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CBA Observations: Kuminga, D. Robinson, Cavs, Frozen Picks

May 22nd, 2025 at 7:26am CST by Luke Adams

While the NBA's current Collective Bargaining Agreement technically went into effect in 2023, many of the rules affecting tax apron teams weren't fully implemented until 2024. As a result, last summer was a crash course for teams, fans, and reporters alike on those new rules, giving us our first look at the impact they'll have on team-building going forward.

With the 2024/25 season under our belts, we're better equipped entering the 2025 offseason to assess how those new rules - and some old ones - will affect teams' ability to make trades and sign free agents this summer. Still, I've seen some confusion and misrepresentation regarding a few specific rules as speculation about offseason roster moves begins to heat up this spring, so we'll use the space below today to provide clarity on some of those issues.

Let's dive in...

A potential Jonathan Kuminga sign-and-trade

With Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga headed for restricted free agency this offseason after playing an inconsistent role in his fourth NBA season, there has been a good deal of speculation already about whether Golden State will attempt to recoup value for Kuminga via a sign-and-trade rather than simply re-signing him or matching a rival offer sheet.

I'm not here today to weigh the merits of one path vs. the other. I just want to examine what it would look like from a practical perspective if the Warriors do sign-and-trade Kuminga, since the base year compensation rule would come into play.

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2025 NBA Offseason Preview: San Antonio Spurs

May 21st, 2025 at 7:01am CST by Luke Adams

After putting up a 22-60 record in Victor Wembanyama's rookie season in 2023/24, the Spurs added a couple veterans (Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes) to the mix last summer and were expected to take a step forward, which they did -- their 34-48 mark wasn't enough for play-in contention, but it represented a 12-game improvement on the prior season.

Simply looking at the Spurs' record, however, undersells what an eventful year it was in San Antonio, for better or worse.

Just a couple weeks into the season, longtime head coach Gregg Popovich suffered a medical incident later revealed to be a stroke, resulting in assistant Mitch Johnson taking the reins for the rest of the year. Although he held out hope of eventually returning to the Spurs' bench, Popovich ultimately determined that it wouldn't be possible and formally stepped down from the role at season's end. The 76-year-old will remain with the organization as president of basketball operations, but Johnson is now the permanent head coach.

Nearly three months after Popovich suffered his stroke, word broke that the Kings were attempting to trade De'Aaron Fox and that he had given Sacramento a one-team wish list -- the Spurs were the only team on it. San Antonio isn't exactly Los Angeles or Miami, so Fox's push to join the Spurs raised some eyebrows, reflecting the impact that Wembanyama has already had on the franchise.

It seems safe to assume that if the 2024 Rookie of the Year weren't a Spur, Fox wouldn't have been looking to become one either, but the leverage he exerted ahead of the trade deadline put San Antonio in position to acquire him for a pretty reasonable price. The Spurs didn't give up any of their top rotation players in the deal and surrendered just one of their own draft picks, a 2027 first-rounder. That leaves them plenty of ammo if they want to take another major swing on the trade market going forward.

Finally, in the days following the All-Star Game, the Spurs announced that Wembanyama would miss the rest of the season after having been diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder. It was a scary development, given that blood clotting issues have cut NBA careers short in the past. There was optimism in San Antonio, however, that Wembanyama's DVT was detected early enough to avoid major complications and that it should be an isolated incident.

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Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript: 5/20/2025

May 20th, 2025 at 11:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Pistons should consider a major offseason move, Devin Booker trade possibilities, a potential roster overhaul in Chicago, what the Bucks should say to Giannis Antetokounmpo and more! Use the link below to read the transcript.

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2025 NBA Offseason Preview: Charlotte Hornets

May 19th, 2025 at 3:58pm CST by Luke Adams

2024 was a year of change for the Hornets, who traded away veterans like Terry Rozier, P.J. Washington, and Gordon Hayward, hired a new head of basketball operations (Jeff Peterson), and brought aboard respected assistant Charles Lee to replace head coach Steve Clifford.

In the wake of those changes, there was plenty of chatter ahead of the 2024/25 season about how good the vibes in Charlotte were, leading to some speculation that the Hornets could be a dark-horse playoff (or at least play-in) contender in an Eastern Conference that didn't look all that competitive outside of its top few teams.

That may have been an overly optimistic outlook, but it's hard to say for sure, since we never really got a look at a fully healthy version of the Hornets in '24/25. Injuries decimated Charlotte's rotation over the course of the season, with starters like LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Mark Williams each missing weeks or months at a time and Grant Williams