his RFA rights, while Jerome was signed by Memphis using the Room MLE. McConnell stands out as the lone player signed via extension.

All of these players share similarities to Gillespie, whether that be profile, role, or skillset. As a result, Gillespie’s valuation combines these comps while interpreting where he fits within this greater tier of combo guards (and to a greater degree, rotation PGs) in the market landscape. Based upon this information, my valuation approach and potential offer is the following.

This valuation and offer are below Gillespie’s applicable Early-Bird offer, as well as the full NTMLE. That said, the contract itself lands in the middle of the valuation range, with a Year-1 salary of $10.1M, which would be roughly 6.1% of the projected Cap. For comparison, this 2026-27 salary would have put Gillespie as the 168th highest paid player in 2025-26 and would have given him a similar deal (in value) to other higher-end bench guards and rotation players such as TJ McConnell, Ty Jerome, and Payton Pritchard. Additionally, a 3-or 4-year deal fits within the Suns’ Cap Sheet architecture, as it currently only has one deal extending past 2028-29 (Booker). The 4-year equivalent would be 4-years $44M.

Importantly, a decision to retain Gillespie does not need to be predicated on the belief that he is a long-term starting guard. Teams routinely pay role players and combo guards who fill valuable rotation functions. This can be observed both in recent offseason transactions and in the construction of several of the league's most successful rosters. The question is not whether he is a starting guard of the future, but whether he can continue to provide surplus value relative to his contract and within his role.

On that front, Gillespie's value proposition is straightforward: spacing, secondary playmaking, and perimeter defense. These skills translate cleanly within the Suns' structure, and his familiarity with the organization means he arrives without an adjustment cost. He is, in short, a known quantity both on-court and within the team's broader culture. This makes him a meaningful piece for an organization continuing to define its direction.

Age and timing also create an interesting dynamic. With this deal, Gillespie will still be young enough to re-enter Free Agency around his age-30 season, allowing him to balance long-term security with the opportunity to capitalize on future growth. At the same time, given his relatively modest career earnings to date, there may be appeal in prioritizing guaranteed money now rather than maximizing every dollar of value. Since a new contract would multiply Gillespie’s career earnings several times over, the security offered by any agreement could become a consideration during negotiations.

Taken together, I believe that Phoenix should prioritize re-signing Gillespie. That said, I would be wary of combining a longer-termed deal with an AAV at the higher end of the Suns’ negotiation range, and instead aim to balance the structure so that strength in one area (term or AAV) comes with compromise in the other.

Other organizations that could have interest in Gillespie include the Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers, Chicago Bulls, and Dallas Mavericks.

In certain ways, the 2025-26 season proved to be a success for the Philadelphia 76ers. Tyrese Maxey cemented himself as a Star, taking another step forward in his development. The organization also drafted a foundational building block in VJ Edgecombe to pair with Maxey for years to come. Lastly, Philadelphia was finally able to overcome the Boston Celtics hurdle that had stood firmly in its path for years.

And yet, at the same time, the season, and particularly the way it ended at the hands of the New York Knicks, reinforced just how substantial the gap still is between Philadelphia and the top tier of the league. The 76ers now find themselves straddling two timelines: one from the past (led by Joel Embiid and Paul George), and another centered on the future (led by Maxey and Edgecombe), lacking the flexibility to fully commit to either one. It is with this dilemma looming that Philadelphia enters the offseason.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the 76ers’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. To that end, I will focus upon the team’s potential main strategies and objectives. Lastly, I will present my own perspective about how the 76ers could approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Philadelphia 76ers 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

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Season Recap

Record: 45-37 (7th place in ECF), swept in 2nd Round

Notable Moves:

• Drafted VJ Edgecombe

• Re-signed Quentin Grimes to his QO

• Traded Jared McCain for pick #22 and three future 2nd Round picks

Main Offseason Questions

• What is the next phase in the roster-building plan and how should the Front Office evaluate the 2025-26 season?

• Should 2026-27 be treated as a wait-and-see year?

• What direction does the organization want to go in? Does it begin to lean into a Maxey-Edgecombe roster-build, and if yes, how does that impact the overall timeline, roster-building plan, and respective futures of George and Embiid?

• Can George be traded? Should draft picks be used to part with his deal?

• Should Oubre and Grimes be brought back?

• Should the “margins” players on deals with a TO have their respective contracts reworked with an eye toward longer-term deals at cut-rate costs?

• Where does Philadelphia realistically project within next season’s Eastern Conference hierarchy? Can anything be done this offseason that makes the team a contender?

Biggest Needs

• Additional higher-end bench pieces and overall complementary depth

• To continue to surround core players with pieces that fit on-court skillset, player profiles, and overall team identity

• To roster players that fit desired timeline

• Front court depth

• Players who bring versatility

• Value in the margins

The Financials

As currently constructed, the 76ers head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $39.6M under the 2nd Apron, $26.9M under the 1st Apron, and $18.3M under the Tax, with 11 standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses, which would otherwise count toward Apron calculations. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have four UFAs and zero RFA, four players with a TO, and zero with a PO. The players with TOs are further down the roster, making the offseason relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of three roster spots needing to be filled. Finally, the organization has one 1st Round pick (#22) in the upcoming draft. This roster spot and salary slot must be accounted for if utilized.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet is lacking, largely due to the three Max contracts on the books, and the Team Salary is within touching distance of both the Tax and Aprons. This translates to having full roster building abilities and access to exceptions such as the NTMLE and BAE; however, usage would likely need to be planned out. I do not believe that Philadelphia will be deterred by potential transactions that carry Hard Cap implications or by crossing the Tax threshold so long as it creates pathways to get under these thresholds in-season, if necessary.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, Philadelphia does not face any immediate franchise-altering inflection points this offseason. That said, two key rotation players (Kelly Oubre Jr. and Quentin Grimes) are set to hit UFA. The 76ers hold Full Bird Rights on both players, giving the team the flexibility to retain either, or both, if ownership is willing to pay. Considering the pair were two of the seven players trusted consistently in Head Coach Nick Nurse’s thin playoff rotation, losing one or both would further erode an already shallow roster. However, neither situation appears entirely straightforward for Philadelphia.

Grimes provides two of the league’s most valued complementary skills in 3pt shooting and above-average perimeter defense. He was an RFA last offseason and, after a strong finish to the year, sought a more lucrative deal than the organization was willing to offer. The two sides ultimately failed to find common ground, leading Grimes to accept and play on his 1-year QO. Whether any lingering tension from those negotiations carries into this summer remains unclear, particularly with a new FO now leading discussions. Still, if Grimes prioritizes maximizing his market value, the possibility of his departure in Free Agency becomes more realistic.

Oubre brings many traits that teams covet: a tough, long, versatile wing capable of defending multiple positions. He initially joined the team during the 2023-24 season on a 1-year veteran minimum contract before re-signing on a 2-year, $16.8M deal that included a PO in the second season. Structuring the contract this way allowed Oubre to re-enter UFA this offseason while simultaneously positioning the 76ers to obtain his Full Bird Rights, eliminating any restrictions on what they could offer him this offseason. Whether the team concludes this multi-step transactional set-up by signing him to a third deal remains to be seen. The team will need to evaluate the open market for both players while also weighing its own financial position and internal valuations when determining their futures.

Outside of those two decision points, the 76ers’ internal checklist does not contain any major franchise-defining questions. Center Adem Bona is extension eligible, though he remains under contract for two more seasons. Any potential extension would likely come at a relatively modest figure. Philadelphia could extend Bona for either three or four years depending upon whether his 2027-28 TO is exercised or declined. George is also extension eligible for up to two additional years, although currently an extension appears unlikely to materialize. Finally, Drummond and Lowry are UFAs, and if either is to be brought back, it would likely be on a veteran minimum.

This brings us to the final smaller group of decisions that must be addressed: the three Sixers players holding TOs (Dominick Barlow, Dalen Terry, and Trendon Watford). While, in the bigger picture, these end-of-roster decisions may appear insignificant, for a Philadelphia franchise that is both financially tied up and lacking depth, extracting on-court and contractual value from these roster spots is vital. What may initially look like a relatively simple “pick-up or decline” optionality question is exactly the type of margin maneuvering that organizations successful at maximizing roster value have consistently nailed in recent years.

If the Sixers believe any of these players possess the upside to become low-to-mid-end rotation pieces over the coming seasons, then attempting to structure longer-term, team-friendly agreements would be a smart approach. Of the three players, the 6’9” versatile Barlow stands out as the priority after playing a career-high 1,689 minutes and starting 59 games. If Philadelphia can retain him using his Non-Bird Rights on a favorable contract, this would represent precisely the kind of low-cost, value-driven deal that could age extremely well.

The last point of note is trades, where the Sixers have seven 1st Round picks (three tradeable) and twelve 2nd Round picks. If the organization wants to pursue an upgrade, it completely lacks tradeable mid-tier salaries. That said, regarding trades, the potential deals that will draw attention center around Embiid and George, and whether the team would consider moving either of these players. If yes, will any sort of market exist?

The Three Max Factor

Philadelphia finds itself as one of only three teams in the NBA with three Max contracts on the books, the others being the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. With 83.5% of the Team Salary tied up in Embiid, George, and Maxey, what results is arguably the most top-heavy Cap Sheet in the league, with a complete dearth of mid-tier contracts, tradable salary slots, and ultimately, depth. When a Cap Sheet is constructed this way, the question shifts from acquisition to optimization. Every dollar beyond the Max becomes a resource management exercise: how effectively an organization can extract value from the margins determines whether it can sustain contention and successfully navigate the financial landscape. How can this be done?

In my opinion, there are three main areas: drafting and development, value contracts, and overall foresight coupled with strong Cap architecture. Together, these components form a repeatable team-building cycle that sustains roster balance, financial breathing room, and long-term sustainability. It is also the area where Philadelphia has fallen short over recent seasons, as the pressure deriving from the Max contracts has squeezed its Cap Sheet down the books.

Once a team commits that level of top-heavy spending, the margin for error everywhere else shrinks dramatically. The financial pressure created by Max density does not just reduce flexibility, it concentrates the burden on the rest of the roster. Every mid-tier contract must hit, every developmental pipeline must produce, and each year of the team’s Cap Sheet must be carefully crafted. Multi-Max teams have fewer ways to add external talent simply because so much of the Cap is already spoken for. Depth becomes expensive. Mistakes compound more quickly. And the opportunity cost of each decision, whether it is a draft pick, a veteran extension, or a low-dollar flyer, becomes substantially higher.

Teams need cheap, reliable rotation players, surplus value on the margins, contract optionality, and sequencing that preserves flexibility over multiple years. In short: the more money tied up in Stars, the more essential it becomes to nail down all the supporting structures around them: drafting, value contracts, and careful Cap architecture. This is where Philadelphia currently sits with its roster assembled the way it is.

And it should be stated that certain of Philadelphia’s shortcomings on this front have been self-inflicted. Three of the four Conference Finalists featured former Sixers who were ultimately discarded for one reason or another. Examples include Julian Champagnie, Jared McCain, Isaiah Joe, Landry Shamet, and Paul Reed. These are exactly the types of functional, low-cost rotation players that teams in the Multi-Max cycle need to identify, retain, and develop. This is exactly the kind of supporting talent the roster currently needs.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

The Sixers face a choice. At first glance, an unclear pathway lies ahead with no clear answers either on- or off-the-court. There is a clear gap between where Philadelphia currently sits within the league landscape and where it needs to be to become a sustainable contender. The question then becomes whether the current roster configuration, Cap Sheet architecture, and broader ecosystem are realistically capable of bridging that divide, particularly within an Eastern Conference that only projects to become more competitive. In my opinion, the answer is “no.”

However, bridging that gap in a single offseason should not necessarily be the organization’s primary objective. Instead, this offseason should be viewed as the beginning of a larger transitional process: gradually reorienting the franchise toward the timelines of Maxey and Edgecombe, rebalancing both the roster and the books, and steadily moving the organization in the direction of greater flexibility, depth, and long-term sustainability. This transition must still be approached pragmatically.

With an eye toward roster change, I believe that it is time for Philadelphia to at least explore the possibility of trading both Embiid and George. The core issue is that Philadelphia is devoting roughly 67% of the projected Salary Cap to two players who, due to injuries, age, and declining reliability, are no longer providing a level of return on investment that justifies that degree of financial commitment.

When a team commits this level of spending to the top end of its roster, the surrounding infrastructure carries an outsized level of importance. This is true both on the court, where complementary pieces are needed to support and maximize the stars, and off the court, as the organization attempts to navigate the constraints and limitations of the Apron system. To this point, the 76ers have not had recent appreciable success on either front.

At the same time, that reality creates an entirely separate problem: bad value. Philadelphia may very well find itself in a position where attaching additional assets becomes necessary to move one or both contracts. If a pathway emerges where the Sixers can meaningfully reshape the roster without sacrificing capital, then such a deal should be seriously considered.

Thus, it comes down to whether the organization can effectively subdivide these large salary slots into multiple smaller and more functional contracts. The key question is whether the benefits of that restructuring, which includes improved flexibility, stronger depth, and a broader supporting cast, outweigh the assets potentially required to facilitate such a move.

I would also seek to avoid absorbing negative-value long-term money in such a deal, particularly since George is only a year away from effectively functioning as an expiring $54.1M salary slot. This could allow Philadelphia to preserve assets, maintain optionality, and reassess the organization’s direction under a different market environment.

It is also important to recognize that Philadelphia’s flexibility from an asset standpoint is somewhat controlled. The franchise does not currently control a tradable Sixers’ 1st Round pick until 2030. Moving a pick that far into the future is likely not worth the squeeze unless the incoming value is simply too strong to ignore. However, the 76ers do possess a sizable collection of 2nd Round capital (twelve in total), which could instead be utilized as the deal sweeteners necessary to facilitate a move.

If the terms of any potential deal are not deemed favorable, then Philadelphia should feel comfortable exercising patience on this front. Regardless, the organization should still prioritize beginning the transition toward greater flexibility, balance, and long-term sustainability.

This focus means aggressively attacking the margins of the roster. Philadelphia needs to begin rebuilding its depth, taking calculated swings on undervalued players, and searching for contractual bargains wherever possible. Whether through Free Agency or trade, the Sixers should spend this period throwing darts in search of rotation pieces, developmental upside, and surplus contract value. Additionally, the team could tap into its collection of 2nd Round picks to facilitate these transactions.

One internal example of this approach is how the team should handle Barlow. Philadelphia should strongly consider declining his TO and attempting to negotiate a longer-term agreement within the parameters of his Non-Bird rights (such as a 3-year $12M deal). If structured correctly, this type of low-cost, multi-year deal could provide the organization with both developmental upside and valuable contractual surplus over time. The franchise could decline Watford’s TO, which is slightly more than the veteran minimum, and then re-sign him at a veteran minimum cost to save a few thousand dollars or pick it up for salary slot purposes in a trade.

Finally, we return to Oubre and Grimes. In my opinion, given the lack of depth on the roster and their respective skillsets, Philadelphia should attempt to retain at least one of these players, as long as it is within reason. As outlined earlier, the team projects to have roughly $26M in 1st Apron space (excluding draft pick slots) to work with. In theory, the organization could pivot away from them to unlock access to the full NTMLE, which represents one potential upside to letting them walk. If the open market reaches an uncomfortable point for the Sixers, then working to sign-and-trade these players to fetch assets or create a TPE would be wise. Likewise, if the organization identifies players available within the NTMLE who can replace Oubre and Grimes at a lower cost while maintaining or improving the overall roster, that path should also be seriously considered. All in all, I would target a combined AAV of approximately $18-20M to fill out these roster spots.

One additional dynamic that could quietly influence the situation is the fact that McCain is no longer on the roster. Could Philadelphia realistically afford to lose both McCain and Grimes within the span of six months? Granted, the new FO will not be tied to the decisions of the previous regime; however, optics and organizational perception can still matter in situations like this.

Overall, Philadelphia should be comfortable operating above the Tax threshold, at least temporarily, provided it preserves pathways to navigate back below it during the season if necessary. The priority right now should be improving the roster and rebuilding functional depth, even if that means carrying a higher payroll in the short term. However, the organization should simultaneously maintain flexibility through movable contracts, non-guarantees, and tradable salary structures that allow it to pivot financially if the 2026-27 season does not unfold as hoped.

Targets

Non-guaranteed contractual structures have become increasingly relevant within Front Office dynamics. While these structures often receive far less attention than Max contracts, blockbuster trades, or major Free Agency decisions, they can quietly create meaningful financial flexibility for teams navigating the Salary Cap restrictions within the league landscape.

A partially guaranteed season, a non-guaranteed option year, or a strategically timed guarantee date can all function as potential financial escape valves. And in certain situations, these mechanisms can create leverage in negotiations, provide pathways toward Apron relief, or allow organizations to maneuver off contracts that may otherwise be viewed as negative-value deals.

This analysis examines several under-the-radar non-guaranteed salary situations that could ultimately produce outsized ripple effects across the league.

Hardball with Harden

The first situation centers around James Harden, who currently sits at the intersection of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ attempt to balance both the financial and competitive landscape.

Following a disappointing Eastern Conference Finals exit, Harden and the Cavaliers are suddenly facing a summer filled with both financial and organizational questions. The manner in which Cleveland’s season ended, with its lopsided elimination at the hands of the New York Knicks in the ECF, could produce broader ripple effects across the organization’s offseason approach. For Harden in particular, the disappointing finish reignited many of the narratives that have followed him throughout recent postseasons. Fair or not, the renewed spotlight surrounding Harden’s playoff performances only heightens both the sensitivity and significance of the situation moving forward. Decisions that may otherwise be viewed strictly through a financial lens now become intertwined with questions regarding competitive viability, public perception, and organizational direction.

Looking ahead to the 2026-27 season, as currently constructed, the Cavaliers project to remain above the 2nd Apron. Cleveland has only spent one season over the threshold thus far and therefore does not yet face the long-term pick-based penalties associated with repeated years in this territory. Even so, there will be questions surrounding whether the organization plans to remain above the line moving forward, as the short-term roster-building restrictions tied to the 2nd Apron continue to place a substantial burden on team-building flexibility.

The Front Office may have already hinted at its thinking regarding the 2nd Apron at the Trade Deadline. To navigate closer to the line, Cleveland moved multiple rotation salaries (including Lonzo Ball and De’Andre Hunter). While those trades significantly reduced the Cavaliers’ overage, they did not fully maneuver the team below the threshold. The third, and most significant, transaction came in the form of swapping Darius Garland for Harden, a move that provides insight into Cleveland’s broader financial planning entering the upcoming offseason.

Harden is currently on his third consecutive 2-year contract, a structure that he, his representation, and multiple organizations have repeatedly utilized in recent negotiations. The underlying reasoning stems from a combination of factors: his age and proximity to the over-38 rule, his desire to preserve flexibility and continuously reach newer Salary Cap environments, and NBA teams’ preference to avoid lengthy long-term commitments late into his career. Because of the league’s rising Cap, the percentage of team salary allocated to Harden has remained relatively stable even as the raw dollar figures on each successive deal have increased. More importantly, however, each of Harden’s previous five contracts has included a PO. The structure is intentional, granting him both a greater degree of control over his future and the flexibility to choose when he re-enters Free Agency.

The latest contract in this string of deals, however, contains one subtle but important difference. On June 29th, 2025, on the precipice of Free Agency, Harden declined the PO on his previous 2-year, $70M contract to sign a new 2-year, $81M deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. On the surface, the contract resembled prior iterations: another short-term agreement, another increase in raw dollars, and another PO on the second season. However, there was one notable distinction. The second year of the contract, where Harden is slated to earn roughly $42M, was only partially guaranteed for $13M at the time of signing. Notably, July 11th, 2026 serves as the date where the salary fully guarantees if Harden opts in.

From a financial flexibility perspective, the organization effectively exchanged Garland’s two remaining years of fully guaranteed money, which were set to remain on the books through 2027-28, for a significantly more flexible financial structure in Harden’s deal. Given Cleveland’s 2nd Apron positioning, having a financial Out in the form of Harden’s PO could provide the franchise with the opportunity to follow the same pattern that has defined much of Harden’s recent career: opting out and negotiating a new short-term contract. This time, however, the circumstances could allow Cleveland to pursue that path at a lower annual number, helping alleviate a degree of the financial pressure created by operating above the 2nd Apron.

Unlike previous years, the partially non-guaranteed structure of Harden’s final contract season could provide Cleveland with an additional layer of leverage in negotiations. Normally, a fully guaranteed PO heavily favors the player. However, in Harden’s case, because only $13M is guaranteed upon opt-in, the Cavaliers would possess a degree of protection.

Ultimately, the importance of Harden’s contract structure is tied directly to Cleveland’s broader financial outlook. Despite having reached the ECF for the first time since 2017-18, the team’s performance (or lack thereof) could prove to be a significant organizational inflection point, both financially and roster-wise.

Financially, the Cavaliers head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $210K over the 2nd Apron, $13.2M over the 1st Apron, and $21M over the Tax, with 11 standard contracts on the books (excluding the potential 29th draft pick salary slot). With a fully filled out roster, these numbers would increase. Additionally, Cleveland has several notable Free Agents who figure to attract interest on the open market (such as Dean Wade and Keon Ellis). If the organization were to retain either or both players on the roster, as currently constructed, it would push Cleveland even further into the 2nd Apron.

Depending upon how Cleveland evaluates both its roster and financial outlook, one of the more dramatic options involves playing hardball with Harden. Unlike previous contracts where Harden held a large portion of the leverage, Cleveland could attempt to leverage both the market and Harden’s partially non-guaranteed contract structure against him. There is a theoretical scenario where Harden opts into the final year of his contract, only for Cleveland to waive him and carry the $13M guaranteed portion on its books, while Harden hits a less favorable market. If the organization were to take things one step further, it could even explore stretching that dead money across multiple seasons, further reducing the short-term Cap burden at the slight cost of longer-term flexibility. This would also potentially free up the NTMLE, depending on other moves made.

There also needs to be a significant disclaimer attached to this possibility. Such a move would likely be viewed as bad-faith negotiating, potentially damaging the organization’s reputation and straining relationships with both players and agents. Realistically, those factors alone would likely deter Cleveland from seriously pursuing this route. However, the mere possibility of it could still be enough to subtly shift the dynamics of negotiations.

The final layer of intrigue within this situation is that Cleveland may not realistically have the option of simply walking away from Harden altogether. Even if the organization harbors concerns surrounding his age trajectory, playoff performance, or the implications of another sizable contract, the Cavaliers still lack a clean pathway toward replacing his production and offensive creation. In many ways, this dynamic is precisely what increases the importance of Harden’s partially non-guaranteed structure. If Cleveland ultimately determines that re-signing or retaining Harden is the necessary outcome, then attempting to extract as much contractual protection and flexibility as possible may represent the organization’s best middle ground between preserving competitiveness and safeguarding itself financially moving forward.

Optionality Across the Middle Tier

Harden’s situation is unique because it involves a Star-level player whose unusual contract could materially influence an organization’s broader financial direction. However, similar partial and non-guaranteed salary structures are increasingly appearing throughout the middle tier of the market as teams prioritize long-term flexibility under the Apron system. What was once viewed as a niche contractual mechanism has now become a meaningful roster-building tool, particularly within mid-level and rotation-player deals.

The value of these structures ultimately stems from optionality. For teams operating near the Tax or Aprons, the ability to create even modest breathing room can meaningfully alter an offseason. As a result, several under-the-radar contracts across the league could quietly influence broader roster-building decisions over the coming months.

Certain situations center around preserving maneuverability. Others revolve around maintaining financial flexibility if a roster underperforms expectations. And in other cases, these structures can create pathways for teams to move off contracts that may otherwise be difficult to navigate within the league’s increasingly restrictive financial environment. Each of the following three situations differs both in structure and context; however, each highlights the growing strategic significance of non-guaranteed salary mechanisms within the evolving Cap landscape.

• Contract structure: Valanciunas signed a 3-year $30M contract in 2024-25, which contained a completely non-guaranteed third season (with the salary for the year being a flat $10M). Fast forward to November 2025, after being traded to Denver, the Nuggets and Valanciunas agreed to amend the contractual terms where $2M of the salary was guaranteed in exchange for pushing the guarantee date back from June 29th to July 8th.

• Team context: As currently constructed, the Nuggets are approaching a financially restrictive offseason with several key roster decisions still looming as the organization attempts to push itself back toward title contention status. Most notably, the team faces a significant upcoming RFA situation involving Peyton Watson, whose next contract could meaningfully increase Denver’s long-term payroll. If the Nuggets retain Watson while keeping much of the current roster intact, the organization will likely push itself firmly back into 2nd Apron territory (a situation from which the Front Office spent much of the last year attempting to maneuver away). As a result, there is a strong possibility that the broader financial structure of the roster begins to shift elsewhere. And Valanciunas’ contract provides a certain degree of financial flexibility, even if it does not fully solve the organization’s larger Cap concerns.

• Potential Implications: While the ability to waive Valanciunas would only be a small step in the direction of breathing room, the ability to shed up to $8M of salary is still significant for a Denver team that lacks clean Outs. The organization could also opt to stretch the $2M in salary across three seasons, which would translate to having roughly $676K in dead salary on the books as opposed to $2M. This scenario is dependent upon whether the team wants to eat the entire amount at once or to shed as much salary as possible.

• Contract structure: Isaac’s current 4-year $59M contract contains significant non-guaranteed protections, thereby allowing the team to insulate itself against the availability concerns that have defined much of his recent career and to create salary relief, if needed. The deal has incentives based upon games played (which trigger guaranteed portions of the contract), as well as guarantee dates. For 2026-27, only $8M of his $14.5M Cap hit is guaranteed, and there is no guaranteed portion for 2027-28 and 2028-29. The 2026-27 amount would fully guarantee on June 28th.

• Team context: Orlando is approaching the stage of its competitive cycle where future extensions, internal raises, and long-term payroll growth will begin placing greater pressure on its financial sheet, particularly if the organization attempts to balance contention with flexibility. With several in-house decisions needing to be navigated, including a potential Anthony Black extension, the organization faces several inflection points, which will determine the future of the roster.

• Potential Implications: Due to Orlando’s looming financial situation (coupled with the disappointment of losing in the 1st round of the playoffs for three straight seasons), this offseason figures to carry meaningful organizational implications. While waiving Isaac would leave $8M in dead salary on the books in 2026-27, the team could opt to waive and stretch him. And since he has 3 years left on his deal, the team would be able to spread the $8M across seven seasons, leaving yearly dead Cap hits of $1.1M.

• Contract structure: As part of a sign-and-trade between the Miami Heat and Detroit Pistons, Duncan Robinson signed a 3-year $47.9M contract. This contract met sign-and-trade requirements (as it was for 3 years); however, it only had to be guaranteed in year-1. This means that the second season of the contract (2026-27) is only guaranteed for $2M, with a January 10, 2027 guarantee date. The third season is completely non-guaranteed.

• Team context: The Pistons organization finds itself in a unique situation, with the ability to operate in the offseason either as an over-the-Cap team, or as a Cap Space team. The pathway chosen will impact how the team formulates its roster-building strategies for the summer. If the choice is to go the Cap Space route, then Robinson’s non-guaranteed salary could come into play if the team seeks to maximize its space. Robinson has been an integral part of the Pistons’ success as the team’s most consistent and reliable spacer, a skillset that Detroit needed. Chances are that this outcome will not materialize; however, the Pistons face a critical offseason with a long agenda, so nothing can truly be ruled out.

• Potential Implications: If Detroit were to pursue the maximum Cap Space route, waiving Robinson would be on the table. An interesting question is whether Detroit would prefer to absorb the full $2M immediately rather than stretch the dead money across five seasons at a significantly smaller annual figure. While taking on the full amount would slightly reduce Detroit’s Cap Space, even marginal dead salary (from a waive-and-stretch) can become meaningful as future payrolls rise closer toward the Tax and Aprons, complicating the team’s financial standing.

Harden, Valanciunas, Isaac, and Robinson all represent just a sample of the broader rise in strategically valuable non-guaranteed structures across the league. Several additional contracts remain worth monitoring as well. Noteworthy are contracts involving Buddy Hield, DeMar DeRozan, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Dennis Schroder, whose respective situations could also carry meaningful financial implications depending upon how their teams navigate the evolving Cap landscape. Ultimately, as the Apron era continues reshaping roster construction, optionality and financial flexibility are becoming increasingly valuable components of team-building strategy, not only within Star-level negotiations, but throughout the middle tier of the market as well.

Back in February, as the NBA entered the post-All-Star stretch, I examined several situations that I found particularly compelling. Certain of these scenarios centered on the intersection between competitive timelines, roster construction, financial flexibility, and broader organizational strategy. One focused upon Jalen Duren, detailing specifically how the remainder of the season and subsequent playoffs could reshape his prospective market and the dynamics of his upcoming RFA negotiations. At the time, I wrote that the central question surrounding Duren was how much money he stood to gain or lose as his performance and dependability would be tested on the biggest stage. Indeed, subtle shifts in Duren’s individual performance, or the team’s broader postseason results, could cascade into materially different valuations and contractual outcomes.

For much of the season, Duren seemed to do no wrong. Amid the Detroit Pistons’ resurgence and push toward the top of the Eastern Conference standings, the 22-year-old evolved into one of the league’s premier young centers, becoming a first-time All-Star and playing himself into All-NBA conversations. In turn, Duren increasingly appeared to cement himself as a foundational piece for Detroit alongside franchise cornerstone Cade Cunningham.

However, the playoffs presented a different story. Following a disappointing playoff run, the conversation surrounding Duren has become considerably more complicated. A dramatic decrease in production and reliability during the postseason transformed what once felt like an inevitable commitment into a far murkier negotiation landscape.

This analysis will profile Duren, his value, and relevant contract comparables, while also examining Detroit’s broader financial outlook and roster-building strategy to paint a clearer picture of what a realistic negotiation and eventual contract structure could look like.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Jalen Duren Rfa Outlook

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The Financials and Inflection Points

As currently constructed, the Pistons head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $86M under the 2nd Apron, $73.3M under the 1st Apron, and $65.7M under the Tax, with eleven standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $1M in unlikely bonuses, which count toward Apron calculations. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have three UFAs and one RFA, one player with a TO, and none with a PO. As a result, the offseason is relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of three roster spots needing to be filled. Finally, the organization has one 1st Round pick in the upcoming draft (21st).

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet remains relatively clean. Operating well below both Aprons and the Tax, Detroit retains full trade flexibility and access to all exceptions.

Regarding in-house decisions, the Pistons project to have a relatively lengthy offseason to-do list, with Duren standing out as the organization’s immediate inflection point. In order to make Duren an RFA, Detroit will need to issue him his $9.6M QO. Beyond his situation, Ausar Thompson, another key member of Detroit’s young core, becomes extension eligible this offseason, as does Isaiah Stewart. Tobias Harris enters Free Agency following a strong playoff run, while Daniss Jenkins has both a non-guaranteed contract and TO, requiring the franchise to evaluate his future contractual status as well.

As for overarching decisions, Detroit needs to determine if it wants to operate as a Cap Space team or as an over-the-Cap one. This will determine which exceptions it has access to, if it maintains Cap Holds over certain key Free Agents, and/or whether it chooses to waive others to attain maximum space. Second, for over a year, Detroit has been viewed as a team to watch regarding the possibility of a bigger splashy transaction to better position itself as a contender moving forward. Yet, a disappointing playoff exit has amplified various on-court issues (such as the noticeable lack of credible spacing, secondary ball-handling and playmaking, and overall talent), which could increase the possibility of transactions aimed at addressing such deficiencies.

In turn, these decisions will have a cascading impact on Detroit’s future positioning on the league’s financial landscape. The Front Office must determine how potential deals impact future financial planning and roster-building. The team will predictably become more expensive with time, which could slowly erode flexibility and optionality. All in all, each decision made will impact every other. This brings the conversation back to Duren.

Duren’s Profile

To state the obvious, the chart details four specific areas within Duren’s regular season profile. It does not include Duren’s playoff stats, a time during which he experienced a historic decrease in production across nearly every major box score category, and underlying-efficiency wise. Detroit will need to determine which sample carries more weight in its evaluation.

Relevant Questions

• How does Duren’s playoff run impact negotiations, and do the Pistons have the same level of conviction regarding his standing and his future that the team might have had after the regular season concluded?

• Is paying Duren what he will likely cost worthwhile given the team’s depth at the center position?

• How will the open market impact negotiations, if at all, with Cap Space organizations such as the Lakers, the Nets, and the Bulls potentially having room to sign Duren outright? Will the mere threat of these teams force Detroit to ignore potential concerns deriving from Duren’s playoff performances?

• Can the Pistons move forward with both Duren and Thompson? And, in turn, is Duren still a guaranteed part of the Pistons’ future?

The RFA Landscape Factor

Since the implementation of the 2023 CBA, an already unfriendly open market has become even harsher for RFAs. In a financial landscape where every dollar allocated carries heightened importance, teams have become increasingly willing to leverage the structural advantages embedded within the RFA process. This was evident last offseason when Josh Giddey and Jonathan Kuminga had to wait until September to finalize new deals, while Quentin Grimes and Cam Thomas were ultimately forced to settle for their respective QOs. However, this dynamic cuts both ways. In each case, these players failed to generate meaningful open-market leverage to pressure their incumbent teams into meeting their demands, further illustrating how difficult the modern RFA environment has become. The question becomes whether Duren’s RFA will follow precedent, or if he represents an outlier case.

Overall, there is more to this situation than what meets the eye, and it is multi-layered. This reinforces the likelihood of Duren being an outlier to what is the new norm.

Negotiation Dynamics

Duren’s situation is exceptionally layered, with a variety of competing incentives, financial considerations, and strategic pressures all intersecting simultaneously. In this section, I want to touch on several negotiation dynamics that may arise.

Part of the difficulty with the Duren conversation stems from the fact that his regular season trajectory and postseason evaluation currently point in somewhat conflicting directions. On the one hand, Duren’s age, production profile, physical tools, and developmental upside remain highly attractive. On the other hand, his playoff performances were alarming. As a result, Detroit could find itself navigating the uncomfortable middle ground that often defines RFA: balancing long-term upside against the financial and roster-building risks attached to overcommitting. Detroit will also have to answer the question of whether Duren’s struggles were because he was a 22-year-old in his second playoff run or if they are indicative of greater problems ahead.

These risks become even more amplified within the current CBA environment. In a league increasingly centered around flexibility, optionality, and efficient Cap allocation, Front Offices must carefully evaluate not only what a player is, but whether that player can justify occupying a significant percentage of the Salary Cap. For the Pistons specifically, committing high-level money to Duren would result in a significant portion of the organization’s payroll being tied to the center position. Over time, this could create roster-building imbalances and potentially limit Detroit’s ability to fully invest elsewhere across the roster, particularly if the franchise is attempting to operate within the constraints of the Apron system.

Additionally, this creates the possibility of downstream roster-building limitations if Duren ultimately fails to consistently perform at the level expected given that financial commitment. This is at the heart of the Secondary Star dynamic, where a player is compensated financially as a franchise pillar despite uncertainty surrounding whether his impact consistently aligns with that level of investment.

At a high level, Secondary Stars are players who may not be good enough to be the best player on a championship team but are still talented enough to command significant salaries. Once a player reaches that salary tier, the conversation around his value, particularly from a bang-for-buck perspective, begins to change. And in a Cap environment where every dollar allocated is crucial, negative value can not only be crippling but also impact downstream roster-building. Because of this, Detroit must get this negotiation right.

At the same time, RFA negotiations are not dictated purely by internal valuations, they are often shaped by leverage and open market dynamics. For a situation to truly take a turn, there must be legitimate interest from other organizations. Thus, one of the more fascinating tensions embedded within this situation is that a team (such as the Nets, the Lakers, or the Bulls) could realistically end up Offer Sheeting Duren like a Max-level player even if it does not definitively view him internally as a true Max-caliber talent. These franchises theoretically possess both financial flexibility and organizational incentive to pursue Duren aggressively.

However, these organizations would need to ask themselves many of the same questions Detroit currently faces regarding Duren’s upside versus future contractual risk. Under the current CBA, these decisions carry substantially greater long-term consequences than they once did.

Because of potential external interest, for the Pistons, there is a possibility that elements of gamesmanship will emerge. Rival teams can structure Offer Sheets in ways specifically designed to maximize discomfort for incumbent organizations. Even if a pursuing team is not fully convinced that Duren is worth the exact value being offered, there may still be strategic value in forcing Detroit into an uncomfortable financial decision. If Detroit is intent on keeping Duren regardless, then gamesmanship might not bother the franchise. However, if Detroit is nervous about the idea of signing Duren at a significant number, then there could be an impact upon how it handles negotiations. The Pistons will have to evaluate the likelihood of external interest.

That said, the structure of the RFA process itself may quietly work in Detroit’s favor. The Pistons will possess an early negotiating advantage, as teams are permitted to begin negotiating with their own free agents immediately following the NBA Finals. This provides Detroit with a window to establish frameworks and potentially explore common ground before external leverage formally enters the equation.

Crucially, the Offer Sheet process often proves less threatening in practice than it appears to present in theory. Once a team submits an Offer Sheet, it must maintain the necessary room to absorb that contract throughout the entire matching period. This frequently discourages aggressive pursuits, as Front Offices become hesitant to tie up significant flexibility and potentially delay broader offseason plans while waiting for another organization’s decision. Timing further complicates matters. If Detroit were to receive an Offer Sheet during moratorium, the Pistons would have until July 7th at 11:59pm EST to formally respond, all while the offering team’s space remains frozen. In turn, the mechanics of RFA itself may ultimately provide Detroit with a greater degree of leverage and strategic comfort than surface-level speculation initially suggests. It also may increase the chances of a sign-and-trade since other organizations would likely not want to wait to see what the Pistons decide.

Still, timing remains one of the more important variables throughout this process, particularly as it relates to Detroit’s evaluation of the open market. Since the organization will likely have a lengthy offseason agenda, one could assume that the franchise will want clarity on this situation. In theory, the greater picture of the team’s standing becomes clearer once certainty exists surrounding Duren’s contract. However, if Detroit is of the belief that no team on the market will come in for Duren, that could change the calculus and increase the chances of playing RFA hardball, following in the path of precedent.

Finally, there is an internal roster-building component involving Duren’s fit alongside Thompson. While the regular-season data surrounding the duo was largely positive, the playoffs amplified many of the offensive concerns tied to lineups featuring both players. With Duren now reaching his contractual inflection point and Thompson becoming extension eligible, Detroit will soon need to determine whether it truly believes the two can coexist as foundational long-term pieces within the same core. Depending upon that answer, the evaluation could meaningfully impact one or both players’ futures with the franchise, which, from Duren’s perspective, could influence both Detroit’s negotiating stance, and his future with the organization.

Approach and Valuation

So now we get to the meat and potatoes: what is Duren’s value. As it stands, Duren can effectively fall into three contractual umbrellas, two of which involve the Pistons and hinge upon whether he qualifies for All-NBA consideration. The three lanes are detailed in the chart below:

If Duren makes an All-NBA team, he becomes eligible for a Rose Rule 30% Max contract with Detroit. If he does not, he is limited to a standard 25% Max. It is important to emphasize that eligibility does not automatically translate into full utilization of that slot. The key distinction is that an All-NBA selection expands the ceiling of what is possible in negotiation, even if it does not guarantee that Detroit would operate at that ceiling.

That said, even in the event Duren qualifies for the 30% tier, I do not view that outcome as likely.

This brings us to the 25% Max tier, where the incumbent Pistons hold structural advantages over any external bidder. Detroit can offer a fifth year and 8% annual raises, whereas rival teams are limited to four years and 5% raises. This distinction is not only important, but somewhat counterintuitive. A Max Offer Sheet from an open market team is actually a smaller contract than Detroit’s full Max. Over the life of the deal, the difference amounts to one fewer guaranteed year and roughly $60M less in total compensation.

The question turns to comparables. There are a limited number of recent, directly comparable situations that provide clean precedent for anchoring Duren’s market. The most relevant examples are higher-level centers who reached RFA, with the next closest tier consisting of centers who instead agreed to rookie-scale extensions prior to hitting the open market. From this pool, I selected several of the most notable and instructive examples, as depicted below.

These four examples span a variety of contractual structures and negotiating environments: two Max contracts and two sub-Max deals; two players who reached RFA and two who agreed to rookie-scale extensions beforehand; and, perhaps most importantly, two contracts signed under the previous CBA landscape and two negotiated within the current one. From a strategic perspective (and putting analytical profiles aside, which do matter!), there is not a like-for-like comparison. For example, Ayton signed an Offer Sheet in RFA, which the Suns matched. On the flipside, Sengun signed an extension in the current landscape at a sub-Max level, reflecting the increased role of hardball tactics in certain negotiations.

As a result, Duren’s valuation becomes less about straightforward comps and more about interpreting where he fits within this imperfect tier of young centers. Based upon these comps and the heightened sensitivity to bad-value contracts, my valuation approach and potential offer is the following.

This valuation and offer are clearly below Duren’s applicable Max, impacted by his playoff performance and the fear of a Secondary Star situation. The range also reflects hardball tactics baked into it. I believe that initially Detroit should take a firm stance with its offers and see if any interest develops from the open market. If such interest does not develop, then playing hardball could prove worthwhile from a long-term perspective, even if it would require Detroit to construct its offseason while facing question marks deriving from the negotiation. The franchise should operate with a heightened sensitivity to potential bad-value contracts and understand the weight of this negotiation.

If a team from the open market comes into play and an offer sheet comes in, this would change the calculus. It would also present entirely different questions about matching, letting Duren walk for nothing, or signing-and-trading him (which could bring in Base Year Compensation). If an Offer Sheet comes in that Detroit does not feel comfortable matching, then leveraging the threat of matching in order to extract as much value as possible via a sign-and-trade could prove worthwhile. That said, I would still try and lean into the leverage created by RFA, both in terms of the offseason landscape, and the actual moratorium process itself.

In terms of the contract, if Detroit is concerned about Duren’s lackluster performance in the playoffs, then I would consider pursuing a shorter-term contract (say 3- or 4-years), and perhaps even exchanging overall money to get that term. Additionally, a 4-year deal would put Duren on the same contractual timeline as Cunningham. I would push for a TO to be included for protection, particularly if it is a 5-year contract, as well as being more stringent with the money handed out. That said, to get a fifth year, the terms would need to be more favorable for Detroit.

All-in-all, what needs to be reiterated is that if Duren is a Piston moving forward, in my opinion, one or both of the parties will be uncomfortable with the deal signed: Detroit because it paid more than what it was comfortable, or Duren because he got less than what he wanted. And from Detroit’s perspective, the higher the number, the greater the stakes and pressure surrounding other decisions and overall roster building.

The Charlotte Hornets’ recent rise is well-documented. Having started the season 11-23, the team went on a remarkable 33-15 run. During this stretch, the Hornets had the best Net Rating in the entire league, combining a scintillating offence with a suffocating defense. The team finished the season on a 53 expected win pace despite only tallying 44 wins. And yet, the season’s end was a harsh one--a 31-point drubbing at the hands of the Orlando Magic in the final play-in game. However, despite a disappointing end, the 2025-26 season was an overall success for Charlotte as it established an exciting young core through which the organization hopes to continue to ascend. And it is off the backs of this core that the Hornets enter the offseason.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the Hornets’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. To that end, I will focus upon the team’s potential main strategies and objectives. Lastly, I will present my own perspective about how the Hornets could approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Charlotte Hornets 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

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Season Recap

Record: 44-38 (9th place in ECF), lost in play-in

Notable Moves:

• Drafted Kon Knueppel, Ryan Kalkbrenner, Sion James, and Liam McNeeley

• Re-signed Tre Mann

• Traded Vasilije Micic for Pat Connaughton and two 2nd Round picks

• A part of a series of larger transactions, acquired Coby White for Collin Sexton

Main Offseason Questions

• What is the next phase in the roster-building plan and how should the Front Office evaluate the success of the 2025-26 season?

  • Should Charlotte take a more patient approach and give this core another season, or pursue a bigger move in order to accelerate the timeline?

• Is the starting lineup set in stone?

• What degree of conviction does the team have in Ball?

• Can Miller be extended at a team-friendly sub-Max number?

• Is Coby White re-signing a guarantee? What is his realistic value?

• How does Miles Bridges fit into plans? Which extension eligible players should be prioritized if any?

• Where does Charlotte realistically project within next season’s Eastern Conference hierarchy?

• Should expiring salaries be utilized in trades?

• Leverage other teams’ picks against them?

Biggest Needs

• Additional higher-end bench pieces

• To continue to surround core players with pieces that fit on-court skillset, player profiles, and overall team identity

• Another forward and/or overall size

• If the intention is to accelerate the timeline, more top-end talent

• Toughness and physicality

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Hornets head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $74M under the 2nd Apron, $61.2M under the 1st Apron, and $52.6M under the Tax, with 13 standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $0M in waived salary and $1.3M in unlikely bonuses, which would otherwise count toward Apron calculations. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have two UFAs and one RFA, one player with a TO (Connaughton), and none with a PO. As a result, the offseason is relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of one roster spot needing to be filled. Finally, the organization has two 1st Round picks in the upcoming draft, one slated to be 18th, while the other is 14th in the lottery. These roster spots and salary slots must be accounted for if utilized.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet remains relatively clean. Operating well below both Aprons and the Tax, Charlotte retains full trade flexibility and access to tools such as the BAE and full NTMLE. Crucially, the organization has upwards of $51M in expiring salary (the bulk of which is coming from three players) that can facilitate higher-dollar transactions if needed. Overall, the Hornets will likely operate as an over-the-Cap team.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, Charlotte has one immediate inflection point in the form of Coby White’s UFA. White was acquired by the organization at the Deadline and will hit Free Agency with Full-Bird Rights, which means that the Hornets can do whatever it takes to bring him back, if desired. Due to the 3-year $36M contract that White signed while with the Chicago Bulls, he is currently extension eligible and will remain so through June 30th. That said, any extension would be capped at 140% of the league’s estimated average salary due to his current $12.9M Cap hit. This translates to a potential 3-year $52M extension, with an AAV of $17.3M. White is limited to a 3-year deal because he is still within the six month extend-and-trade limitations. In his short time with the Hornets, White not only fits well but had a standout game in the team’s play-in victory. His market value and long-term fit within this Hornets’ young core will be central to Charlotte’s decision-making.

Next, Charlotte’s extension eligible players during the next league season number six. Of the six, the headliners are Lamelo Ball and Brandon Miller. Ball has 3 years left on his current rookie-scale extension and is eligible, until the beginning of the regular season, to add an additional 2-years at his respective Max number. Given the fact that he has the significant term left on his current deal, an extension is unlikely. Miller is the far more interesting situation as he reaches rookie-scale extension eligibility. Miller, the second overall pick from the 2023 Draft, has had a strong start to his career. He has displayed steady improvement across each of his first three seasons and has seemingly cemented himself as both a key core-member and a large part of the Hornets’ identity. Still only 23 years old, Miller has much room to grow and figures to be an instrumental part of the Hornets’ future. One potential complicating factor is Miller’s injury history. His extension eligibility appears to be the largest in-house financial inflection point for the organization this offseason.

Beyond Miller and Ball, Miles Bridges, Josh Green, and Grant Williams are all on the last year of their respective contracts and are also extension eligible. What is done with these players and their respective salary slots will need to be determined, as well as how potential deals would impact future financial planning and roster-building. Moussa Diabate represents the last main player who will hit extension eligibility, albeit in February 2027. The 24-year-old Frenchman started 47 games for Charlotte, averaging 26 minutes a game and embodies the Hornets’ relentless nature, particularly on the glass. Diabate is currently entering the final season of his contract (which will need to be guaranteed) and, as with White, will be able to extend for 140% of the league’s estimated average salary.

All in all, regardless of the actual numbers, the overall Team Salary is likely to increase in 2027-28 because of these in-house negotiations and inflection points. This is something Charlotte must be sensitive to when constructing the rest of its offseason. For example, from this vantage point, the team projects to have upwards of $130M of Tax space in 2027-28; however, the bulk of that space will evaporate because of looming decisions.

Finally, regarding trades, the Hornets could potentially have over $50M in expiring salary available. The organization also possesses a fully stocked draft capital cabinet, including ten 1st Round picks (seven of which are tradable) and fourteen 2nd Round picks. Certain of the firsts are picks tied to other organizations (including Miami and Dallas).

The Eastern Conference Factor

The Eastern Conference is at a fork in the road. Long viewed as the weaker of the conferences, this past season saw ten teams emerge far more competitive than expected and surpass 42 wins. The Hornets organization played a meaningful role in this shift. Yet this season may prove to be only the beginning. With internal development and improved health, the East is positioned to become even deeper and more competitive moving forward. That reality places added importance upon how Charlotte evaluates itself within this evolving landscape. The organization’s self-assessment will shape its offseason approach as the team looks to solidify its place in the playoff picture. In turn, the team’s self-evaluation hinges on a central question coming out of last season: is simply reaching the postseason enough, or should the focus be upon securing a top-6 seed and avoiding the play-in altogether? After such a dramatic play-in exit, defining that next step is critical.

Whenever a team makes a surprise push, the Front Office is forced to decide whether the group is worth the investment. Charlotte’s case is more complicated. Over a large stretch of the season, the Hornets performed like one of the league’s best teams, yet still finished as the #9 seed ultimately being felled in the play-in. The question, then, is straightforward: to what extent was this surge real? If the answer to this question is “yes,” determining where the team falls within the landscape is the next step. And this determination requires a high degree of projection.

Certainly, projecting the Eastern Conference this far in advance is inherently difficult. The remainder of the playoffs, draft, and offseason will reshape the landscape writ large. Still, even a conservative view suggests a crowded field. There could realistically be a dozen teams with legitimate top-6 aspirations.

The current top four seeds, Detroit, Boston, New York, Cleveland, most likely will continue to be in the conversation. The same can be said for Toronto, Atlanta, and Philadelphia, who will each have either internal improvement or seek external upgrades. Orlando has paid a premium (both in salary and assets) to assemble a competitive roster and will also be part of the conversation. Miami and Brooklyn could both make moves to strengthen their respective odds. Until the Giannis Antetokounmpo situation is resolved, Milwaukee still is a contender presence. Washington seems to be positioning itself to transition out of a rebuild. And the Indiana Pacers will likely return to contention. But there is more at play.

When layering in the league’s incoming anti-tanking measures, which are designed to disincentivize losing, the result could be a conference with very few clear bottom-feeders. This, coupled with the fact that several of the organizations listed above do not currently own the rights to their 2027 1st Round picks, could further heighten the desire to win for certain of these teams.

Again, there is, of course, significant time for this picture to change. However, the broader point stands: the East is shaping up to be a competitive environment, defined by a mix of ascending young teams and established contenders. In this context, the margin for error shrinks. Offseason decisions (both the moves a team makes and the ones it passes over) could carry outsized weight in what projects to be a tightly contested race. Charlotte must conduct an honest assessment of its standing, including how it can continue to close the gap to the top teams, while solidifying its place.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

All in all, Charlotte finds itself in an enviable position: a team with a rising young core, meaningful flexibility, and multiple pathways forward. Now comes the hard part.

The Hornets’ offseason should be centered on answering a fundamental question: what is realistically next? The organization has not made the playoffs in ten years and is seeking its first playoff series win since 2001–02. The ultimate goal, therefore, should be to break both of these droughts.

That progression, however, must be handled carefully. Continuing to solidify the team’s identity and reinforce its foundation should be paramount. Improving the roster is necessary; however, the organization cannot afford to skip steps. Acquiring talent is not the same as team building. Fit, cohesion, and role clarity matter just as much as raw ability. In the current league environment, while top-end talent remains essential, there is an increasing premium placed upon minimizing weak links across the roster. A flawed foundation can undermine even the most talented groupings. High-level synergy is crucial, which is exactly what the Hornets starting lineup had.

Charlotte appears to have found five players who genuinely fit together, making the evaluation process more difficult. The organization must determine whether the current group deserves another opportunity to grow organically, or if a targeted upgrade should be pursued to alleviate some of the roster’s limitations and raise the team’s ceiling. If the Front Office views a semi-meaningful move as an acceleration of the timeline rather than an example of skipping steps, then the likelihood of this type of transaction naturally increases.

This creates a natural push-pull. Charlotte should be aggressive in pursuing upgrades, but not at the expense of its long-term vision and identity. If the Front Office has a high degree of conviction in its core, then pushing chips into the center of the table becomes justifiable. However, that decision ultimately ties back to a central tension: how patient should the organization be? It could look toward situational precedent for answers. This directly points to the 2025 Detroit Pistons.

Following its breakthrough, the Detroit Pistons opted for continuity, making only marginal changes and betting on internal development rather than a significant external upgrade. The result was a leap to the top of the conference and to the #1 seed. However, this outcome was shaped in part by the structure of the East at the time. While the conference had depth, much of its strength was concentrated in the middle, leaving the top seed more open. That context may not hold moving forward. If the upper tier strengthens while the depth continues, the viability of a patient approach could become less certain, and the appeal of acceleration could correspondingly increase. That said, as with Detroit, Charlotte should seek out players that fill needs, such as having additional experience and increased physicality.

From there, the Hornets’ offseason decision-making branches into two parallel tracks: internal retention and external evaluation.

White’s valuation is difficult to pin down. Players who project as either fifth starters or high-impact high-leverage rotation pieces often fall into ambiguous salary ranges. White remains extension eligible, and a potential extension figure appears team-friendly. However, there are several factors that complicate matters. For starters, White’s possible extension is seemingly below market value. Additionally, Charlotte traded for White, which may give him additional leverage, and he is only months away from UFA, where no such extension constraints exist. Given his projected value on the open market, the expectation should be that he declines an extension and tests Free Agency. That should not deter the Hornets from attempting to retain him--whether through extension or re-signing.

Naturally, discipline will be required to avoid overcommitting, and the team should establish and stick to its valuation. I would attempt to sign him on a shorter-term deal, potentially exchanging term for AAV in order to preserve long-term flexibility. If White does leave, a sign-and-trade should be explored to generate a sizable TPE, which could prove valuable given the team’s financial positioning. Alternatively, the team could seek assets to further stock its cabinet.

On the extension front, Miller should be the clear priority. The Hornets should explore locking him in this offseason, ideally at a sub-max number. A cursory look shows that there is recent precedent for rookie-scale extensions among wings and forwards. While top-tier players like Paolo Banchero, Jalen Williams, Franz Wagner, and Scottie Barnes have secured max deals, there is a well-defined sub-max tier that includes players such as Keegan Murray, Jabari Smith Jr., and Jalen Johnson. Miller likely falls into this latter sub-max group, though comparable deals (such as Johnson’s 5-year, $150M contract) could serve as benchmarks in negotiations. My current projected AAV range for Miller is $31-35M, and a potential offer being 4-years $136M. That said, if the asking price from Miller’s camp is out of Charlotte’s range, then waiting until RFA and collecting more data on his fit is not a bad thing.

As for Bridges, Green, and Williams, their expiring contracts could become valuable for salary matching purposes. Teams with players who the Hornets could target might view these deals as attractive because of the financial relief that they bring. It should also be stated that both Williams and Green can be acquired via the NTMLE. While Charlotte could explore extensions, there is a strong argument for patience. All three players will remain extension-eligible into the season, and their value as expiring may increase as the Trade Deadline approaches and market dynamics shift. Unless a clearly team-friendly deal presents itself, prioritizing flexibility and optionality may be the more prudent path, along with the possibility of trading the three for players deemed as upgrades.

In my opinion the Hornets should get creative this summer and capitalize on the team’s flexibility and wiggle-room. If the time is right, the team should use the expiring salary-in-trades to acquire players who are deemed to be upgrades. The franchise has already shown comfort carrying multiple rookies on the roster (this past season it had four). So it is not far-fetched to add to the core via the two 1st Round picks that the team has in the draft, or, perhaps even look to package them to trade up. Eventually the organization will have to confront its pick affluence. It could look to consolidate on the pick front. Or perhaps to try to leverage the picks that it has from other teams against them (such as Dallas or Miami), expanding one asset and turning it into multiple, or using it to acquire a targeted player from said team. It could also look to the sign-and-trade market, pursuing players above the NTMLE range. Finally, due to playoff results, there will be quite a few organizations that shift direction. Targeting talent on these teams could be smart.

Ultimately, excess assets should not lead to complacency, but they can be a catalyst for creativity. In a tightening Eastern Conference, the difference between standing still and making the right move could be the difference between remaining in the play-in tier and emerging as a true playoff team.

Targets

For four consecutive seasons, the Portland Trail Blazers missed the playoffs. The team’s return to the postseason in 2025-26 marked the end of this stretch. Led by rising star Deni Avdija accompanied by a growing young core, the team hopes to make this appearance the first of many. With a new owner, an upward trajectory, assets, and in-house talent, the Blazers are primed to take the next step. The question now is not whether Portland is improving, but how aggressively it should act on the growing momentum it has.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the Trail Blazers’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. I will also investigate why Portland faces a unique roster-building factor in the form of Deni Avdija and his contract. To that end, I will focus upon the team’s main strategies and objectives. Lastly, I will present my own perspective about how the Blazers should approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Portland Trail Blazers 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

1.89MB ∙ PDF file

Download

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Season Recap

Record: 42-40 (8th place in WCF), #7 seed in the playoffs

Playoff Result: Lost in five games to the San Antonio Spurs in Round #1

Notable Moves:

• Trading from Pick 11 to Pick 16 (which it used to draft Yang Hansen) and acquiring a 2028 1st and two 2nds in the process

• Signed Damian Lillard using the NTMLE

• Traded Anfernee Simons for Jrue Holiday

• Extended Shaedon Sharpe

Main Offseason Questions

• What is the next phase of the roster-building plan: continue along the current trajectory, or pursue a timeline-accelerating move?

• Has Avdija cemented himself as the central player to build around? What are the risks of building around a player who is unlikely to be extendable?

• Does the current young core fit together, and which players are a part of it?

• How does Lillard fit into plans?

• Which extension-eligible players should be prioritized, if any?

• Does the team want to take advantage of the NTMLE?

• How should it handle the Milwaukee Bucks picks that it currently owns?

  • Can it leverage the picks to break into a larger Giannis-transaction?

• Can rostered salary be utilized in bigger trades?

• Should Williams be re-signed as insurance for Hansen?

Biggest Needs

• Clarity on a direction

• To continue to surround core players with pieces that fit on-court skillset and player profiles, and off-court timeline

• Half-court offense

• Shooting and spacing

• If the intention is to accelerate the timeline, more top-end talent

• More ball-handling and playmaking reliability

• Commit to a top-tier defense

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Blazers head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $52M under the 2nd Apron, $39.4M under the 1st Apron, and $30.8M under the Tax, with 12 standard contracts on the books (excluding potential draft pick salary slots), all of which are fully guaranteed. The organization carries $268K in waived salary and $0M in unlikely bonuses, which would otherwise count toward Apron calculations. From a free agency standpoint, the team will have three UFAs and zero RFAs, and, notably, no players with TOs or POs. As a result, the offseason is relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of two roster spots needing to be filled.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet remains relatively clean. Operating well below both Aprons, Portland retains full trade flexibility and access to tools such as the BAE and full NTMLE. Despite not carrying a true max contract, the Blazers do possess larger tradable salary slots in players such as Jerami Grant and Jrue Holiday, which can facilitate higher-dollar transactions if needed. With a new owner in Tom Dundon, it remains to be seen whether the organization will be okay with exceeding the Tax. Overall, how the team operates around financial thresholds remains a mystery. Due to its financial positioning, the Front Office will likely not be deterred by moves that trigger formal Hard Cap mechanisms. This, in turn, preserves access to key team-building tools and exceptions. Finally, Portland does not have any noteworthy TPEs.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, Robert Williams (Full Bird-Rights) and Matisse Thybulle (Full Bird-Rights) stand out as the primary free agents. Portland has had multiple opportunities across prior transaction windows to move on from both of these players but either chose not to or was unable to extract sufficient value, suggesting the organization places tangible importance on their roles. While both carry durability concerns, there remains a clear case for retention, whether for rotational depth or veteran presence. Of the two, Williams presents the more compelling situation. He is coming off a strong season and playoff run, and has formed an effective center tandem alongside Donovan Clingan. Williams' market value, injury history, and long-term fit within a Clingan-led frontcourt will be central to Portland’s decision-making.

The Blazers have five players set to become extension-eligible at various points in the new calendar year (Scoot Henderson, Deni Avdija, Jerami Grant, Vit Krejci, and Kris Murray). These extension decisions will play a critical role in shaping both the team’s financial outlook and its roster-building timeline. Portland must evaluate whether to engage in negotiations with any of these players or defer decisions to later transaction windows to preserve flexibility and gather more information. This is particularly true for Henderson. The former third overall pick in the 2023 Draft has not lived up to expectations for a variety of reasons, and yet, has still flashed enough across his first three seasons for the Blazers to remain hopeful that he can be an impactful player.

Beyond extensions, Portland will also face several key PO decisions in future offseasons, most notably involving Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday, and Grant. In particular, the combined $74M tied to Holiday and Grant in the 2027–28 season represents a significant portion of the Cap Sheet. While the likelihood of each player opting in or out is a meaningful variable, the immediate impact is upon trade dynamics. The presence of POs can complicate deal construction, as acquiring teams may require additional incentive to absorb potential downside risk. Finally, Clingan becomes extension-eligible next offseason and, based upon his current trajectory, projects as a candidate for a substantial long-term deal, marking another major financial inflection point for the organization.

Lastly, a potential complication arises in trade construction. Outside of the Holiday and Grant contracts, both of which could be viewed as neutral (at best) to negative value depending upon market conditions, the team lacks mid-tier salaries that can easily be aggregated. That said, the addition of Shaedon Sharpe’s extension, which begins in 2026–27, adds an additional slot to the pool. From a draft capital perspective, the Blazers do not have a 1st Round pick in the upcoming draft. However, the team has multiple 1sts in both 2028 and 2029 and has swap rights with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2030. The Blazers organization is one of the teams that controls the Bucks’ draft future, which could be quite valuable given the Giannis Antetokounmpo situation.

Regardless of the foregoing, at the heart of the team’s evolving roster and financial outlook is a situation that will be central to its outlook.

The Avdija Factor

There are two undeniable truths about Deni Avdija: he is an All-Star, and he is on one of the best contracts in the NBA. Since being acquired by Portland, the 25-year-old Avdija has steadily improved, establishing himself as a foundational piece for the Blazers, and as a Star in the league. And yet, his situation is one to monitor precisely because of the team-friendly 4-year, $55M deal that he is currently on. The contract pays Avdija less than the NTMLE and declines annually. It is so favorable that it may be functionally unextendable.

Avdija will enter extension eligibility for a brief period at the end of the offseason. To put it simply, an extension will likely not be agreed upon. Any extension would be capped at 140% of the league’s estimated average salary, well below Avdija’s true market value. Players who have signed contracts in this range based upon that figure (Nesmith, Nembhard, and Herb Jones) are role players. They are very good and highly valuable ones; however, they are not players who have made All-Star appearances and produced at Avdija’s level.

Naturally, one might wonder why I am focusing upon Avdija’s contractual situation when he still has two years remaining on his current deal, rather than upon, for example, Henderson’s extension eligibility, which Portland will have to address this summer. The answer is multi-faceted.

Avdija’s situation creates a rare and important team-building dilemma. Every Front Office strives to maximize value up and down the roster, and when a team fetches an incredible return on investment on a contract, it is significant. However, there will come a point where the shine begins to fade, specifically when the player becomes eligible for a new deal that would pay him his legitimized value at a more accurate number.

For example, Jaren Jackson Jr., whose 4-year $104M contract represented incredible value throughout its duration, provided the organization with a massive surplus return on investment while also giving the player a very high degree of trade value. The Grizzlies then renegotiated and extended Jackson Jr. at a figure more aligned with his production, impact, and age. What followed was a shift in perception. No longer was Jackson Jr. viewed primarily as an All-Star and former Defensive Player of the Year on a team-friendly deal. He became tied to a 4-year $205M near-max contract, fundamentally altering his value. Six months later, he was traded. While that move was partially driven by a broader shift in Memphis’ timeline, it also likely reflected a recognition that, to capture remaining value before perception fully caught up with contract reality, the team needed to act proactively.

Jackson Jr.’s situation also aligns with the “Secondary Star” dynamic that I have written about previously. At a high level, Secondary Stars are players who may not be good enough to be the best player on a championship team but are still talented enough to command significant salaries. Once they reach that salary tier, the conversation around their value, particularly from a bang-for-buck perspective, begins to change. And in a Cap environment where every dollar allocated is crucial, negative value can be crippling. That said, below is a summary of the main points for the rise of the Secondary Star:

To be clear, I am not definitively placing Avdija into the Secondary Star category today. However, I am utilizing the framework to get to the crux of the situation. The Blazers are entering a phase where they must begin determining from where Avdija’s value is primarily derived: his on-court production or his off-court contract value. As the team looks to take the next step in its competitive timeline, Avdija will naturally become more central to both the roster and the broader strategic outlook. Based upon these results, this valuation question will gradually be answered. And it is those answers that will either clarify or complicate Avdija’s financial future.

Unless Portland pursues a Cap Space pathway in either the 2026–27 offseason (unlikely) or the 2027–28 offseason to facilitate a renegotiation-and-extension structure, or if Avdija agrees to a below-market extension, the most probable outcome is that he plays out his current deal and enters UFA in 2028–29. This creates a significant future inflection point for the organization, along with a complex strategic decision that may be difficult to fully resolve in the near term due to structural limitations on available pathways.

Despite having two years remaining on his contract, Avdija’s situation is likely to become a front-burner issue sooner than expected. As the expiration of Avdija’s deal approaches, his long-term valuation and pathway will increasingly become a topic of conversation. Because of this, it will be a central factor in Portland’s decision-making this offseason. That said, Portland needs to evaluate how he fits in within the larger team-building dynamic.

If the organization views Avdija as a cornerstone, then every move the Blazers make must be made with him in mind. If the team is still figuring out where Avdija falls in the future pecking order, then it must put him in a position to answer those questions. That said, the idea of building around a player who is likely to be functionally not able to be extended is fascinating as well as risky.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

The Blazers’ offseason should be centered on solidifying the team’s direction, identity, and foundation. Having missed the playoffs for four straight seasons before reaching the play-in in 2025–26, and then the playoffs as a #7 seed, the natural next step is to push toward a top-six seed. Given the state of the Western Conference, which projects to feature movement and volatility in the coming months, there may be a real opportunity for Portland to make that jump.

Within this framework is the question of whether the team should stay committed to its current build or attempt to accelerate the timeline with a more aggressive move. A timeline-accelerating trade would signal a strong internal belief in the team’s foundation, core, and overall trajectory. However, I would be wary of one key dynamic: that larger, asset-intensive transactions to acquire high-impact, win-now players are best utilized as finishing touches, rather than as initial steps toward contention. Finding that balance is critical.

Next, Avdija. Putting him in a position for the Blazers to determine if he is the type of player whose on-court value will remain high (so that not much changes when he gets the contract) is important. If Portland views Avdija as a cornerstone, the priority becomes building around him while leveraging the flexibility his contract provides.

Circling back to a potential renegotiation-and extension, because Avdija becomes extension-eligible in October, if Portland wanted to pursue this pathway, it would need to preserve the necessary Cap Space throughout the offseason. This could delay much of the organization’s other offseason business and complicate broader roster-building plans. The final consideration regarding a renegotiation-and-extension comes down to value. Portland would need to determine whether there is greater value in paying Avdija upfront at a potential discount (and securing the subsequent extension), or in maximizing the flexibility created by his current contract. That said, if the team wants to position itself to renegotiate his contract in the 2027-28 offseason, that would impact what it does in the short-term. It could seek to turn rostered long-term money into expirings, or sign shorter-term deals that will be off the books.

Moving on, another core objective should be to fully leverage the roster-building and financial flexibility that the team currently possess. Because the organization is operating within a multi-year window of optionality, any moves made this offseason should be evaluated through the lens of the broader roster-building plan. In practical terms, regardless of what happens this summer, Portland will likely still have work to do.

From an in-house standpoint, I would prioritize bringing Williams back using his Bird Rights to preserve access to the NTMLE. However, I would be wary of overpaying a player who has 85 games across the last three seasons. The Blazers have invested a lot in the center position over the last few seasons, taking Clingan 7th overall, and Hansen 16th overall in this past draft. That said, Hansen is quite raw (only logging 300 minutes during his rookie season) and, in his current trajectory, figures to be several seasons away from becoming a reliable player, if he is to become one at all. Re-signing Williams could serve as short-term insurance behind Clingan while bridging to Hansen’s development timeline. Perhaps looking into a shorter-term deal (two-or-three years at an AAV around $13-15M) with a TO in order to protect the organization against his injury history would be best.

The team should use the NTMLE to address key roster needs. As one of a handful of organizations that project to have access to this exception, for the Blazers, the NTMLE could prove to be a tool in a market devoid of Cap Space. If the goal is to renegotiate Avdija’s deal next offseason, perhaps the team attempts to use the NTMLE on a 1-year deal basis. In terms of extensions, I would operate under the presumption that Avdija is unlikely to sign one. Unless Grant takes a significant pay decrease, extending him is probably not smart. For players like Henderson and Murray, additional data is likely needed before making definitive decisions about their respective value, fit, and long-term role.

Henderson, in particular, is the player to monitor given his pedigree, developmental trajectory, and ceiling. I would not completely rule out an extension this offseason. The Blazers have demonstrated a willingness to commit early to young players who have experienced uneven starts but retained upside (as demonstrated by Sharpe). If a team-friendly number is attainable, Portland should consider locking in long-term upside. If not, maintaining flexibility and gathering more data remains the prudent path.

Overall, even if the organization decides that it is not ready for a splashy move, this does not mean it should sit on its hands. Due to a clean Cap Sheet, the team has a lot of wiggle room to upgrade the roster and rotation and should weaponize its flexibility to check off certain of the boxes, such as adding more spacing, half-court scoring, and to reinforce its defensive identity. Additionally, if it can leverage the Bucks picks that it owns to get into a potential Giannis trade, it should.

Finally, the impact from the presence of Lillard on the roster will be notable. Next season he will be 36 years old and coming off an Achilles tear. Lillard’s presence introduces a unique variable: if Portland does not pursue a major external addition, can he function as that internal acquisition, even if only in the short term?

Targets

Over the last two years, the Dallas Mavericks have been in the headlines for a variety of reasons, both on- and off-court. The end of the 2025-26 season represents the closing of this tumultuous chapter, with the organization now heading into a new era led by Cooper Flagg, the rookie phenom and the new face of the franchise. The 2026-27 offseason that lies ahead figures to be the first real window where the organization can fully focus upon centering its new timeline around its rising young Star. Despite this turnaround, questions exist about what the team’s next logical steps should be. The fact that Dallas now has a centerpiece in Flagg creates subtle pressure for the team to put itself on the correct path.

This analysis will present a foundational examination of the Mavericks’ current financial picture and strategic standing as the team heads into the 2026-27 offseason. As such, I will highlight the team’s most prominent requisites, explore the most pressing questions that it faces, and forecast both the organization’s tools for roster-building and the key factors that might influence its planning. I will also investigate why Dallas faces a potential unique roster-building timeline and will focus upon its main strategies and objectives. Lastly, I will present my own perspective about how the Mavericks should approach the summer.

Finally, if you would like a deliverable version of this analysis, feel free to download the PDF attached below!

Dallas Mavericks 2026 27 Offseason Outlook

1.22MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Season Recap

Record: 26-56 (12th place in WCF)

Notable Moves:

• As part of a larger transaction, traded Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards for Khris Middleton, Marvin Bagley, two 1st Round picks and three 2nd Round picks

• Extended Kyrie Irving

• Drafted Cooper Flagg first overall

Main Offseason Questions

• Should the organization fully shift into Flagg’s timeline?

• How does Irving fit into the team’s plans, if at all? What is his future with the team?

• How should Dallas’s lack of control over its future picks impact its roster-building plan and trajectory?

• What is the next step/phase in the roster-building plan?

• Which extension-eligible players should be prioritized, if any?

• Which players are a part of the core?

• Does the team want to take advantage of the NTMLE in Free Agency, hold onto it for trade, or pursue a combination of both?

• Should Middleton be re-signed?

• Should the $20.8M Anthony Davis TPE be used?

Biggest Needs

• Clarity on a direction

• To continue to surround Flagg with players that fit his on-court skillset and player profile, and off-court timeline

• Half-court offense

• Ball-handling

• Additional shooting/spacing

• Depth

The Financials

As currently constructed, the Mavericks head into the 2026–27 offseason approximately $69M under the 2nd Apron, $56M under the 1st Apron, and $49M under the Tax, with eleven standard contracts on the books (excluding three potential draft pick salary slots). The organization carries $3.2M in waived salary and $1.3M in unlikely bonuses, which count toward Apron calculations. From a Free Agency standpoint, the team will have four UFAs, zero RFAs, and no players have a PO. Ryan Nembhard is the only rostered player with a TO, and his salary also stands as the only non-guaranteed deal for that season. As a result, the offseason is relatively straightforward from an optionality perspective, with a minimum of three roster spots needing to be filled.

From a flexibility standpoint, the Cap Sheet remains relatively clean. Regarding financial escalation, Dallas has Daniel Gafford’s extension kicking-in. Given the financial framework that Dallas is operating within, the team retains full trade flexibility, faces minimal roster-building restrictions, and has access to both the BAE and the full NTMLE (which can be used for both signings and/or trade purposes). The Mavericks have a collection of middle-class tradable salaries, which can facilitate higher-dollar transactions, if needed. The Front Office likely does not want to exceed the Tax and could effectively view it as a Hard Cap. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the organization has two TPEs of note, one $6M in size, and the other $20.8M (which was generated from the Davis trade).

The $20.8M TPE, in particular, is one of the three largest TPEs in the league right now. It could prove to be a very important tool for Dallas. The TPE expires on February 5, 2027. If used in the new league year, the TPE would trigger a 1st Apron Hard Cap. However, this will not likely deter the Mavericks from potentially utilizing the entire allotted amount, if needed, since it is a sizable distance away from any financial thresholds. The potential use of this TPE will be touched upon in more depth below.

Logistics and Inflection Points

Regarding in-house decisions, Khris Middleton (Full Bird Rights) and Dwight Powell (Full Bird Rights) stand out as the primary free agents. Both could be retained as veteran leadership presences and sources of depth and can technically be extended through June 30th. Middleton’s salary slot, whether removed entirely or brought back at a reduced number, is a key driver behind Dallas’ projected financial flexibility. That shift is a major reason why the Mavericks are positioned to operate below the Tax and Apron thresholds after previously being above them with Davis on the roster.

Beyond Free Agency, the Mavericks also face a series of extension decisions that will further shape the financial trajectory. The team has five players with term left on their current contracts set to become extension-eligible at various points in the upcoming calendar year (Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, Max Christie, Caleb Martin, and Dereck Lively). These decisions will play a critical role in defining both the team’s financial outlook and its broader roster-building timeline. However, there is an added layer of complexity with these extension-eligible players that is tied to their respective salary slots and contractual endpoints.

The current deal for each of the extension-eligible players is set to expire in the 2027–28 offseason, or, in the case of Christie, includes a PO that could also bring the contract to an end in that same window. When Irving’s PO for that offseason is factored in, a significant portion of Dallas’ Cap Sheet begins to converge on a single inflection point. How the Mavericks navigate this will meaningfully shape the look of the team’s books. Exercising extensions would push those timelines outward and create longer-term cost certainty. While deferring decisions preserves near-term flexibility, it also introduces the risk of multiple key players reaching Free Agency simultaneously. It should be stated that since these players are entering the last years of their respective contracts, they would remain eligible to extend in-season.

In that sense, delaying decisions on these inflection points is not without consequence. It effectively shifts the burden to a future offseason where Dallas could be forced to operate in Free Agency, an outcome the organization may prefer to avoid given the inherent loss of control that comes with it. That said, based upon decisions made in the short-term, there are pathways for Dallas to become a Cap Space team in either 2027-28 or 2028-29. This could be of certain appeal and alter the team’s strategy.

Ultimately, none of these decisions can be evaluated in isolation. Instead, they must be assessed through both the lens of Flagg and the timeline he represents.

The Flagg Factor

There is no question that the Mavericks find themselves in a highly unusual position. Not to rehash what is already known, but the organization spent years building a contender around Luka Doncic. In the process, it emptied its asset cabinet, only to ultimately pivot away from that timeline. In a matter of months, Dallas transitioned from a team built around an established Superstar to one that unexpectedly won the lottery and drafted a new franchise cornerstone in Flagg. That sequence of events has created a fascinating internal reset. The Mavericks are now entering a new era, one that will be defined by Flagg and an entirely different timeline.

When Dallas drafted Flagg, expectations were sky high for what he could become. Ten months later, he already looks like a Star-in-the-making and the clear foundational piece of the organization. The question is no longer if he will be good, but how good he can become. Realistically, Flagg could enter All-Star conversations as soon as next season. More importantly, the Mavericks will have him under contract for the next three years at roughly 9% of the Cap, an extremely team-friendly number relative to his projected value.

Given its limited control over future draft capital, this places Dallas in a distinct position. The team already has its centerpiece, and it has him at a steep discount. However, the team lacks the traditional avenues, namely the draft, to continue adding high-end, timeline-aligned talent. This creates a central tension: what happens when a franchise cornerstone is clearly ahead of a team’s typical developmental curve and already impacting the game at a high level, while the broader team context (both roster and asset base) is oriented more toward the present than the future?

This dynamic could mirror what teams in the NFL aim to capitalize on when they find a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal: it aggressively builds out the roster while that surplus value window remains open. While the structural differences are significant (namely larger rosters, different contract systems, and no max-salary constraints on extensions), the underlying philosophy holds. When a team has elite production at a below-market cost, the priority shifts toward maximizing the flexibility that window provides.

A recent NBA parallel is the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama. Once it became clear what Wembanyama was on track to become, San Antonio leveraged its flexibility, driven in part by Wembanyama’s rookie-scale contract, to accelerate its timeline, most notably by acquiring De’Aaron Fox and his max contract. The move served a dual purpose: supporting Wembanyama’s development with higher-level talent and signaling a shift toward a more aggressive team-building phase. That said, the Dallas and the San Antonio situations are not perfectly analogous. San Antonio still maintains a strong collection of draft capital and additional young building blocks (such as Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper) that align cleanly with Wembanyama’s timeline. Dallas does not have that same internal structure.

However, the principle can still apply as there are direct parallels. This will be impacted by both how the upcoming draft lottery unfolds (where the Mavericks currently sit with the eighth-best odds at the top pick), as well as the fate of Kyrie Irving (who, if not traded, figures to return to Dallas next season fully recovered from a torn ACL).

What will be interesting to monitor is whether this line of thinking ultimately impacts Dallas’s approach this offseason. Does the team treat this as a traditional, longer-term build around a young cornerstone, or will it recognize the surplus value window created by Flagg’s contract and its lack of “traditional” rebuilding tools, which, when combined, might push the team to act more aggressively in the short term?

How the Mavericks choose to balance those two timelines will go a long way in defining not just this offseason, but the early stages of the Flagg era as a whole--one that effectively represents a non-traditional rebuild, constrained by limited draft capital yet accelerated by surplus value at the top of the roster.

Strategic Approach and Objectives

The Mavericks’ offseason should be entirely oriented around Flagg. Every decision needs to have Flagg in mind as the organization seeks to solidify its foundation, direction, and identity around its cornerstone. The first step is to determine what the timeline should be. Despite a lack of control over its draft future, should it be a traditional rebuild where valuable veterans are traded for capital and assets that better fit the new timeline? Or should the organization embrace its unique standing, pushing the timeline more aggressively than would normally be expected because of Flagg’s current trajectory, the flexibility afforded by his contract, and the lack of control over its own picks. This decision will impact the entire offseason, from Free Agency to extensions to trades. From a broader perspective, the organization also needs to decide whether it wants to pursue a Cap Space offseason in the future, which it could be able to do in 2027-28 or 2028-29. This would impact short-term planning and spending.

Beginning with extensions, in my opinion, the top priority on this front should be Christie as he fits Flagg’s off-court timeline and because of his spacing and on-court skillset. Christie’s maximum allowable extension is capped by the estimated average player salary (4-years $93M), and Dallas will need to determine what range his value fits based on relevant 3&D wing comparisons and market precedent. Lively is an interesting case as injuries have prevented him from playing more than 98 games across his first three seasons. That said, he also fits the younger-timeline, and if Dallas is able to extend him at a team-friendly contract with protection (e.g. injury protection, a short-term deal, a TO, or non-guaranteed money), it should consider it. Marshall is the final player that warrants consideration due to his production and development across the last two seasons. Dallas also opted to keep Marshall at the 2025 Trade Deadline, which was a signal that it values him.

Circling back to the exceptions (the NTMLE and $20.8M TPE), given the Mavericks’ financial positioning, the organization should have the ability to utilize both. How these tools are deployed will ultimately depend upon organizational direction; however, there are a few clear pathways. The team could use these exceptions to acquire:

• A free agent via Sign-and-Trade. In the case of the TPE, Dallas could offer a higher Year-1 salary than the NTMLE would allow. (This is an approach previously utilized by the Atlanta Hawks with Nickeil Alexander-Walker during the 2025–26 offseason.)

• A rotation-level player who helps bolster the roster (either through Free Agency or via trade), raising the team’s overall floor and fit around its core.

• An undesirable contract attached to draft capital or other assets, using either exception to absorb salary while strengthening the team’s asset base.

In effect, the TPE allows Dallas to operate like a Cap Space team even if any acquisitions need to be completed via sign-and-trade. This creates a pathway to target players a tier above the NTMLE range, or, in the alternative, to poach players who might otherwise be expected to return to their incumbent teams. Additionally, the TPE provides opportunistic value in larger transactions. Dallas could act as a facilitator, absorbing salaries that need to be moved to complete multi-team deals, particularly those above the NTMLE threshold.

On the trade front, Dallas has the soon-to-be expiring contracts of Thompson and Marshall, which can be included in trades as well as Gafford, Washington, Martin, and (depending on direction taken) Irving. Trading Irving would represent a true timeline-shifting move, in which the team would be taking a step backward in the direction of youth, instead of a step forward. I would recommend keeping Irving unless an offer came in that was too good to refuse, with the option to revisit his market in-season.

Beyond this situation, the two position groupings that I am curious about are Forward and Center. Would the Mavericks trade either Washington or Marshall to capitalize upon value since there is a degree of positional overlap with Flagg? And what happens at Center? Does Dallas trade Lively before it has to pay him to get a more reliable Center to pair with Gafford? Or should Dallas trade Gafford? There are several directions to which the team can turn.

Finally, there remains the Draft. Dallas currently holds three selections: its own first-round pick (with the eighth-best lottery odds), the 30th overall pick via Oklahoma City, and the 47th pick in the second round. As currently constructed, the Mavericks have the roster flexibility to utilize all three selections and carry the associated salary slots. That said, alternative pathways exist. Dallas could look to consolidate picks (either by packaging selections together or by combining them with existing roster pieces) to move up in the draft or acquire more immediate help. Conversely, the team could also create additional roster flexibility by moving on from current players, thereby opening up several additional spots to integrate incoming talent.

Overall, even if the organization opts against a major move, it does not preclude meaningful roster improvement. Due to the balance of its books, the team has a lot of wiggle room to upgrade the roster and rotation. It therefore should actively weaponize its flexibility to address key needs, such as adding more spacing, ball handling, and front court depth. Dallas should look for teams facing financial pressure around the league upon which it can capitalize to acquire assets or players that are forced to slip through the cracks. The priority should be to continue to add players and assets that either fit Flagg’s on-court profile or the Mavericks’ off-court timeline through the draft, Free Agency, and trade.

Targets

Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace. Andrew Nembhard. Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. Bruce Brown. What do these players have in common? Each has played a meaningful role on a team, which over the past three seasons, has reached the NBA Finals. Even more notably, these players also share a common archetype, one that reflects the league’s broader evolution and aligns with the increasing emphasis on spacing, positional versatility, aggressive defense, and ball handling. Each of these players is a combo guard, a profile that has moved from complementary piece to a central driver of winning.

As the necessity for combo guards has become more apparent, the league has adjusted accordingly. With the continued success of teams built while relying, in part, on this profile, the prioritization of the archetype has also shifted. Organizations are now placing a clear premium on high-end role-player combo guards.

To that end, this analysis will examine how combo guards moved from complementary pieces to being central drivers of winning. I will: define what combo guards are; trace what I believe contributed to the increased importance in this profile; examine the recent valuations of players that fit this rubric; analyze this archetype through a statistical lens; and identify upcoming potential Free Agents who fit the profile and could be positioned to capitalize on the league’s growing demand.

Scope

To keep this analysis focused, the scope is intentionally narrow. It is not about high-end role-player wings (OG Anunoby, Jaden McDaniels), or star-level combo guards (Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker). Instead, this analysis zeroes in on the role-player combo guard. By isolating this group, we can better analyze how organizations identify, acquire, and assign value to this increasingly important subset within the greater combo guard archetype.

Definition

It is important to define what a combo guard is. Let’s start with the most straightforward definition, which derives from Cleaning the Glass: “A combo splits time between point guard and shooting guard.” On the surface, while seemingly simple, this definition hints at the underlying complexity of the combo guard archetype. This is a group of players with skillsets that overlap multiple “traditional” positions and who cannot easily be penciled into a single role. These are players who sit between definitions, often lacking prototypical wing size or the full-time playmaking profile of a primary guard, yet who can contribute across both domains.

It is also important to distinguish this group from players who may superficially resemble combo guards, particularly within more traditional 3&D archetypes. While such players can be similar in size or positional alignment, their roles are often more narrowly defined, with value concentrated primarily in spacing and off-ball contributions. In contrast, the combo guards that I have chosen to focus upon in this analysis carry greater responsibility.

The Rise

With a basic definition established, it is worth tracing the rise of this profile. Combo guards have always existed, but in my opinion a fundamental shift in how the game is being played has pushed them into the spotlight, driven largely by increasing defensive pressure.

Across the NBA, defenses are extending further up the court, showing a greater willingness to press and disrupt ball handlers. For certain teams, this philosophy forms the backbone of their defensive schemes. The 2025 NBA Finals provides a clear lens as both the Thunder and the Pacers consistently pressured opposing ball handlers. To sustain this style of play, two components are necessary: players that are capable of doing the work and team depth (since pressing full court is tiring). Unsurprisingly, both elements were present on the Thunder’s and the Pacers’ rosters.

This trend is not isolated. While I do not have access to the metrics tracking defensive pick-up points or full-court pressing, the points below draw upon reporting from analysts with that data (credited accordingly). As Kevin O’Connor noted before the season, full-court press usage is trending upward across the league.

Similarly, early-season data (just four games worth) on pick-up points pulled by the All NBA Podcast, illustrates that 26 teams increased the height at which they picked up ball handlers, a change likely tied to intentional defensive experimentation. This is depicted in the chart below:

Even without having complete access to detailed full season metrics, the impact of pressure is observable in basic defensive stats such as D-Rating. The highest-ranking teams in D-Rating this season all deploy multiple players capable of harassing opponents full-court. Examples include the Thunder (with Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, and Cason Wallace), the Pistons (with Ausar Thompson, Ron Holland, and Daniss Jenkins), and the Spurs (with Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper).

So how does this relate to combo guards? Put simply, there is an increased need for secondary ball-handlers, which, in my opinion, is a core component of the combo guard skill set. In theory, secondary ball-handlers not only take pressure off of the primary ball-handler but also force defenses to be more honest. This might allow teams to either work around pressure or take advantage of it more consistently.

However, what makes this archetype particularly valuable is that it does not operate in isolation. Stephon Castle is a clear example, functioning as a secondary ball-handler while also serving as a primary POA defender and disruptor. In this sense, I theorize that combo guards are not just responding to the league’s shift toward pressure, they are helping drive it. The same players who relieve pressure offensively are often the ones applying it defensively, creating a self-reinforcing dynamic that has elevated the importance of the archetype.

The Numbers

The focus now shifts to the players themselves and where their on-court value is generated. First, I established baseline criteria to define the group of players analyzed. Using Cleaning the Glass, I filtered for combo guards in the 2024-25 regular season who played at least 1,300 minutes and posted a usage rate of 25% or lower (to weed out stars). This initial search yielded twenty-three players. I then applied a similar filter to the playoffs (usage rate lower than 25% and 200+ minutes), which resulted in thirteen players. From there, I isolated the overlap between the two groups, narrowing the sample to players who met both regular season and playoff criteria. This produced a group of eight.

To better align the sample with the intended scope, I removed Amen Thompson, a do-it-all wing who I characterize as positionless. In his place, I added Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

The group consists of Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Donte DiVincenzo, Miles McBride, Andrew Nembhard, Brandin Podziemski, Cason Wallace, and Alexander-Walker. As within every profile, differences in skill set will appear across the overarching categories. That said, I wanted to find areas of overlap within this group’s skill sets. All statistics referenced in this section are from the 2024–25 regular season.

We begin with point production, which can be found through playtype data provided by DataBallr. As defined by the site, the playtype data treats scoring possessions differently, asking from where and how the shots come: “Creation buckets are self-generated possessions, spacing buckets are off-ball shooting actions, transition is open-floor scoring, and finishing captures cuts, rolls, putbacks, and similar interior finish playtypes.” The following chart depicts the playtype breakdown by percentage for the eight players, along with their usage rates and OnBall%:

As illustrated above, a clear pattern emerges when examining the distribution. The sample shows striking consistency in how these players generate points. For six of the eight players, the distribution is identical: spacing, creation, transition, and finishing. This alignment suggests that, at a baseline level regarding scoring output, this group of players derives most of its points from actions that involve stretching the floor (such as spot-ups, hand-offs, and off-screens).

The two players that differ regarding breakdown are Wallace and Nembhard. Wallace follows a nearly identical breakdown, but has creation and transition flipped. Nembhard stands as the true outlier, as creation (such as ball-handler or isolation) represents the largest share of his scoring profile. This distinction highlights a slightly different function within the archetype, one that leans more heavily on the on-ball responsibility.

Zooming out, a second pattern emerges. Across the group, the combination of spacing and creation accounts for the bulk of scoring profiles, typically exceeding 70%, with Wallace as the lone exception. This reinforces the idea that while these players may differ in how responsibility is split, their scoring derives from the same two areas: the ability to space the floor and the ability to handle the ball.

Finally, regarding OnBall% (the percentage of time a player possesses the ball while on the court) and USG% (the percentage of possessions a player finishes via shot, turnover, or FTs), across the group the numbers are once again fairly consistent. One subtle but interesting pattern emerges when comparing OnBall% and USG%. For five of the eight players, their OnBall% exceeds their USG%, indicating that while they may have the ball in their hands more, it does not necessarily translate into finishing possessions.

Moving on, I have selected three overarching areas, shooting, playmaking, and defense, to better understand where and how these players generate value, and to look for further overlap. The stats are sourced from Basketball Index, and each of the categories is ranked by season percentile (where the player ranks against the backdrop of every player to have played in the season).

Shooting

• Most players in the sample meet a high shooting baseline. Five of the eight grade out at roughly the 64th percentile or higher across all four categories (shooting talent, efficiency, volume, and gravity). This reinforces that, within this subset of role-player combo guards, there is a minimum level of shooting competency required across the board, not just in isolated areas.

• There is naturally a correlation between shooting talent/efficiency and off-ball gravity. This is exemplified by the three players who fall below the higher thresholds, particularly in shooting talent and shot-making efficiency, as they also post the lowest off-ball gravity marks.

Playmaking

• Notably, two of the three players who ranked near the bottom in the shooting metrics (Nembhard and Holiday) sit at or near the top of the playmaking data. This suggests that where certain players provide less value as spacing threats, they compensate through elevated on-ball responsibility and facilitation.

• There is a clear baseline level of playmaking talent across the archetype. Seven of the eight players grade out at 73rd percentile or higher in playmaking talent, indicating that even at the role-player level, combo guards must possess a foundational ability to handle and facilitate offense. The eighth (McBride) still grades out above average (55th percentile).

• There is a wide spectrum in both passing versatility and on-ball gravity, ranging from players who operate within playmaking contexts and command defensive attention to those with more limited on-ball roles. This suggests that while all players meet a baseline level of playmaking talent, how that responsibility is distributed could be dependent upon team context and role.

Defense

• While there is some variability in role and deployment, all eight players grade out as clear positives defensively, particularly at the point of attack. Six of the eight rank above the 75th percentile in matchup difficulty, reinforcing that these players are not being hidden, they are consistently tasked with guarding primary options. DiVincenzo is the primary outlier in terms of matchup difficulty; however, his impact remains strong in other verticals, reinforcing that defensive value derives from multiple pathways.

• A defining trait across the group is ball screen navigation. Seven of the eight players rank above the 85th percentile in this category, with four above the 90th percentile.

• There is more variation when it comes to defensive positional versatility, with only one player (Holiday) receiving a high grade in this area. For Holiday, this added versatility provides an additional pathway to value, helping offset his comparatively lower 3pt shooting impact. For the overall group, this suggests that their value is less about defending across positions and more about excelling within guard-centric defensive responsibilities.

Takeaway

There is clear evidence of tradeoffs within the combo guard archetype. While certain players grade out well across all three verticals, others derive their value from excelling in two of the three, which compensates for the third. Thus, weaknesses in one area are offset by particularly strong contributions in another, allowing these players to maintain strong value and output. For example, the archetype operates within two functional tiers. One group combines strong shooting talent, efficiency, and volume to generate high-end gravity. The other remains viable with lower-end shooting profiles, requiring more value to be generated elsewhere (ball-handling, defense, decision-making).

Overall, what defines this group is versatility. Not in the traditional sense, but in the ability to contribute across phases of the game at high levels.

Market Dynamics

With on-court value established, I now want to analyze off-court value. Pulling back, how have combo guards been valued over recent seasons? In theory, if the profile is becoming more prevalent on winning teams, is the market reflecting that shift? Are Front Offices making it a bigger point of emphasis to acquire these players? I believe that the answer is yes. This league year alone has seen several notable combo guard deals, as illustrated in the chart below:

At surface level, many of these moves, at least initially, appear to be positive-value transactions. When evaluating the deals, what stands out is the acquisition cost. Impact role players within this archetype have not commanded the same level of investment as other areas of the market (such as two-way wings).

I would not go so far as to say that the market is lagging behind; however, based upon recent precedent, strong returns on investment within this archetype appear to be relatively attainable. This is because, by and large, these acquisitions did not require franchise-altering trade packages or major financial commitments. While the upper tier of the profile is still compensated accordingly (and would command significant trade returns), as illustrated by players such as White, many of the players discussed in this analysis are signing what appear to be fair-value contracts that do not take up significant percentages of the Cap.

This overall market dynamic points to a potential inefficiency and raises an important question: while the role-player combo guard has become increasingly essential to winning, has the cost of acquiring these players fully scaled with and reflected their on-court impact? A review of the transactions suggests that even with a strong track record of success, the price point has remained relatively accessible in both trades and contracts.

The upcoming Free Agent class will likely feature several prominent combo guards in this category, including Dosunmu, White, and Ellis. Their next contracts will add more clarity to the evolving market and, in my view, further reflect the league’s growing prioritization of the archetype. However, while established names will define the top of the market, identifying the next wave of players who fit this archetype is equally important. There is another Free Agent combo guard worth highlighting, Collin Gillespie of the Phoenix Suns.

Gillespie has experienced a breakout 2025–26 season and will hit UFA this summer. The reason for singling him out is that his 2025–26 production closely aligns with the specific statistical markers identified earlier in this analysis.

As illustrated in the above chart, Gillespie grades out very well across all of the key verticals when compared to the established playoff-team combo guard group from the 2024–25 season. While these metrics capture only one layer of evaluation, Gillespie’s overlap with proven, high-impact combo guards is notable and could position him for a similar trajectory.

Wrap-Up

Combo guards sit at the center of several of the league’s defining trends, influencing both defensive and offensive structures. As we approach the playoffs, it will be interesting to see their continued impact, and if many of the trends that are fueling the rise in importance of this profile continue to take center stage. Looking forward to the offseason, how this archetype continues to be valued will be important to follow. The question becomes whether the demand for role player combo guards will translate into bigger contracts, or whether teams will continue to operate within previously established ranges. Where individual players ultimately land along that spectrum could offer further insight into how the league is valuing this profile in real time.

In a league governed by a Hard Cap system, control and flexibility are vital. In certain ways, this era of the NBA is defined by 2nd Apron restrictions, trade aggregation limits, and increasingly punitive Tax mechanics. Optionality has consequently become one of the most valuable forms of currency a Front Office can possess. How every dollar is allocated now carries heightened strategic consequences. What was once a simple calculus of valuation, term, and AAV has become a far more exacting exercise in risk management. Contracts are scrutinized not only for a player’s current value, but also for how that commitment shapes future flexibility, trade optionality, and the ability to respond to unforeseen outcomes. This recalibration has not been confined to marquee negotiations. Every tier of the market, from Stars to minimum signings, has felt the effects of this more constrained financial ecosystem. And, in this environment, negotiations have taken on a noticeably harder edge, with teams far less willing to concede structural leverage at the margins.

It is in this context that option years, both Player Options (PO) and Team Options (TO), have grown in strategic importance. Option years can determine who controls the choice to extend or end a deal, effectively allocating risk and upside between player and team. The presence or absence of an option year can dictate not only negotiation leverage but also trade value, roster construction, and long-term strategic optionality. Understanding how teams and players deploy these tools has become essential for interpreting both the league’s financial and roster-building landscapes.

The Hidden Value of Options

At a surface level, option years determine who controls the final decision point of a contract and where the balance of risk ultimately sits. A PO allows the player to maintain more leverage and hold more favorable outcomes while insulating against downside. Whereas a TO provides the franchise with that same protection and the ability to walk away from deals that might no longer fit the Cap Sheet architecture. In an environment where mistakes are increasingly difficult to unwind, particularly for teams operating near the Tax and/or Aprons, that allocation of risk has become one of the most consequential structural decisions embedded within modern NBA contracts.

While the decision to exercise or decline an option is consequential in its own right, one can argue that the true significance of the provision can often be traced back years earlier to the moment the contract is negotiated. The inclusion and structure of an option year can reveal a great deal about a team’s broader roster-building strategies, anticipated financial inflection points, and the mechanisms put in place to either preserve flexibility or create potential exits down the line. At the same time, options can also serve as a window into the negotiation itself, as in whether a player accepted a lower salary in exchange for greater future optionality, or whether a franchise was willing to grant that flexibility as a reflection of how highly it values the player within its long-term plans.

For example, a single option at surface value might not appear to carry much weight; however, when layered together with other mechanisms (including without limitation, short-term deals, partial guarantees, other options, or carefully timed extensions), it can create meaningful outs for a franchise. These structures allow a team to open multiple pathways with a single set of decisions, preserving flexibility and optionality that extends beyond any individual contract. Over several offseasons, certain outs can accumulate or be sequenced and structured to give Front Offices maneuverability that is not immediately visible on the salary sheet.

Viewed through this lens, both POs and TOs are far more than contractual footnotes. In this CBA environment they have become signals of organizational philosophy. Examining how these options are distributed across the league reveals, among other things, which teams prioritize flexibility, which ones are willing to allocate risk to players, and how franchises layer these mechanisms to manage roster construction over multiple seasons.

To ground these concepts in concrete numbers, the following dataset examines the current distribution of POs and TOs across non-rookie contracts.

The Numbers

To illustrate how POs and TOs operate across the league, I have compiled a dataset listing the current distribution of non-rookie contracts containing options. This breakdown highlights how leverage shifts between players and teams depending on salary tier, role, and market context, revealing the structural patterns that guide negotiation dynamics. Overall, there are currently 53 non-rookie contracts that contain a TO, and 68 contracts that contain a PO.

At the surface level, these numbers suggest that POs remain more prevalent than TOs. However, the distribution is far from uniform. Different salary bands, positional roles, and team contexts reveal distinct patterns in how options are allocated. Examining these patterns can reveal not only who holds structural control, but also how teams strategically deploy options to manage risk, preserve flexibility, and shape potential trade and extension scenarios over multiple seasons.

The following subsections dive deeper into the data, highlighting key insights and patterns in how options are distributed and deployed across the league. All figures presented reflect the current set of active PO and TOs. Deals in which an option has already been exercised or declined are not included in the reviewed data.

Option Allocation - AAV Tiers

Insights and Observations:

• Player leverage is effectively absolute at the top of the market. Every contract above $30M AAV that includes an option is a PO, underscoring how the league’s highest-tier players maintain structural control over the final years of their deals.

• Negotiating leverage begins to shift slightly below this $30M tier. In the $20–30M range, POs still dominate (75%); however, TOs begin to appear, suggesting teams gain modest structural protection once salaries fall outside the elite tier.

• The $10–20M band represents the league’s clearest negotiation equilibrium. With POs and TOs split evenly, this tier appears to be where leverage between players and teams is most balanced, reflecting the push-and-pull typical of mid-tier contract negotiations.

• Mid-level rotation players still secure meaningful optionality. Even in the $5–10M range, POs slightly outnumber TOs, indicating that many established rotation players retain enough leverage to negotiate future flexibility.

• Team control becomes dominant at the bottom of the market. Among contracts below $5M AAV, TOs account for 79% of all options, reflecting how franchises prioritize downside protection and roster flexibility when dealing with minimum or developmental contracts. This AAV bracket also accounts for 58% of all TOs, highlighting how heavily TOs are concentrated in the lower salary tiers, in contrast to POs, which skew toward higher brackets.

Option Allocation - Signing Mechanisms Utilized

Insights and Observations:

• Team control is concentrated in short-term and low-commitment pathways. Rest-of-season deals and Two-Way conversions account for 21 TOs and zero POs, illustrating how teams preserve maximum flexibility when operating in evaluation or non-guaranteed roster contexts. Of the 8 TOs handed out to RFAs, most fell into the lowest AAV bucket (under $5M), reinforcing that low-commitment deals tend to favor the team, which holds greater leverage in these negotiations.

• Compressed financial dynamics and the scarcity of Cap Space in UFA are driving a clear tradeoff between salary and optionality. As teams prioritize flexibility and negotiate from a hardline stance, players are increasingly conceding on AAV in exchange for structural leverage, using POs as a substitute for lost upside. Recent examples (such as Fred VanVleet, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, and Julius Randle) illustrate this shift, pairing lower AAVs relative to prior earnings with the ability to re-enter the market and recapture value under more favorable conditions.

Option Allocation - Year Contract Signed

Insights and Observations:

• Both POs and TOs have surged in recent signing classes, but for different reasons. TOs have risen as a tool for protection and roster flexibility, while POs have spiked, most notably in 2025–26, reflecting a parallel increase in players prioritizing optionality in a more constrained financial environment.

• UFA has become the primary arena for option-based negotiation. The sharp rise to 33 POs and 26 TOs in 2025–26 UFA deals demonstrates that both sides are increasingly negotiating around structure (not just salary) with optionality serving as a key tradeoff variable. This also reflects how POs tend to outpace TOs in the offseason, while in-season mechanisms (rest of season deals and conversions) rebalance the totals.

• As stated earlier, the figures reflect only currently active POs and TOs. Options that have already been exercised or declined are excluded. This may help explain why POs outnumber TOs in past seasons. Deals with POs are more likely to “last” on the books, whereas TOs are concentrated in lower-salary contracts. These lower salary contracts tend to be shorter-term (the average term for a TO deal is 2.98 years, compared with 3.37 years for a PO deal), and more likely to be renegotiated or cut short before their term ends. This, in turn, leads to natural attrition that reduces their presence in the live dataset. Additionally, if the Bucks’ eight POs from the 2025 offseason are excluded, the average term for PO deals rises to 3.5 years, highlighting how a small number of short-term outliers can meaningfully affect averages.

Max Contracts

Insights and Observations:

• Elite players retain full structural leverage at the top of the market. Among the 15 max contracts in the NBA that contain an option year, all feature a PO. This reinforces how the league’s highest-tier players consistently maintain control over the final decision point of their deals.

• The option year functions as a built-in leverage reset. By preserving the ability to re-enter Free Agency before the contract fully expires, POs on max deals allow stars to continually reassess market conditions, enabling them to renegotiate from a position of strength and maintain long-term control over their contractual and career trajectories.

Option Allocation - Organizational Breakdown

Context is critical when analyzing how teams deploy options. The timing, frequency, and structure of these options depend not just on salary tier or player role, but also on each franchise’s broader strategy, roster construction goals, and future financial constraints. That said, patterns in TO and PO usage can reveal a great deal about what Front Offices value, which positions or players they prioritize, how they manage risk versus flexibility, and how they sequence contracts to maintain optionality across multiple seasons. Even without seeing the full strategic plan, careful observation of option deployment provides a window into the organizational philosophy guiding a team’s decision-making and priorities. In that sense, option deployment can also signal how a team views its place on the league landscape.

Regarding option usage, in the league right now there are two extremes: the Milwaukee Bucks and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Bucks handed out an astounding eight POs this past offseason. This outcome was largely driven by team context, as the Front Office faced pressure to construct a competitive roster around Giannis Antetokounmpo and reinforce organizational commitment to contention. In that environment, POs functioned as an additional incentive in negotiations, helping the Bucks secure talent across multiple pathways, including extensions and Free Agent signings.

The Thunder has taken the opposite approach, making TOs a core principle within their roster-building strategy (a philosophy that I have written about extensively). The Thunder consistently emphasizes team control across its books. Of the last eight non-max contracts the organization has signed (among players still on the roster), seven include a TO. This approach extends across its Cap Sheet, with TOs in place to either exercise or decline in every offseason through 2028–29. These built-in decision points provide a layer of structural flexibility, allowing the organization to offset Max-driven financial compression while maintaining the ability to pivot at key inflection points. In some cases, these contracts and extensions may have appeared as overpays or even risky at the time of signing. However, that risk can be mitigated or justified by the added layer of team control, as a TO preserves an exit if the deal does not age well while retaining upside if it does.

Tradeoffs and Tactical Leverage

From a straight value perspective, the presence of an option can materially alter the range of outcomes attached to a contract. The direction of that impact depends not only on the type of option, but also on team context. For high-salary teams operating near or above the Tax and/or Aprons, the downside risk associated with a PO becomes significantly more pronounced. If a player underperforms relative to his contract, the presence of a PO adds an additional layer of constraint, as the player is incentivized to opt in, making the contract more difficult to move and effectively locking in that salary slot.

The impact of POs on trade value is highly context-dependent, often functioning as either a constraint or a source of flexibility depending on team circumstances.

Let’s consider Zeke Nnaji and the Denver Nuggets as an example. Nnaji has fallen out of the rotation on a team that has, at times, operated above both the Tax and Apron thresholds. His $8M AAV already presents challenges as it functions as a near “dead” salary slot. When factoring in the PO in the final year of the deal, the contract becomes even more difficult to move, increasing the likelihood that the salary remains on the books and, in turn, placing greater pressure on the rest of the roster to deliver value commensurate with each player’s respective Cap hit.

A similar dynamic was observed with the New York Knicks and Guerschon Yabusele. Despite the relatively modest size of the contract (2-years $11M), the inclusion of a PO materially impacted its tradability. Given the Knicks’ financial positioning and contending status, maximizing each salary slot was critical. Yabusele’s underwhelming play led the team to explore trade scenarios less than six months after signing him; however, the presence of the PO significantly limited the market. This illustrates how even smaller deals can become disproportionately restrictive when paired with certain types of optionality. Ultimately, Yabusele waived his PO to facilitate a trade to Chicago, underscoring the sensitivity of trade value to option structure and the degree to which optionality can dictate transaction outcomes.

However, there is a flipside to the option–trade value dynamic. The most straightforward benefit of options in trades comes when a team acquires a player with a TO, gaining the ability to unilaterally create Cap relief or open a roster spot. It is important to note, however, that the value of options in trade scenarios extends beyond that binary outcome.

In certain cases, POs can function as a bridge to flexibility rather than as a constraint. Consider the Minnesota Timberwolves when they acquired Julius Randle. Minnesota was facing an increasingly untenable financial outlook and 2nd Apron future. In moving Karl-Anthony Towns (who had multiple years remaining on his contract) for Randle, the team effectively exchanged long-term, fixed salary for a more flexible slot.

Randle’s PO introduced a layer of variability that Towns’ deal did not have, creating the potential for the contract to function as an expiring salary slot. When Randle ultimately declined the option and signed an extension at a lower number, it allowed the Timberwolves to rework their Cap Sheet and create breathing room below the 2nd Apron. This illustrates how, in the right context, a PO can carry positive trade value. This is not because a PO guarantees flexibility or gives an organization leverage, but because it introduces pathways that would not otherwise exist.

This logic may also help explain why the Cavaliers traded for Harden, as the PO introduces a pathway to renegotiate the contract downward via an opt-out, helping the team navigate 2nd Apron constraints while still offering the player long-term security. Harden’s contractual situation stands in stark contrast to that of Darius Garland, who still had two years remaining on his deal and therefore did not offer the same near-term opportunity to rework salary.

Final Points to Consider

In today’s NBA landscape with punitive Tax and Apron thresholds and limited avenues for roster flexibility, the relative scarcity of TOs on non-rookie deals (particularly those that are not rest-of-season deals) is notable. Teams may be prioritizing immediate cost savings over structural control. And yet, TOs offer a powerful mechanism to manage future financial and roster risk, creating clean exit points and preserving maneuverability in an increasingly constrained environment. This suggests that TOs may be underutilized relative to their potential value in this constrained landscape.

Conversely, POs remain a double-edged sword. While they expose teams to downside if a deal underperforms, they also introduce strategic optionality, allowing players to opt out, re-enter the market, or renegotiate. This provides a form of flexibility for teams that can be leveraged to navigate tight Cap situations. Together, these patterns underscore how optionality, alongside salary, has become a central currency in modern NBA roster and financial strategy.

Once the All-Star break ends, the NBA calendar enters one of its most revealing phases. The final stretch of the regular season, paired with the playoffs that follow, becomes a high-stakes evaluation window. That window is the last meaningful sample before Front Offices must commit to offseason decisions that shape the trajectory of franchises. Each game adds to a growing body of evidence about what must change, what can endure, and what is worth investing in moving forward.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I examined the “Economics of the Stretch Run” through the lens of two rising players heading toward RFA, and how their post–All-Star performances could materially influence extension leverage and team-building calculus. I also analyzed the “Pressures of the Stretch Run” that shifted the lens to the team level. My goal across these analyses is not to recommend specific Front Office moves or predict outcomes, but to explain how performance, fit, and timing during this stretch can shape negotiations, from extensions to trades to broader roster planning. These inflection points can materially influence how organizations approach the offseason.

Now I turn to a very specific and somewhat complicated situation developing at Madison Square Garden, one that appears to have no clear precedent.

Strategic Creativity

For those who have not followed the Knicks closely, Mohamed Diawara may draw an audible “who?” He is an end-of-rotation player who, at first glance, might seem inconsequential. So why is his situation worth monitoring in this season’s stretch and playoff run? The answer is multi-layered. It hinges on a true niche CBA mechanism, which, along with a sequence of factors that must align, could result in a potentially unprecedented situation.

But first, let’s pull back. Every season produces at least one strategy, Cap-based transaction, or decision that raises eyebrows for its creativity and underlying process. For example:

• In 2024–25, the Knicks leveraged outstanding player Cap holds from the prior season by signing and trading Daquan Jeffries, Charlie Brown Jr., and Duane Washington to contracts that were just $1 over the minimum. Each met S&T requirements and collectively enabled the larger Karl-Anthony Towns trade.

• In 2025–26, the Bucks executed a waive-and-stretch maneuver with Damian Lillard to create Cap space for Myles Turner.

• At the 2025–26 Trade Deadline, the Pacers and Clippers orchestrated a clever double-protection maneuver regarding the Pacers’ 2026 1st-round pick (top-4 protected and top-10–30 protected) both to shield Indiana from losing a top pick in a strong draft class and to give Los Angeles upside if the pick fell between 5–9, with a fallback of the Pacers’ 2031 unprotected 1st-round pick.

While the Diawara situation is not one-to-one with any of these transactions, it has the potential to be the next chapter in this creative spectrum. However, before diving into that, it is important to briefly establish who Mo Diawara is.

A Profile

Diawara was the 51st pick in the 2025 Draft and was drafted out of the French Pro League. Typically, the expectation for international players drafted in the back-half of the 2nd Round is that they will be draft-and-stashes. The 20-year-old Diawara was different. After flashing in Summer League, Diawara signed an Exhibit-10 contract with New York, which was subsequently converted into a standard 1-year $1.2M veteran minimum salary contract for a player with 0 Years of Service (YOS). This was also the reason why the team could not sign Diawara to a 2nd Round pick exception contract. And with each passing week, the stock of a player who was once a relative unknown has continued to rise.

At 6’9” with a 7’4” wingspan, Diawara possesses the frame of a prototypical jumbo wing, an archetype that is extremely valuable in the NBA. While he has shown flashes of ballhandling and playmaking, he has stood out defensively and as a 3-point shooter. Diawara displays a smooth shooting stroke and plenty of confidence, currently shooting 39% from three and 67% from the corners.

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from underlying metrics given Diawara’s limited sample of minutes, particularly for a rookie. This is because most first-year players tend not to grade out well in these analytical verticals. However, the eye test suggests that Diawara makes a real impact when he steps onto the court. This is notable given that he is doing so on a Knicks team with championship aspirations, one loaded with high-level contributors, including three of the league’s premier two-way role-playing wings. Since February 1st, Diawara ranks 24th in total minutes played amongst rookies. This places him with Boston’s Hugo Gonzalez and San Antonio’s Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant as the only rookies playing meaningful minutes on contending teams.

All in all, despite still being somewhat inexperienced, Diawara has demonstrated a higher degree of polish than was likely expected. If this trajectory continues throughout the stretch run and playoffs, Diawara will head into a fascinating RFA situation this offseason. And it is here that the Arenas Provision will come into play.

The Arenas Provision

To start, let’s define the more straightforward aspects of the Arenas Provision (2023 NBA CBA Article XI, Section 5(d) generally).

Named after Gilbert Arenas, the Arenas Provision was introduced in the 2005 CBA to assist teams in retaining certain RFAs who were not coming off standard rookie-scale contracts. It was designed to close a loophole that allowed teams to lose promising young players whom they had invested resources to develop, to rival offer sheets they could not match due to financial constraints.

The rule applies to players with either one or two YOS and limits the first-year salary that rival teams can include in an offer sheet. Specifically, the starting salary cannot exceed the value of the Non-Taxpayer Midlevel Exception (NTMLE). This structure ensures that the player’s original team can realistically match a rival team’s offer using either the NTMLE or Early Bird rights. Additionally, the contract structure for an Arenas-style offer sheet differs from most traditional contracts. Beyond the first season, the second-year salary may only increase by the standard 5% raise. However, the third year is allowed to escalate dramatically, potentially up to the player’s applicable maximum salary. The fourth-year salary can then increase or decrease by up to 4.5% of the third-year figure. An example of a fully “maxed-out” 2025–26 Arenas Provision offer sheet would have looked like the following1:

There are other factors that help determine whether this structure is permissible. In plain English, this framework preserves the original team’s ability to match the offer sheet in the early years while still allowing rival teams to apply financial pressure through a sharply escalating salary in later seasons. One additional factor is critical. To extend an offer sheet structured in this manner, the offering team must have enough Cap Space to cover the contract’s AAV. If the offer sheet goes unmatched, the new team will carry the Cap hit evenly across all four years. (And, in the case at hand, this figure would be $28.9M.) All in all, the AAV would exceed the NTMLE amount if spread across the four years, so the rival offering team must either possess Cap Space above the NTMLE to effectively utilize the provision or offer less on the back end to fit the deal in the present moment once the numbers are “smoothed over.”

It should also be noted that the Arenas Provision is rarely encountered in practice because a specific set of circumstances must align for it to even become relevant. In most cases, the rule applies to former 2nd Round picks or undrafted players who signed one- or two-year contracts, (for example Diawara). 1st Round selections sign 4-year rookie-scale contracts and therefore do not reach RFA early enough for the provision to apply. More recently, the introduction of the 2nd Round pick exception has further reduced the likelihood of this scenario arising. Ever since it was introduced, an Arenas Rule offer has been exceedingly rare.

Notable examples of the Arenas Provision being invoked include Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik in 2012, and Tyler Johnson in 2016. In 2023, there was speculation that a rival team might attempt to pry Austin Reaves away from the Los Angeles Lakers using an Arenas-style offer sheet. However, no such offer materialized.

The Diawara Angle

If you read the preceding section carefully, you may have noticed that the player and team situations discussed above involved either Early Bird Free Agents or teams with access to the NTMLE. So, what happens when those conditions are not met? Specifically, what if the player only has Non-Bird rights and the incumbent team lacks access to the NTMLE because, for example, it is above the Tax?

This is where the rules begin to diverge, and it is precisely what makes the potential Diawara scenario so intriguing. Diawara projects to enter Free Agency as a Non-Bird RFA while the Knicks, as currently constructed, are likely to be operating above the Tax threshold. How exactly then do the rules differ in this situation? If a team only has access to the TMLE, such as the Knicks, it would be unable to match an offer sheet for a Non-Bird Free Agent if the starting salary exceeds the value permitted by the TMLE or the Non-Bird exception.

This creates a subtle but important tension within the Arenas framework. The rule was designed with the presumption that the player’s original team would have access to either the NTMLE or Early Bird rights, mechanisms that allow the team to match an Arenas-style offer sheet. However, if the incumbent team is operating above the Tax and only has access to the TMLE while the player only carries Non-Bird rights, the financial tools available to match become far more limited. In that scenario, a rival team could theoretically structure an Arenas-style offer sheet with a starting salary above the TMLE but still within the NTMLE limit, creating a salary the original team may not be equipped to match. In other words, if a team offered Diawara a contract with a Year-1 salary of $7.5M (which is higher than the projected $6.1M TMLE), the Knicks would be unable to match it.

And that is precisely where the Diawara situation begins to enter largely uncharted territory. If these conditions hold with Diawara entering RFA with Non-Bird rights while the New York Knicks remain above the Tax, the safeguards embedded in the Arenas Provision may not function as cleanly as intended. In effect, Diawara’s status could open the door for an organization to construct an offer sheet that places meaningful pressure on New York’s ability to retain him.

A Cap Crunch

There is an added layer to this conversation: the New York Knicks’ precarious positioning relative to the 2nd Apron. As part of my Trade Deadline collaboration with over at the Knicks Film School Substack, I previously outlined how New York faces a series of consequential decisions this upcoming offseason, decisions that could directly influence both the team’s offseason planning and the types of moves it would be positioned to pursue at the previous trade deadline. Underlying that discussion was a simple concept: every transaction is part of a larger, multi-year Cap puzzle and cannot be viewed in isolation. Within that puzzle, individual moves shape the short-term financial picture and can create cascading effects across the roster.

The Knicks are currently staring down several notable contract situations. Both Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shamet are set to reach UFA, while Jose Alvarado could potentially join them if he declines his Player Option. Layered onto these decisions is Mo Diawara’s RFA.

Without diving too deeply into the organization’s broader offseason plans, 2nd Apron strategy, or whether the Front Office is ultimately comfortable crossing that threshold, the key point is that there is only a finite amount of room beneath the 2nd Apron to address all of these situations. New York would hold Full Bird Rights on Robinson and Alvarado, as well as Early Bird Rights on Shamet, meaning the team could retain those players if it chose to do so.

However, there is a complication. If New York were to utilize the TMLE in any capacity, it would Hard-Cap itself at the 2nd Apron, significantly constraining its financial flexibility. That restriction could complicate the broader roster picture and potentially influence the futures of certain of these Free Agents, or even other players currently under contract. Viewed through that lens, Diawara’s situation becomes particularly consequential. If the Knicks were forced to rely on the TMLE to either re-sign Diawara outright or use it to match an offer sheet, the move would not occur in a vacuum. Instead, it could create a legitimate cascading impact across the rest of the roster, shaping how the team approaches its other Free Agents and decisions.

There are two more layers involving the TMLE. First, if New York were to use its TMLE on another player, it would lose the ability to match an offer sheet using the exception for a Non-Bird Free Agent, such as Diawara. Second, if the Knicks cross into the 2nd Apron, the implications become even more restrictive. Teams operating above the 2nd Apron lose access to the TMLE entirely. In that case, with Diawara, the Knicks would be left with exceedingly limited tools, for example the Non-Bird Exception.

Contractual Situations

The chart above outlines several potential Diawara contract scenarios. The two offers on the left represent potential contracts from teams on the open market: one a fully structured Arenas-style offer sheet and the other a smaller two-year deal. The two offers on the right illustrate potential outcomes if Diawara remains with the Knicks, either via the TMLE or the Non-Bird Exception.

In my opinion, the maxed-out Arenas-style offer sheet can be ruled out for obvious reasons, leaving the three remaining outcomes as the more realistic scenarios. Of those, the two middle options currently appear to be the most plausible as, at the present moment, it feels as though Diawara has played himself out of the Non-Bird offer range. The questions then become what his true value is, and whether a team on the open market would look at Diawara and decide to take a shot by offering him a deal that falls outside the range of what New York can realistically match. This would not be without risk, as there is no guarantee Diawara continues along this trajectory, let alone in a new environment. Remember that under the current CBA, bad value contracts of all sizes can quickly become true roster constraints, as was illustrated by Guerschon Yabusele before he decided to waive his Player Option.

A Note on RFA

RFA, by design, tends to favor the incumbent team. Matching rights provide organizations with a powerful negotiating lever, often suppressing the open market for players and steering many negotiations toward team-friendly contracts. This dynamic was evident in last year’s RFA class. Offer sheets have become increasingly rare in the modern NBA. The most recent prominent examples include Paul Reed and Matisse Thybulle in 2023, as well as Deandre Ayton in 2022, all of which were ultimately matched by their incumbent teams.

Diawara’s situation, however, is somewhat different due to the factors outlined above. While offer sheets are uncommon, the intersection of the Arenas Rule and New York’s financial position could create conditions that make outside interest, and a subsequent offer sheet, more likely.

Wrap-Up

As stated earlier, there appears to be no exact precedent for this type of situation. It is therefore difficult to predict what will occur. Last year, N’Faly Dante faced a somewhat similar situation. Dante had been on a Two-Way contract with the Houston Rockets, hit RFA with Non-Bird rights, and was then poached by the Atlanta Hawks on a 2-year $4.5M offer sheet, with the Hawks taking advantage of the Rockets’ financial positioning close to the 1st Apron. However, Dante’s situation can be differentiated from Diawara’s. Unlike the Knicks, Houston, in theory, had access to the NTMLE, and Dante had only played 51 minutes in the 2024-25 season, far fewer than Diawara.

At this moment, I believe that the most likely outcome is Diawara remaining in New York, with the Front Office finding a way to retain him. However, all it will take for this situation to become interesting is for one team to decide that it wants to spend its money on Diawara. An Arenas-style offer sheet would not simply function as a bid for Diawara’s services. It could also operate as a strategic pressure point on New York’s Cap Sheet, forcing the Knicks to either commit scarce 2nd Apron space to retain him, or allow him to depart to preserve broader roster flexibility. This is why Diawara’s play will be worth monitoring down the stretch, along with the team’s overall performance given what is at stake. And this is why this situation could become one of the most fascinating upcoming offseason subplots.

From the moment the All-Star break ends, the NBA calendar enters one of its most revealing phases. The final stretch of the regular season, paired with the playoff crucible that follows, becomes a high-stakes evaluation window, the last meaningful sample before Front Offices must make offseason decisions that shape franchise trajectories. Every game adds to a growing body of evidence about what must change, what can endure, and what is worth underwriting. Competitive timelines crystallize, financial constraints tighten into focus, and strategic fault lines become harder to ignore.

Last week, I examined the “Economics of the Stretch Run” through the lens of two rising players heading toward restricted Free Agency (Peyton Watson of the Nuggets and Jalen Duren of the Pistons) and how their post–All-Star performances could materially influence extension leverage and team-building calculus. This week, that lens shifts to the team level. The “Pressures of the Stretch Run” focuses upon the Orlando Magic and the Houston Rockets, two organizations whose trajectories appear pointed upward, but whose long-term pathways remain highly sensitive to what unfolds between now and the offseason.

For Orlando, the stretch run may determine whether the organization is headed toward a broader reassessment this offseason as the franchise evaluates how to better align its core, competitive trajectory, and long-term financial outlook. For Houston, the pressure is more subtle, shaped largely by the presence of Kevin Durant and the expectations that accompany a player of his stature. When coupled with additional financial inflection points that are coming down the pipeline, the result might be an increase in overall roster-building pressure.

My goal across these analyses is not to recommend specific Front Office moves or predict outcomes, but to explain how performance, fit, and timing during this stretch can shape negotiations ranging from extensions to trades to broader roster planning. These inflection points could materially influence how Orlando and Houston approach the offseason and their longer-term team-building paths, as well as how they impact players and their respective futures and trajectories.

The Orlando Magic

The Magic kicked off last offseason with a bang when it sent out four 1st Round picks, one swap, and matching salary to acquire Desmond Bane from the Memphis Grizzlies. In fact, the Magic did not even wait for the offseason to begin, making the trade during the NBA Finals. It was a clear statement of intent aimed at dramatically accelerating the team’s timeline. Adding the then 26-year-old Bane to a young in-house core primed to take the next step (while attempting to build upon consecutive playoff appearances that had each ended in first round exits) represented a significant escalation of expectations.

The price paid was steep. However, it was in line with the high-end role-player trade market, where trade returns and overall packages have skyrocketed in proportion to other subsections of the league landscape. The cost, combined with expectations for Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner to continue their positive development trajectories, created immediate pressure. Put simply, in what was widely viewed as a weakened Eastern Conference, the Magic was now expected to win and to win a lot. Fast forward to the present: the season has not unfolded in the way Orlando had hoped.

The Magic currently sits closer to the #10 seed than the #4 seed and is fighting to escape the play-in tournament. With a negative point differential and both an offensive and defensive rating outside of the top ten, the team does not resemble the upper-tier contender the Front Office had anticipated. It should be noted that the team has had to deal with a fair share of injuries, as Wagner and Banchero have logged only 349 minutes together. (Wagner has appeared in just 28 games to date, while Banchero sits at 53.) Wagner, Banchero, Bane, and Jalen Suggs have shared the court for only 137 minutes, though those lineups have produced a +9.8 net rating. Availability can be the best ability, and health has been a recurring issue for Orlando’s core.

The financial perspective only heightens the stakes, which will be touched upon below. If the 2025–26 team does not stabilize and instead exits the playoffs in disappointing fashion (or misses it completely), Orlando will enter a pivotal offseason facing simultaneous financial constraints and on-court uncertainty. In other words, the same season that was supposed to mark Orlando’s arrival near the top of the conference may now force the organization to reexamine how close it indeed is.

Understanding how the Magic navigates that uncertainty requires examining the decisions that will define the team’s upcoming offseason. One useful way to frame these questions is through the lens of Anthony Black, who becomes extension eligible this summer. The evaluation of this potential negotiation serves as a helpful entry point, not because it is the franchise’s most consequential decision in isolation, but because it forces clarity on the larger questions surrounding competitive direction, core construction, finances, and long-term flexibility.

Measuring the Magic Through Anthony Black

Much of the conversation surrounding Orlando will begin with the team’s core-four, their collective fit, and whether building a long-term foundation around them is sustainable. However, I want to focus on Black, who this season has made a legitimate push to turn a core-four into a core-five. The organization has invested significant draft capital, development resources, and long-term salary commitments into its primary group, and, naturally, much of the offseason discourse will revolve around how that foursome functions together.

In many ways, a potential Black extension forces Orlando to confront the same questions that will define its offseason: who belongs in the long-term core, how the pieces fit together stylistically, and how the franchise wants to allocate future financial resources. Examining Black’s situation therefore provides a window into the Magic’s broader decision-making process.

I want to start off by stating the obvious: Black’s on-court progression is a good thing for the Magic, which picked him 6th overall in the 2023 Draft and invested heavily in his development. While his first two seasons were inconsistent, the flashes of a 6’7” ball-handler and plus defender were evident. In this current season, Black has coupled these flashes with a more polished offensive game, which has translated into stronger and more scalable production. At just 22-years of age, Black is projecting as a long-term starter who offers legitimate two-way upside, which raises his value. His play this season has only solidified that upward trajectory, setting the stage for what could become a challenging extension discussion this summer should both sides choose to explore that pathway. However, the numbers and potential valuation ranges represent only one part of the equation.

That said, any potential negotiation cannot be evaluated in a vacuum and must be viewed within the broader organizational context. This stands to be particularly true for the Magic. This specific negotiation becomes more complex because the team’s broader trajectory is somewhat unsettled. In the short term, Orlando’s competitive direction is under a microscope. The Bane trade signaled urgency. However, the uneven results of that trade have introduced uncertainty. Whether this core is a true contender that simply needs health and continuity, or a group that still requires structural recalibration, will meaningfully shape how aggressively the organization operates this offseason and, by extension, how it approaches a potential Black extension. If the team has a disappointing end to the season, one will presume that the chances of the latter occurring rise.

Then there is the question of fit. If the foundation remains intact, clarity is required about how Black integrates into this grouping long-term. Does he amplify the strengths of the players who are considered to be future building blocks? Or does his development shift the conversation toward evaluating how other pieces fit alongside him? Is he a connective starter who elevates the ecosystem, or a more player-dependent piece within it? The answers to these questions will influence not only Black’s valuation but the broader shape of Orlando’s roster decisions this summer.

The financial layer adds another degree of difficulty. Even though a Black extension would not begin until 2027–28, long-term planning in the 2nd Apron era requires projecting multiple seasons ahead. Orlando is already tracking toward Tax and Apron territory with its current commitments. It currently carries the ninth-highest Team Salary (in 2025-26) and is projected to sit above both the Tax and the 1st Apron in 2026–27, a number based on just 11 contracts on the books. There are financial Outs to alleviate certain of this pressure (such as Jonathan Isaac’s non-guaranteed deal); however, the team’s core-four are all under contract for at least three more seasons, with extensions for Banchero and Wendell Carter Jr. set to escalate costs further. Locking in another significant salary slot would further reduce optionality at a time when flexibility carries heightened value, particularly for a team that may still require meaningful roster refinement.

As written about previously, there are two distinct but interrelated windows at play: an on-court window and a financial one. The on-court window is inherently uncertain and probabilistic, shaped by health and variance in player development in ways no Front Office can fully control. This is a context that the Magic have experienced firsthand this season. The financial window, by contrast, is rigid and rule-based, tied directly to the decisions an organization chooses to make. Navigating the overlap between these two timelines is essential, and, currently, Orlando still appears to be searching for that balance. And when a team sits close to the Tax and/or Aprons and is forced to deal with injuries, underperformance, or variance in play, the mechanisms available to react become increasingly limited. The reality, therefore, is that the Magic has to get its evaluation of the Black extension correct, while also fitting it within the greater offseason picture.

All-in-all, this is not simply about what Black is worth in isolation. It is about what he is worth relative to Orlando’s broader Cap Sheet, its competitive timeline, its roster-building strategies, and its conviction in the current core configuration. These variables could complicate what might otherwise seem like a straightforward decision to invest in a 22-year-old starter with a two-way archetype.

The Houston Rockets

At the surface level, there are certain similarities between Houston and Orlando. For example, an early playoff exit would be disappointing given the trajectory both teams appeared to be on coming off last season. Additionally, similar to Orlando, Houston has its own contractual inflection points to navigate, most notably Tari Eason’s impending RFA, Amen Thompson’s upcoming extension eligibility, and Fred VanVleet’s Player Option. Given the team’s already tight long-term financial outlook, how these negotiations and broader roster decisions are handled will be crucial.

However, Houston does not face the same degree of pressure as Orlando. In fact, one could argue that the Rockets are not among the league’s most pressured teams. This is largely due to Houston’s young core and fully stocked asset cabinet, which together provide flexibility and optionality that many other teams lack. Because of these factors, this summer could become a pivotal one if Houston chooses to leverage portions of that asset base in pursuit of another star-level player. It may also represent an opportunity to act while the organization still possesses a degree of financial flexibility, before the next wave of extensions for its young core meaningfully tightens the team’s long-term financial picture. How the Rockets approach that inflection point may ultimately be shaped by how the remainder of the season and the playoffs unfold. Additionally, the performances of several members of the roster during this stretch could solidify their long-term futures in Houston or potentially position them as pieces in a larger transaction depending on how events play out.

That said, one underlying factor complicates the picture: the presence of Kevin Durant. Similar to Orlando, the Rockets made a major move before the season when they acquired Durant. Although the package sent to Phoenix did not necessarily match the Magic’s Bane deal from an asset-value perspective, it still required Houston to part with two key rotation players in Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green, alongside the 10th overall pick in the 2025 Draft.

The decision to acquire and subsequently extend Durant was clearly multi-layered. It provided Houston with an opportunity to add a proven superstar capable of addressing certain on-court weaknesses, raise the team’s immediate competitive ceiling, and inject a level of postseason experience into one of the league’s youngest cores. However, the move also raised legitimate questions about timeline acceleration. Durant is now 37-years old and does not align with the age curve of most of Houston’s core players. One could argue that the price paid for Durant was simply too favorable to pass up and therefore does not materially alter the organization’s broader timeline. However, his presence naturally raises expectations and accelerates the competitive timeline. Thus, the question becomes how much of an impact does the presence of Durant have on the Rockets’ overall team-building plans, and how will it impact potential offseason maneuvering?

Because of this dynamic, the upcoming stretch run takes on heightened importance for Houston. The remainder of the season and the playoffs that follow may help clarify the gap that exists between the Rockets and the top tier of the Western Conference. Understanding the size and nature of that gap will be critical, as it will shape how the organization approaches the offseason and what steps it believes are necessary to bridge that divide. In this sense, Houston’s stretch run may ultimately function as a diagnostic period, revealing whether the current structure is already close to contention or whether Durant’s presence should prompt a more aggressive push to close the remaining gap.

From the moment the All-Star break ends, the NBA calendar enters one of its most revealing phases. The final stretch of the regular season, coupled with the playoffs that follow, functions as a high-stakes evaluation window, the last meaningful sample before Front Offices must commit to offseason decisions that shape the trajectory of their franchises. Every game adds to a growing body of evidence about what must change, what can endure, and what is worth investing in moving forward. As a result, looming decisions become increasingly visible, with prospective roster moves, extension negotiations, and strategic pivots often hinging on what unfolds during these months.

Over the course of the coming weeks, I will focus upon situations that I find particularly compelling as the NBA heads into the post-All-Star stretch. Certain of these will center on teams, examining how short- and long-term competitive timelines intersect with roster construction, financial flexibility, and strategic priorities. In this analysis, I will concentrate upon the respective situations of two rising young players heading toward restricted Free Agency, Peyton Watson of the Nuggets and Jalen Duren of the Pistons. Watson’s development could carry outsized importance for a Nuggets team navigating a tight financial and competitive window. Duren’s play has dramatically shifted his potential market, likely shifting prospective negotiation stances in the process.

My goal across these analyses is not to recommend specific Front Office moves or predict outcomes, but to explain how performance, fit, and timing during this stretch can shape negotiations, from extensions to trades to broader roster planning. It is these inflection points that could materially influence how these organizations approach the offseason and their longer-term team-building paths, as well as how they impact players and their respective futures and trajectories.

Peyton Watson - A Contender’s Test

The upcoming RFA class features several prominent names, including Jalen Duren, Bennedict Mathurin, Mark Williams, and Jaden Ivey. However, while a majority of these headline RFAs are likely to return to their incumbent teams, one name stands out: Peyton Watson. To say that Watson has taken a step forward this season would be an understatement. Over his first three seasons, Watson struggled to find both his footing and a consistent role within a Nuggets organization attempting to compete for and win championships. This year, he has entrenched himself as one of the most important players in their rotation. And if Denver makes a deep run in the playoffs, Watson would likely be a major factor. Before going into more depth about Watson’s profile and how it is anticipated to impact his upcoming offseason market, I want to pull back and analyze why this situation is so interesting.

Denver’s Process

From a financial and roster-building perspective, how Denver has operated over recent seasons has been particularly fascinating due to the several roster-building hurdles that it has had to navigate. In certain ways, the Nuggets are the clearest example of how the 2nd Apron has impacted organizational roster-building priorities, and what is needed to balance contention with flexibility. The developing Watson situation is the next chapter in this story and sits at the intersection of two topics I have previously examined (the 2nd Apron and the real cost of Max contracts), particularly for teams carrying multiple Max deals.

The concept of operating on two timelines, attempting to contend for championships while simultaneously developing younger players, has been widely discussed in the 2nd Apron era. Typically, this conversation has centered on the Golden State Warriors trying to maximize the Steph Curry era while developing players such as Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman. However, this same dynamic applies to Denver as well, arguably in a more consequential way.

As I have previously written, when organizations navigate the real cost of Max contracts, there is a repeatable team-building cycle that they can use to sustain roster balance, financial breathing room, and long-term flexibility. One of the most straightforward parts of this cycle, for teams to find value and win in the margins, is through the draft. While the drafting and subsequent development of a player is far from a linear process, the infusion of young talent, often attached to either cheap 1st- or 2nd-Round exception contracts or a Two-Way (and the subsequent converted deal), provide important balance for organizations juggling Max deals. Over the past several seasons, the Nuggets have been at the forefront of this approach, managing the challenges of being both a multi-Max team and, at various points, an Apron team.

However, as many Front Offices have discovered, operating above the Aprons is not sustainable over extended periods, and Denver has been forced into difficult decisions to balance financial constraints with championship aspirations. This often results in sacrifice-driven decisions. A clear example came when the Nuggets allowed key starter Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to depart in Free Agency. This decision was partly enabled by the presence of an in-house replacement in Christian Braun. Rather than matching Caldwell-Pope’s 3-year, $66M deal with the Orlando Magic (a move that would have pushed Denver deep into Apron territory), the team chose to move forward with Braun, who remained on his rookie contract.

The gamble paid off. Braun stepped into the role, excelled, and eventually earned a 5-year $125M contract, which kicks in next season. Ironically, this development success has further tightened the margins, which could negatively affect the Nuggets from both a roster-building and financial perspective, as exemplified by the Watson situation. That said, this season, Denver may already have another development success in the pipeline in the form of Spencer Jones, who could at some point be used to backfill a hole down the line.

Denver’s Financial Future

As currently constructed, the Nuggets will head into the 2026-27 offseason with 10 contracts on the books (one of which is non-guaranteed) and are projected to sit roughly $9M above the 1st Apron, and just $2.9M below the 2nd Apron. With a fully filled out roster, the team would push above the 2nd Apron threshold, which the Nuggets Front Office has worked hard to avoid crossing. An additional factor to consider is Denver’s Repeater Tax status, which currently applies to the organization due to its Tax placement in recent seasons. Denver is currently under the Tax in the current season, and, if it wants to escape Repeater Tax status, will need to go under the Tax threshold in the next season as well. This could further complicate the team’s financial positioning and strategic planning. All in all, because of this financial future, coupled with a likely desire to avoid the 2nd Apron, there are questions about Watson’s future in Denver. And if Watson were to stay, the future of other rostered players would then be discussed.

Watson’s Profile

Watson, the 23-year-old 6’8” wing from UCLA, was eligible for a rookie-scale extension this past offseason. However, the parties did not come to terms. This is likely due to both the Nuggets’ tight financial situation and how the organization prioritized Braun. In response, Watson has put together a great season, averaging career highs in minutes, points, rebounds, assists, FT%, FG%, eFG%, and TS%. He has become a more reliable 3pt shooter, taking over four 3s per 36 minutes and shooting at a 41% clip. Before recently getting injured, Watson had a 21-game stretch where he averaged 21/5/3 while shooting 49/43/72. This was production both that the injury-ravaged Nuggets desperately needed, and that helped the team stay afloat while Nikola Jokic was sidelined due to injury. And while Watson’s defense has taken a slight step backwards (according to metrics such as D-EPM and DRAPM), he still possesses the size (91st percentile wingspan) and athleticism that teams prioritize at the wing. He is also still grading out well in areas such as BLK% (has been above the 98th percentile in every season of his career). Put simply, he is of an extremely valuable profile and archetype, one that will always be of great interest to organizations.

Zooming Out

Ultimately, Watson’s RFA will serve as a stress test for Denver’s current roster-building model. The Nuggets are not simply evaluating whether he is a player worth keeping. The team is also evaluating whether it can afford to keep him without triggering cascading constraints that would further limit their ability to maintain a championship-caliber roster around Jokic. Meanwhile, other teams may view the Watson situation as an opportunity to take advantage of a financially constrained contender, either through an aggressive offer sheet or by forcing Denver into sign-and-trade discussions. And because the Nuggets lack traditional avenues to replace mid-tier talent lost, losing Watson would carry consequences far beyond a single roster spot. How this situation resolves could reveal just how viable the Nuggets’ current blueprint remains in the years ahead. This developing situation will most certainly be a prominent storyline for the offseason. It is therefore worth monitoring how Watson finishes the regular season and playoffs, which could materially impact his value and contractual demands.

If Watson’s situation illustrates how a contender navigates financial constraints while developing talent, Duren’s represents the opposite end of the spectrum: a rising team determining how aggressively to invest in a young cornerstone.

Jalen Duren - The Cost of Ascendance

At first glance, seeing the name of a very important player from one of the league’s best teams might be surprising. However, the Pistons’ success this season has not diminished the significance of what is shaping up to be an extremely important summer for the organization. If anything, it has amplified it. In the grand scheme of things, the Pistons’ broader external offseason plans, particularly for a team likely to finish near the top of the Eastern Conference, will be shaped by what happens in the playoffs. That said, it has one crucial in-house agenda item that must be addressed, which could be influenced by the remainder of the season: Jalen Duren’s restricted Free Agency.

To be clear, the question is not whether Duren has a future elsewhere. The question is how much negotiating leverage, and ultimately, how much money Duren stands to gain or lose over the coming months, as his performance and dependability is tested on the biggest stage and in the biggest moments.

A Star Center

After not signing an extension this past offseason, the 22-year-old Duren has responded with one of the most impactful seasons of any center in the league, earning his first All-Star selection in the process. To date, he has positioned himself for a massive payday. Behind Cade Cunningham, there is arguably no greater driver of the Pistons’ success this season than Duren. Duren has reached a level of two-way dominance that projects him as a long-term cornerstone. He aligns perfectly with the team timeline alongside the organization’s superstar and embodies both the on-court style and off-court identity central to Detroit’s rapid ascent.

While the “problem” of paying a rising homegrown star is a favorable one in relative terms, Duren’s negotiation will be among the most consequential decisions that the franchise faces. Resultantly, it stands as a situation worth monitoring on the league landscape. It could prove as simple as giving Duren a rookie-scale Max extension; however, the situation may not be quite that straightforward. If Duren continues to perform at this level, his leverage will only grow. If the Pistons continue winning, particularly if they make a deep playoff run, Duren’s leverage could increase even further. Should both occur, his bargaining position could strengthen even more dramatically.

Market Factors

It will be critical to determine how historical market precedent is weighed against current performance. While it is still too early to forecast specific contract outcomes, recent shifts in the market suggest just how consequential the next few months could be. Players who once would have been viewed as automatic rookie-Max candidates, no longer occupy that tier by default. In general, center value is particularly difficult to pin down, especially for players of similar archetype to Duren. This shift is best exemplified by two primary comparisons: Deandre Ayton and Alperen Sengun.

The Ayton situation is arguably more like-for-like given that he signed his deal in RFA, whereas Sengun was extended. However, Ayton’s deal was signed under the previous CBA, while Sengun’s was negotiated under the current one, meaning that Sengun’s negotiation process could resonate more on the Duren front. And I do believe that the changing market across this period between when Ayton and Sengun signed their respective deals could hint at what could be in store for Duren. When Ayton signed his contract in 2022, giving a Max to a player seen as a rising star with a bright future was a no-brainer decision. Fast forward to 2024, and Sengun, in a similar position to Ayton, extended on a deal that was for sub-Max money. Perhaps this was simply an example of the Rockets Front Office living up to its reputation as a tough negotiator. That said, this negotiation demonstrated how teams are increasingly willing to draw a line in the sand and are more willing to tap into leverage.

Overall, if players of this caliber are no longer a shoo-in for Max money, it could further complicate a negotiation. Determining value will rely heavily on performance data, durability, playoff play, and market dynamics, all of which will continue to evolve over the remainder of the season.

Restricted Free Agency

The RFA landscape impact will also be interesting, as organizations, in theory, gain more leverage in these negotiations. This is amplified if there are fewer Cap Space teams able to sign the player to an offer sheet. If Detroit recognizes that there is not a credible threat on the open market, would it take an increasingly hardline stance? That said, would that stance risk alienating a cornerstone player? On the flipside, what if there is an organization lurking on the landscape, such as the Los Angeles Lakers, that could have both Cap Space and need for a center to put next to Luka Doncic? Would that change the Pistons’ approach? Would the Lakers even enter the negotiation if Detroit is likely to match any offer? Would the presence of a solidly interested team increase the chance of Duren getting closer to his target number? Even though these questions are looking far into the future, given the trajectory that Duren is on, they remain important questions to keep in mind right now.

Additional Questions

Projections into the future brings us back to a series of questions that need to be asked: what was Detroit willing to pay Duren this past offseason? How far apart were the two sides? Was there ever a realistic expectation that a deal would be struck? While the answers to these questions may appear to be less applicable now, given a larger sample of evidence and Duren’s clear improvement, they could still shape how each side approaches the negotiation. Ultimately, the true valuation range and negotiating dynamics will become clearer as the Pistons’ season progresses and as Duren’s play is tested in higher-stakes environments.

Zooming Out

All in all, these indeterminate factors underscore how important the final months of the season and playoffs will be for both Duren and Detroit. Subtle shifts in Duren’s performance or the team’s results could cascade into materially different contract outcomes. As stated earlier, perhaps everything breaks in a way that makes a Max extension inevitable; however, in my opinion, a Max extension does not appear to be the most realistic outcome at this stage. That said, monitoring this evolving situation will be essential. The remainder of the season will shape not only the size of Duren’s contract, but the Pistons’ broader future financial outlook.

This year’s Trade Deadline came and went without a headline Giannis Antetokounmpo trade. Nonetheless, this is not to say that the Deadline did not provide an intriguing transaction window. Between mid-December and the February 5th Deadline, teams across the league completed dozens of trades, certain of which were focused more upon the present season, while others hinted at shifts in real time of deeper, longer-term team-building plans.

I have written previously about how the Trade Deadline represents one of the clearest roster-building inflection points on the NBA calendar. It marks the final moment for months in which contenders can buy and sellers can sell. It is the point at which intentions become explicit: certain organizations declare themselves ready to compete, others turn toward a rebuild, and still others signal patience by standing pat.

That said, no transactional window (Trade Deadlines included) can be evaluated in isolation. Every signing, trade, and draft pick is part of a larger, multi-year Cap puzzle, carrying with it cascading effects that extend well beyond the season at hand. Front Offices sequence Cap Sheets and embed timelines years in advance, carefully tracking projected finances, Apron thresholds, extension eligibility, and looming financial inflection points. Even seemingly minor moves can meaningfully shape or constrain future flexibility.

It is with all of this in mind that I turn to the concept of “Pre-Agency.” Pre-Agency is the growing tendency for teams to use the Trade Deadline as a functional early Free Agency window, acting one cycle ahead of the offseason market to acquire players, accelerate timelines, or preserve optionality. This optionality may no longer exist once the next Free Agency cycle arrives. And it is Pre-Agency that dominated the recent Trade Deadline.

The Why

There are several reasons why teams are proactive during a Pre-Agency window rather than waiting for the offseason, many of which stem from how teams project to sit within the league’s future financial landscape.

First, for teams that project to have Cap Space, in certain ways the value of that space has diminished. Due to the rising number of extensions signed each season, the Free Agent talent pool has steadily deflated, leaving dramatically fewer high-end players available on the open market. In that environment, Cap Space has become a less reliable roster-building tool, which in certain situations translates to using the space with trades. And if this is the case, instead of positioning to clear the books for an unpredictable Free Agent class, deploying that flexibility earlier by trading for talent in the present moment can be a better use of assets. Compounding this effect, fewer teams are operating below the Cap. And those that are often lack enough room to outbid incumbents or absorb contracts without sacrificing future flexibility. As a result, the pool of teams capable of using Cap Space in July as a true roster-building weapon has decreased.

Second, Free Agency increasingly favors incumbency. With Bird Rights, early extensions, and Cap holds crowding out open-market opportunities, many impact players never reach true Free Agency at all. For teams without Cap Space or those lacking access to meaningful exceptions, waiting until July often means competing for a diminished and overpriced talent pool. In certain situations, acquiring a player before his Free Agency window provides a decisive advantage, granting Bird Rights, improving retention odds, and creating opportunities that either would not have existed or would have been extremely difficult to capitalize upon had the team waited.

Pre-Agency: Two Forms

With these dynamics in mind, Pre-Agency this season can be thought of in two main forms:

1. Tool Preservation and Incumbency: acquiring players early to secure Bird Rights, retain offseason flexibility, and/or protect against Hard Cap exposure.

2. Timeline Acceleration: using the Trade Deadline to pull forward high-impact moves in order to reshape a roster earlier than conventional rebuild logic would suggest, whether to accelerate a rebuild from the bottom up or to push through a gap-year season (due to injuries or other factors) with the expectation of taking a step up and, in certain cases, while still attempting to maximize Lottery positioning in the current league season.

Historical Context

Before diving into the Pre-Agency examples from this past Deadline, it is helpful to look at how similar dynamics have played out in previous seasons. While I believe this concept is a more prominent tool right now, there have been several past Deadline moves that fit certain elements of the two main lanes of Pre-Agency. As more teams operate over the Cap, trades have increasingly become the primary avenue to access certain tiers of players, making early access and contractual control more critical than ever. A primary example from last season is when the Toronto Raptors acquired Brandon Ingram while he was on an expiring contract. At the time, Toronto was 16-35 and 13th in the standings. This move stood out as a Pre-Agency maneuver because it was made not only to acquire Ingram, but also to secure his Bird Rights and to gain the ability to extend him. The Raptors ultimately extended Ingram even though he did not play a single game for the organization in that season. This transaction fits both the tool preservation and incumbency lane, while also carrying features of timeline acceleration.

Another example from 2024-25 was when the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Dorian Finney-Smith. This trade also fits into the incumbency bucket, even though Los Angeles ultimately opted against re-signing him in the following offseason. Two other examples from the 2023–24 season also involve Toronto (although this time as the seller). The Raptors sent out Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers in a deal that blended incumbency and timeline acceleration, and also moved OG Anunoby to the New York Knicks in a trade that was primarily rooted in the incumbency bucket.

These trades demonstrate the two forms of Pre-Agency in action and provide a lens for interpreting the recent Deadline moves.

Case Studies

The case studies below are organized around the two Pre-Agency types, each of which, in my opinion, is likely to continue recurring in this league landscape. Rather than ranking these trades by novelty or sustainability, the framing focuses on why and how teams acted early and the different strategic problems Pre-Agency can be used to solve. While the motivations vary, both approaches reflect deliberate attempts to shape future optionality before the offseason begins.

Pre-Agency as Incumbency & Tool Preservation

The Minnesota Timberwolves

When the Wolves acquired Ayo Dosunmu from the Chicago Bulls, the value of the move extended well beyond filling a short-term rotation hole. The trade was a clear example of Pre-Agency in practice: acquiring a player early not just because of on-court need, but also because of what Minnesota’s realistic offseason pathways currently project to be.

The 26-year-old Dosunmu is in the final season of a 3-year, $21M contract and is positioned for a raise this summer. In recent offseasons, guards in this tier (reliable, higher-end role players) have consistently found competitive and increasingly expensive markets. For a Wolves team operating near the Tax and Apron thresholds, that reality mattered. As currently constructed, Minnesota projects to once again sit near those financial lines this offseason, a position that materially limits its roster-building tools and flexibility. Under that framework, accessing a player like Dosunmu in Free Agency would have been difficult. A sign-and-trade or utilizing a signing exception would likely have been the only viable pathways; however, doing so would have Hard Capped Minnesota at the 1st Apron, introducing an added layer of pressure and constraint for an entire league year.

By acting at the Trade Deadline, Minnesota sidestepped that problem entirely. The Wolves not only addressed a present-day rotation need, but also secured Dosunmu’s Bird Rights, allowing them to retain him this summer without Hard Cap exposure or forced Cap gymnastics elsewhere on the roster. In that sense, the trade was as much about filling an immediate need as it was about adding a player that Minnesota wanted in the offseason, one it likely would have struggled to acquire had it waited.

Pre-Agency as Timeline Acceleration

The Washington Wizards and Utah Jazz

The Wizards made headlines by acquiring Trae Young and Anthony Davis, while the Jazz executed a surprising trade for Jaren Jackson Jr. At face value, both moves run counter to conventional logic. Each of these teams sits near the bottom of the standings and is positioned to lose games this season. Acquiring established Stars would seemingly run directly against that objective. Yet in these cases, the organizations treated the Trade Deadline not as a checkpoint in a single season rebuild, but as an opportunity to advance multi-year rebuild plans.

The key distinction is that Washington and Utah were making a conscious decision to pull forward rebuild-defining moves, accelerating timelines that, under conventional logic, would not have been addressed until the offseason or later.

There is a degree of surface-level precedent involving Stars traded at the Deadline to teams who did not realistically have a chance of competing in that season. A primary example is in 2024–25 when Ingram was traded to the Raptors, and when De’Aaron Fox moved to the San Antonio Spurs. However, neither deal truly aligns with what Washington or Utah did. In those cases, the teams had more established in-house talent and/or clearer pathways to solidify playoff positioning. In contrast, Washington and Utah pulled forward trades of high significance, acquiring Star talent midseason to advance a rebuild for the following season in ways that would normally occur in July.

Cap considerations also mattered as both teams were projected to have Cap Space options in the summer. It is possible that an early evaluation of the offseason landscape motivated both Front Offices to act decisively, executing transactions at the Deadline that they may have otherwise planned to pursue in July. In both cases, acting in the Pre-Agency window let these teams get out ahead of the offseason, capturing optionality and taking advantage of a temporarily available market before traditional offseason pressures took hold.

Finally, there is a value question. Both Young and Davis fall into what I categorize as the Secondary Star tier, players who, for one reason or another, face valuation or market uncertainty questions. Historically, players in this bracket have experienced mixed market outcomes. However, they do retain value for teams looking to raise the competitive floor, accelerate rebuilds, or acquire talent with high upside on expiring deals that allow future optionality. The Wizards check several of these boxes for why they may value these players, so the acquisitions on paper make sense given the organization’s clear declaration that it is transitioning out of its rebuild phase and that it wants to play a more competitive brand of basketball. Additionally, for Washington specifically, its Front Office places extra emphasis on marginal value gains, flipping players and assets to make incremental value gains in each transaction. Given what it gave up in the two trades, buying low on Young and Davis fits the bill.

Jackson Jr. shares certain underlying characteristics in terms of potential Secondary Star status. That said, key distinctions include a more established internal core (Lauri Markkanen) and a higher acquisition cost for Jackson, signaling a greater conviction level. Still, the underlying logic aligns with the same Pre-Agency principle: advancing a competitive timeline ahead of what conventional offseason logic would suggest.

All in all, Washington and Utah exemplify a high-impact form of Pre-Agency. Neither is merely using the Trade Deadline to preserve flexibility, but rather to accelerate timelines, acquire Star talent early, and effectively pull forward offseason-level decisions into the preceding transactional window.

The Indiana Pacers

Certain teams use the Trade Deadline to accelerate a timeline not because they are rebuilding from the ground up, but because the current season has been temporarily distorted by injuries or other factors, obscuring where the roster is actually headed. In these cases, the underlying competitive window remains intact, even if the standings suggest otherwise. The result is a unique form of Pre-Agency: acting early to pull forward moves for a team that expects to return to contention once normal conditions resume. Unlike Washington and Utah, Indiana’s approach was not about accelerating a rebuild from the bottom, but about accelerating the return to a competitive baseline through a gap year. The Pacers used the Trade Deadline not to redefine direction, but to prepare next season’s roster in advance, recognizing that waiting until the offseason would delay addressing needs that were already clear.

Thus, the Pacers fall squarely into this version of timeline acceleration. Injuries and roster absences pushed Indiana toward the bottom of the standings, creating a season that does not reflect the team’s true competitive ceiling when fully healthy. Rather than treating that outcome as a signal to pause or reset, the Front Office acted decisively, acquiring Ivica Zubac to address a clear positional need with next year’s roster in mind.

Unlike purely opportunistic tanking teams, Indiana’s move was explicitly forward-looking. The Zubac trade filled a hole for what the Pacers believe can again be a top-tier team, while taking advantage of a moment in which the team could acquire talent, solve a long-term issue, and still remain aligned with short-term draft incentives. In that sense, Indiana represents a softer but still meaningful form of timeline acceleration: not a rebuild-defining leap exemplified by Washington or Utah, and not simple tool preservation as with Minnesota, but a deliberate effort to pull next season’s competitiveness into the present transaction window.

A Point of Distinction

There is an important distinction to be made: certain trades at the Trade Deadline might seem like Pre-Agency moves; however, in my opinion, they fall into a different category. True Pre-Agency involves executing potential offseason-level decisions early, as in acquiring players, securing Bird Rights, or accelerating timelines before the offseason in a prior transaction window. By contrast, other trades at the Deadline are focused upon creating flexibility for the offseason rather than making immediate roster-impacting moves. Salary-shedding deals to avoid the Tax or Apron are prime examples. They help teams restructure contracts and clarify their financial position for the summer.

In short, Pre-Agency centers upon early execution, while these other types of trades are designed to create space and flexibility, and set-up optionality to act in the offseason itself.

Wrap-Up

The Trade Deadline is increasingly functioning as an early offseason window. As financial constraints tighten and true Free Agency opportunities diminish, teams are incentivized to act earlier to secure talent, preserve tools, and control their future pathways. Pre-Agency captures this shift. Whether through incumbency or timeline acceleration, Front Offices are no longer waiting for July to shape their rosters. They are executing these decisions months in advance. I believe that this behavior is likely to remain a feature of the NBA landscape moving forward.

I have previously written extensively about the concept of the NBA Star Market, examining how Max contracts interact with team-building under the current CBA and tracing the evolution of the Star trade across past, present, and potential future landscapes. At the core of that work was a central question: how do teams assign value to Stars, both contractually and strategically, and how do those decisions cascade across roster construction, flexibility, and long-term planning?

This piece revisits this concept through a narrower lens: the rise of the “Secondary Star.” This archetype best captures how the 2023 CBA is reshaping both the Star market and valuation. Secondary Stars sit between traditional franchise pillars and high-end role players, occupying a middle ground where talent, uncertainty, and financial risk collide. By examining this group, the analysis will explore how the middle tiers of the Star market are being recalibrated, why contract timelines have become inflection points, and how Front Offices are being forced into earlier, more difficult decisions under tightening financial constraints. To begin, a clear definition of the Secondary Star is required.

Definition

Everyone has their own definition of what a Star is and who qualifies as one. Whether that means a Star by name, a Star through play, or a Star within a specific role, all of these factors come into play when determining who occupies the Star spotlight. Truth be told, there is room for interpretation within both the definition and its application. This is particularly true for non-Superstars. As a result, it is not a straightforward process to divide players simply by whether they are Stars, let alone to further sub-divide them in the way I am attempting here. Despite this, in my view, there are multiple criteria that must be met to classify a player as a Secondary Star.

• Typically, middle-to-late second contract or on a third contract, old enough to have a meaningful track record, but not post-prime, allowing for confident evaluation beyond rookie-scale contracts.

• Face a series of on-court questions regarding profile, archetype, and fit, which prevent him from being the best player on a realistic title-contending team.

• Must be compensated like a Star (full applicable Max or in the equivalent realm), reflecting team valuation, awards, or prior recognition. This distinguishes these players from high-end role players.

The Background

What has caused such a dramatic shift in the views, values, and handling of this group of Stars? The impact of the 2023 CBA, along with subsequent market dynamics, is a good place to begin. In a world dictated by Hard Caps tied directly to the viability of potential moves, arguably the most consequential outcome of the 2023 CBA is how every allocated dollar matters. Extremely thorough strategic planning is required from Front Offices when constructing rosters. The consistent pursuit of flexibility coupled with the avoidance of the Aprons’ severest restrictions has, in many ways, become the theme of the day.

Thus, any form of overpayment can have a major cascading impact on the rest of the team’s books, and in certain situations, dictate what the Front Office can and cannot do moving forward. This is particularly true with larger Max-level salary slots, as there is a hidden cost of Max contracts (about which I wrote in a previous analysis). Once a team commits that level of top-heavy spending, the margin for error everywhere else shrinks dramatically. The financial pressure created by large contracts does not just reduce flexibility, it concentrates the burden on the rest of the roster. Every mid-tier contract must hit, every developmental pipeline must produce, and each year of the team’s Cap Sheet must be carefully crafted. This hints at why there is an increasing organizational sensitivity to the long-term ramifications of committing (near) Max-level money to players in certain negotiations.

This dynamic was most clearly illustrated by the Atlanta Hawks’ handling of Trae Young. Since being drafted, Young had been the team’s best player and face of the franchise. In prior CBA environments, that status alone would have made a Max extension close to automatic. Under the 2023 CBA, however, the calculus changed. Two developments forced Atlanta to reassess its position: Jalen Johnson’s emergence as a core piece, and Young becoming extension eligible. Together, they raised a fundamental question: whether committing another long-term near-Max slot to a player with unresolved on-court and team-building questions was a risk the organization could afford under tightening financial constraints?

Rather than defaulting to an extension, Atlanta tested the market. Over time, it became clear that league-wide skepticism surrounding Young’s fit at the highest level, combined with discomfort over the financial implications of his next contract, limited his trade value. Young was ultimately sent to Washington for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, a return that functioned less like a traditional Star trade and more like a salary dump. The outcome underscores a broader market reality. For Secondary Stars, talent alone is no longer sufficient to sustain historical levels of contractual or trade value when paired with uncertainty and near-Max financial exposure. However, this runs counter to how a different segment of the trade market has unfolded over recent years.

High-End Role Player Trades

Over the past few seasons, a clear trend has emerged: the highest echelon of role players are being traded for Star-level packages. Consider the deals listed below:

Several of these deals qualify as true blockbusters, featuring outgoing packages that would traditionally be reserved for the acquisition of a Superstar. Instead, they were deployed to acquire high-end role players. This is not about whether those prices were justified. Certain of these trades clearly were (such as Jrue Holiday), which immediately paid off with championships. For the others, the verdict is still open. The key point is that large asset packages are now routinely used for non-Stars.

Even a comparatively smaller deal (such as De’Andre Hunter to the Cavaliers) illustrates how much value role players (particularly those perceived as two-way contributors) can command. Hunter’s early career was uneven, and his contract had previously been viewed as negative value. A strong start to the 2024–25 season briefly flipped the narrative around his impact, leading Cleveland to value a short-term performance spike at the expense of a much larger evaluative sample. As time passed, that broader sample reasserted itself, reinforcing the long-standing concerns surrounding Hunter’s profile and ultimately resulting in the Cavaliers salary-dumping him. Still, that brief performance boost was enough to push an organization to part with legitimate value in a trade.

And yet, when it comes to the Secondary Star tier, trade returns have failed to materialize anywhere close to the role-player level. It should be stated that contract value does come into play, as many of these role players are on deals far below their potential Max number (and a subsequent smaller Cap %), which raises their value. Among others, this was one of the reasons why the Clippers’ trade of Ivica Zubac (on a 3-year $58M contract) generated a higher return value than what the Mavericks received for Davis (on a Max and extension eligible).

The Grouping

Over the past few seasons, straightforward examples of players who fit the Secondary Star category include Trae Young, Domantas Sabonis, LaMelo Ball, Ja Morant, Zach Lavine, Tyler Herro, Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis (now), Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle, and Karl-Anthony Towns. Each has spent time in the league-wide spotlight not only because of on-court production, but also due to questions surrounding value, contract structure, or trade viability. This analysis therefore is less about talent evaluation and more about how these players’ values are being shaped, and constrained, by the CBA, the financial landscape, and modern market dynamics. This is not a section on the success stories, which there have been, but an attempt to evaluate this grouping at the time it faces questions.

Within this group, a natural division emerges: players who have already been traded, and those who have not. Let’s begin with the Secondary Stars who have been moved. Ingram, Randle, Lavine, and Young represent the clearest recent examples:

From a trade value perspective, in the aggregate, the return for each of these players was underwhelming. Young was effectively salary-dumped to create Cap flexibility in Atlanta. Ingram was moved for a single 1st Round pick and matching salary. Lavine was folded into the larger De’Aaron Fox transaction. Randle’s trade was a unique situation shaped by his extension eligibility, with New York’s Front Office wary of meeting his demands, which ultimately led to a Star swap for Towns (who himself was moved due to Minnesota’s looming 2nd Apron constraints). Thus, these deals signal a clear market reality: teams are increasingly reserving premium assets for either true Superstars or, at the very least, elite role players. Secondary Stars are being squeezed in between.

Turning to the contractual situations, among the four players, three were either approaching Free Agency or had POs. Only Lavine had multiple guaranteed seasons remaining. What followed their trades is equally revealing. While Ingram and Randle signed contracts that resembled their prior deals in raw dollars, the structures told a different story. In a rising Cap environment, their new salaries account for a smaller percentage of team payroll than before. This shift reflects a broader recalibration: Secondary Stars are no longer treated as default Max-level commitments. Teams are sensitive to downstream risk, particularly the possibility that a contract becomes negative value under Apron constraints. It should be said that for the acquiring teams, there was value placed in trading these players in a pre-Free Agency window (which will be expanded upon below).

Overall, all four of these players are former All-Stars, yet each faced questions that forced his organization to confront the same set of decisions: Should this player be extended and built around? Does their contractual value align with on-court value? And, most critically in the post-2023 CBA environment, is this the type of contractual bet the team can afford to be wrong about?

Next, Secondary Stars who have not been traded:

One can divide these players into three categories. Those that have multiple years remaining on their deals but are still young, with theoretical upside that softens the risk (Ball, Morant, and Williamson). Others who sit closer to contract expiration (such as Herro, who is also younger, and Lavine). What remains is established players with multiple years of term left and little ambiguity about who they are (Sabonis and Towns).

Finding the Value

So, how do teams decipher value for players who fit this Secondary Star profile? There are two primary angles. First, on-court. Secondary Stars can have value for teams who, among other factors, are: trying to take the next step in a rebuild; attempting to raise a floor; buying low on a player who still has a high ceiling; or playing the value game.

From an off-court perspective, in many cases, the answer seems to depend on where the player sits within his current contract. As hinted earlier in this section, it increasingly appears that for Secondary Stars who have been traded, a meaningful portion of their value derives from contract status rather than from a pure evaluation of basketball impact. Importantly, this is not because of potential salary relief if such a player were to walk and the contract were to come off the books. Instead, value is being placed on timing.

These players are consistently being traded in pre–Free Agency windows, as teams seek to acquire them before they reach the open market, assigning tangible value to that sequencing rather than, arguably to the player himself. This dynamic is likely a direct consequence of Free Agency pools continuing to dry up due to the league-wide rise of extensions. As discussed in my “Cap Space, Reframed” analysis, Cap Space, and by extension Free Agency, no longer function as reliable team-building mechanisms for acquiring high-level talent. As more teams operate over the Cap, trades have become the primary avenue to access Star-level players, making early access and contractual control critical, as best illustrated by Toronto and Ingram.

What Comes Next?

This entire discussion ultimately converges into two questions: what happens next? How will teams manage these situations and react to the subsequent inflection points? In my opinion, Front Offices should be proactive, showing a willingness to act before either leverage collapses or downside risk crystallizes. That said, the appropriate response depends on where a team finds itself along the broader timeline. In broad terms, teams face three distinct courses of action. Two are proactive, occurring earlier in the decision-making cycle to shape outcomes before pressure mounts, and to minimize the likelihood of reaching an inflection point altogether. The third involves navigating the inflection point itself, once uncertainty has already begun to turn into constraint. All three reflect a willingness to adopt hardline approaches. Let’s begin with the proactive options.

Setting the Tone

In certain situations, teams may look to avoid pigeon-holing themselves by being more disciplined in early negotiations, such as rookie-scale extensions. Being firmer in those talks sets an important precedent for future negotiations and can meaningfully shape a player’s long-term trade and Cap profile.

A primary example is the Houston Rockets’ hardline rookie extension negotiation dynamic with Alperen Sengun. At the time of his extension eligibility, Sengun was on a clear All-Star trajectory and, in previous CBA landscapes, could have easily received a Max extension. However, the Rockets extended Sengun at a level that reflected his on-court production while deliberately stopping short of fully maxing out future risk. The message was clear: belief in the player without unconditional financial commitment. Oklahoma City provides another example of this strategy with its treatment of Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. Both received Max extensions, albeit with meaningful structural guardrails. Holmgren did not receive any form of Rose Rule escalator, while Williams’ escalator was narrowly defined. By limiting or excluding those triggers, the Thunder preserved upside for the player while reducing automatic Cap inflation for the team.

In prior CBA environments, teams in these positions often conceded most leverage points. Under the current landscape, however, neither the Rockets nor the Thunder made those concessions. With tightly managed long-term Cap outlooks and looming Apron pressures, every marginal dollar mattered. The organizations clearly prioritized, among other things, structural discipline to preserve future flexibility in their respective quest to structure a Cap Sheet to offset future inflection financial points.

This helps explain why harder-line negotiation approaches may become increasingly common at all negotiation stages, and for organizations facing tighter financial futures. Rather than defaulting to maximum leverage concessions early, teams may become increasingly stringent regarding contractual flexibility, structure, and amount, to balance optimism with protection against downstream negative value. From a rookie-scale extension perspective, this could translate to being hesitant to include (full) Rose-Rule escalators within potential Max deals. The downstream effect is critical. Deals structured this way could age more gracefully, keeping the contract aligned with on-court production and developmental trajectory. That, in turn, preserves trade value. The contract did its job by keeping all options on the table and might have prevented the player from entering Secondary Star status.

Even with these guardrails in place, development is non-linear, roles evolve, and what looks like a manageable risk at the extension table can still shift meaningfully once the contract is on the books. When that happens, the question becomes whether an organization waits for that uncertainty to harden into a constraint or acts before the market’s perception fully adjusts. In certain cases, that means choosing to act while flexibility and leverage still exist.

Trading Ahead of the Curve

The Jaren Jackson Jr. situation offers a real-time example of how teams may increasingly look to get ahead of looming value inflection points rather than reacting after they occur.

While I am not necessarily classifying Jackson Jr. as a textbook Secondary Star case right now, there is a chance that he is on that pathway because of his new contract. Over the summer, Memphis proactively created Cap Space to renegotiate and extend Jackson Jr. on a 4-year $205M deal. The decision to trade him roughly six months later was not reactive. It was anticipatory, preserving value and optionality before his value and contract could enter a materially different evaluative lens. Jackson Jr. on a $25M AAV contract is a fundamentally different asset than Jackson Jr. on a near-30% Max approaching $50M AAV. By acting early, Memphis prioritized control and preemptively managed potential downstream risks, rather than waiting for circumstances to force a decision. This was not a bet against Jackson Jr.’s talent, but a recognition that his value as an asset was about to change categories.

Of course, not every team reaches that conclusion early enough. And not every situation is clean enough to allow for decisive action well in advance. For many teams, the first true moment of reckoning does not arrive until the contract itself begins to narrow future options.

Dealing With the Inflection Point

So, what happens when an organization is in the midst of a tough situation with a Secondary Star? If the player is extension eligible, I believe that the chance of extending him with multiple years of term left on the current contract will decline. In all likelihood, more players of this ilk will be expected to enter the final season of their deal without a new agreement in place or pressured into taking a team-friendly contract. Teams should be increasingly wary of over-committing to players whose long-term upside remains uncertain, preferring to preserve flexibility and limit downside risk. As a result, more Secondary Stars may operate under informal “holding” periods, where teams delay a major extension while continuing to evaluate performance and development.

While this holding pattern may reinforce the perception of these players as risky assets and depress trade value, that alone should not justify committing to a deal that carries a meaningful risk of becoming negative value. I believe that the discomfort stemming from uncertainty is preferable to the rigidity of a negative-value long-term commitments.

Wrap-Up

This is a copycat, precedent-driven league. As more of these types of deals begin to age poorly, the more cautious teams will become, even if they believe in the player and his projected upside. And, in turn, that caution will increasingly lead to awkward standoffs between organizations and players, reduce the frequency of Max contracts for Stars with question marks, and create further inflection points for teams and their Secondary Stars. In short, the market is becoming less forgiving, forcing teams to make earlier, harder decisions about any of their Stars with lingering questions.

This analysis serves as the fourth and final installment in the broader Knicks Trade Deadline series. It focuses on the evolving Giannis Antetokounmpo situation while examining a select trade target within the context of New York’s Deadline. More broadly, it illustrates how the Giannis situation impacts every decision made, or not made, moving forward, both in the short- and long-term.

The Giannis Situation

Right now, across the league, all roads lead to Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Giannis–Milwaukee Bucks dynamic has been documented extensively over the past several months with relevant context, factors, and stakeholders discussed at length. This week, Jon has broken down the latest reporting, including the potential framework of a three-team trade involving the Knicks, the Bucks, and the Portland Trail Blazers. If you would like to read these pieces, click here and here. Additionally, last month, I examined the situation from a Bucks, Giannis, and league-wide perspective. That analysis focuses upon leverage, motivations, finances, strategic incentives, potential suitors, and a creative way to attempt to sidestep the Stepien Rule for the Knicks (click here).

While these factors all play a role in determining Giannis’ future, from a New York perspective, the two elements that I want to focus upon are leverage and timing.

Everything the Knicks do at the Deadline has downstream effects on future transactional windows, from roster construction to asset deployment to financial flexibility. That reality directly shapes the Front Office’s approach to Giannis. Completing a trade at the Deadline can be done within the constraints of the 2nd Apron Hard Cap under which the Knicks currently operate. If the situation drags into the summer, acquiring Giannis would likely Hard Cap New York due to aggregation rules. Waiting until the summer materially limits the team’s options for retaining players, adding complementary pieces, and in general, forces the Front Office to once again operate in the margins.

From the Bucks’ side, the calculus is also complex. If they do not trade Giannis at the Deadline, the summer return could be lower because he would only have one year left on his deal and, in theory, more leverage to steer himself toward a preferred destination. Conversely, a team acquiring Giannis now would get two potential playoff runs, which increases the incentive to trade for him. Pick value adds another layer: Milwaukee is set to receive a swap in the 2026 Draft, taking the less favorable of its own pick and New Orleans’ pick, with the higher pick going to Atlanta. With New Orleans near the bottom of the standings, the Bucks could finish near the bottom themselves and still retain meaningful draft upside post-swap.

However, if Giannis remains injured, that dynamic could quietly work in Milwaukee’s favor. Trading him at the Deadline would likely bring back players who, even marginally, improve the Bucks’ ability to win games. This raises the central question: does preserving maximum draft position in a deep 2026 Draft outweigh the incremental trade value Milwaukee would give up by waiting until the summer? Additionally, by waiting, the Bucks would gain access to a new year’s worth of picks (in 2033).

Giannis’ leverage is inseparable from this decision tree. He could request a trade to go elsewhere and avoid wasting another season. In this scenario, his camp would lean into its leverage. There are numerous factors that it can draw upon: strategic, relationship-based, merit-based, and financial. It would be a credible attempt to try to control the trade process and strategically shape the market in a way where Giannis has serious input over where his future lies.

Much of the near-term trajectory hinges on whether Giannis is willing to play this season or sit out in Milwaukee. If he wants to continue playing, this stance amplifies his leverage, which, when combined with the Bucks’ potential incentive to lose games, could create real momentum for a Deadline trade. Given the long-term strategic implications, if the Knicks can acquire Giannis at the Deadline, calf injury and all, in my opinion, it should pull the trigger.

Preemptive Risk

If both Giannis and the Bucks are aligned on delaying a deal until the Draft or offseason, I believe New York should avoid large preemptive trades designed solely to make itself more Giannis-friendly. There are many rumors about acquiring Jrue Holiday, not only because of his skillset but also as a Giannis-lure. However, acquiring Holiday independently, for example, would carry meaningful risk because there is no guarantee that a summer Giannis trade can then be completed. Even if such a move could also net future Bucks picks, the downside could outweigh the upside. This line of thinking can be framed as A → B reasoning, which, in other words, represents an oversimplification of the situation. The space between points A and B is filled with uncertainty. There are numerous variables outside of New York’s control that could disrupt the process.

The counterargument, of course, is that acquiring both Holiday and future Bucks picks would position the Knicks extremely well to pursue Giannis in the summer. That may be true. However, there is no such thing as a guarantee in the NBA. On paper, plans rarely survive unchanged. If New York truly believed it had a near-certain path to acquiring Giannis in the summer, then surely it could acquire him now. If the team acknowledges that certainty does not exist, then the risk profile of a preemptive Jrue deal becomes far more difficult to justify. Bottom line, I believe the only scenario in which New York should trade for Holiday at the Deadline is if he is part of a broader Giannis package.

Depth Targets Through a Giannis Lens

One additional, smaller detail is worth noting. In previous postings, I framed potential targets such as Jose Alvarado and Keon Ellis as logical fits largely because they align with the smaller salary slots with which the Knicks would be operating in marginal Deadline trades. However, what if there is a Giannis-linked motivation behind that interest? It is possible that these players are appealing precisely because they could be acquired using whatever limited salary New York can piece together after a Giannis trade, thereby helping to rebuild top-end depth that would likely be depleted in such a deal. Just as importantly, if Giannis were acquired at the Deadline, picking up these players would bring offseason Bird Rights into the picture, which could matter significantly when navigating the 2nd Apron, or potentially exceeding it.

For example, if New York were forced to part with McBride in a Giannis-plus-Jrue framework, targeting someone such as Ellis as a functional replacement could make sense, and could be accomplished using Dadiet’s salary slot alone. This line of thinking would come into play with other players potentially being moved to reshape the roster around Giannis, and by factoring in the team’s future financial planning.

Final Thoughts and a Trade Idea

All in all, because of his injury and the general depth that the Knicks could be forced to give up as part of a greater trade, if the organization acquires Giannis at the Deadline, the team’s ceiling may drop in 2025-26. However, the team’s ability to build around him grows in 2026-27, a fact that cannot be understated. The ironic part of this is that if the Knicks were to make a trade involving Bridges, it cannot be done until February 1st. What team do the Knicks play in its last game before this date? The Blazers. If a deal does happen between these three teams, I would not be surprised if the framework is established around this period.

Target

The Giannis situation and outcome, and its ripple effects vis-à-vis New York, can best be understood, in my opinion, through the evaluation of a trade target, such as Naji Marshall.

Naji Marshall

At the 2023 Deadline, a Western Conference team traded a soon-to-be 28-year-old, 6’5”, hard-nosed, downhill-driving, ball-handling wing with a questionable 3pt shot, a Big East school background, and one year left on his contract in exchange for a protected 1st Round pick. Fast forward to the present, and another 28-year-old, 6’6”, hard-nosed, downhill-driving, ball-handling wing with a questionable 3pt shot, a Big East school background, and one year left on his deal could be moved for a protected 1st Round pick at this upcoming Deadline.

No, Josh Hart and Naji Marshall are not the exact same player. However, the similarities between the two are both notable and do not end there. Before turning to Marshall, it is worth pulling back and asking the obvious question: why would Leon Rose want to acquire a wing at the Deadline, potentially prioritizing the position over other areas of need?

The Reasons

Pros

Marshall’s on-court profile and broader archetype have become increasingly valuable across the league. Teams covet versatile, positive-impact wings who can scale up or down depending on context. Marshall fits that mold.

Offensive Skillset: Marshall’s greatest offensive strength is his ability to get downhill, where he leverages his size and physicality to pressure the rim. He is currently one of just three players to have appeared in at least 30 games while averaging 6+ drives per game and shooting over 60% on those attempts. The other two? Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic. Among the 32 players with 100+ shots in the Restricted Area (RA) and 150+ non-RA paint attempts, Marshall ranks third in RA FG% and second in paint FG%, right alongside Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Put simply, Marshall is one of the most effective downhill players in the league, placing him statistically alongside several of the league’s best scorers. His comfort with the ball in his hands is not just limited to scoring. For example, Marshall has had an AST% that ranks above the 66th percentile in every season of his career, and this season has the lowest TOV% of his career.

Wing Depth: As outlined above, there is no such thing as too much wing depth, particularly wings who can play both sides at an above-average level. Acquiring Marshall would give New York arguably the deepest wing group in the conference. While minutes and rotation alignment would become more complicated, a topic addressed below, that is a good problem to have. The Knicks would gain lineup flexibility, and a diverse mix of skill sets that would allow Brown to experiment and optimize matchups. Having yet another wing who can make plays with the ball in his hands adds another dimension to the wing rotation.

Salary Slot: Throughout the four-part Overview, the theme of present planning impacting future flexibility has come up repeatedly and, most notably in this analysis, within the context of the Giannis situation. There is both a positive and a negative side when it pertains to Giannis (negative will be listed below). If Giannis is not traded by the Deadline and New York intends to remain active in its pursuit in the offseason, acquiring an additional tradable salary slot, such as Marshall’s $9.4M salary in 2026–27, could prove useful. Even if Marshall is not included in a larger Giannis deal, having that mid-tier money on the books matters, particularly given the Knicks’ relative lack of “middle-class” contracts outside the core. This will be expanded upon further in the financial section.

Cons

Overlap: As stated above, having too many wings is not a problem, particularly, if their skillsets overlap in terms of 3pt shooting and plus defense. However, if you have multiple wings who are not reliable on either of these fronts, then that kind of overlap can become a silent killer. From a Knicks perspective, this overlap would be seen through Marshall and Hart, who are not stereotypical 3&D spacing wings. Hart is one of the Knicks’ most important players and, in the playoffs, will be on the floor for much of each game. While he has improved as a shooter, defenses will still likely treat him as a non-spacer. And statistically speaking, Marshall is a worse career shooter than Hart. In the playoffs, would Brown be able to scheme answers for non-spacing lineups that have both Hart and Marshall, let alone the Mitchell Robinson component?

Rotation: There is another layer here. Much has been made about the idea of playing Brunson with four-plus defenders and running a nine-man rotation where Brunson and Towns are the only defensive weak points. A related question follows: can New York survive having more than two perceived non-spacers (Hart and Robinson) in its nine-man rotation if Marshall is added to the mix? That is a decision that the Front Office must weigh carefully.

Too Many Cooks: If the Knicks were to acquire Marshall with “Wingstop” still intact, an available-minutes question would naturally arise. That said, the Hart trade could provide a glimpse into why this might not be a concern. When Hart was acquired by New York, there were questions about his fit alongside other high-leverage players, as well as his role in what appeared to be a congested Knicks wing-forward rotation that included Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes, and Obi Toppin. The Front Office was clearly comfortable in adding to that congested rotation, so it might be once again when faced with a similar situation now.

Cost: Due to salary-matching constraints, there are three relatively straightforward paths to acquiring Marshall, two of which involve either Deuce McBride or Mitchell Robinson (players the Knicks are unlikely to move for Marshall). This leaves a construction built around Yabusele, Dadiet, and a minimum salary (any of whom could be re-routed elsewhere on Dallas’ end). However, Marshall has real value, with Dallas reportedly seeking a protected 1st Round pick at minimum. The outgoing player package does not carry cumulative positive value, meaning New York would need to include pick value. This is a difficult proposition given its already thinned-out draft cupboard and the likelihood that those remaining assets may be needed in a larger Giannis pursuit.

Trade Idea

As stated above, from a Knicks’ perspective, this represents the most “straightforward” trade concept if none of the core players are included. As currently constructed, any trade between New York and Dallas would have to be a three-team deal. The Mavericks’ roster is full, preventing them from taking back three players in exchange for one, and both teams sit above the 1st Apron, which further restricts trade mechanics. As a result, a third team would be required to re-route players and ensure that no team takes back more than 100% of the salary it sends out.

That said, I am unsure if Dallas would accept this deal as its reported asking price (one form or another of a 1st Round pick) would not be met. Dallas will not move Marshall simply to trade him, which means that it will have to get strong value in return. Notably, I did not include any future Knicks 1st Round pick swaps. These are assets that could make the package more appealing, because such swaps would carry real value in the Giannis sweepstakes.

Thus, the trade-off becomes clear: if New York wants to make a legitimate push to acquire an impact rotation player like Marshall, it must decide if it is willing to sacrifice assets that could be needed for a larger move down the line. This could be where the Knicks’ collection of 2nd Round picks comes into play, as the team could currently have upwards of ten 2nd Round picks (if the Wizards’ pick does not convey). The question then becomes how many 2nd Round picks would need to be included (both with and without the Wizards’ pick) to facilitate a deal, and whether the Front Office would view Marshall as the type of player worth tapping into that collection. If Marshall can be acquired for the package outlined above, I believe that the Knicks Front Office would seriously consider it. For what it is worth, recent trade precedent for high-end rotation bench wings has often involved collections of 2nd Round picks along with matching salary (e.g. Dorian Finney-Smith to the Lakers and Royce O’Neale to the Suns). This type of package would fit within the precedent.

Two final notes. First, regarding 2026-27, Marshall’s salary would further squeeze New York on the 2nd Apron front, giving it slightly less room to work with when navigating the rest of the roster. Second, there could be a chance that the Front Office is comfortable dipping into the 2nd Round pick collection because it knows that it can replenish.

One Piece of Cap Minutiae

As outlined in the Marshall trade concept, New York would need to sign two players to meet roster compliance, which it could do using its available 2nd Apron space. In any scenario where the Knicks must fill roster spots via veteran minimum signings, a small but important Cap wrinkle comes into play, one which we saw last season with PJ Tucker. On March 31st, the Knicks signed Tucker to a Rest-of-Season contract based on the pro-rated veteran minimum for a player with 2+ Years of Service (YOS). Notably, it was structured as a 2-year deal with a Team Option and non-guaranteed second season for 2025–26, which was ultimately declined.

Why does the two-year structure matter? When a player with 2+ YOS signs a 1-year veteran minimum, his Cap Hit is discounted relative to his actual cash earnings. For example, Jordan Clarkson’s 1-year minimum carries a Cap Hit of roughly $2.3M, despite his cash salary being closer to $3.6M. This rule exists to encourage teams to sign veteran players without being penalized at the Cap level. However, that discount disappears on 2-year veteran minimum contracts. In that case, the player’s full cash salary also becomes the Cap Hit. Had Clarkson signed a 2-year minimum, his Cap Hit would be the full $3.6M. This is why the Tucker deal mattered: his second-year salary would have created a slightly larger tradable salary slot had the option been exercised or guaranteed.

When teams are operating close to the Aprons, that extra salary can meaningfully expand trade flexibility. While the higher Cap Hit is not always optimal, in certain situations teams may intentionally sacrifice marginal Cap savings in exchange for greater optionality and tradable salary. The Knicks could look to employ a similar strategy this Deadline if it once again faces the need to fill out the back end of the roster.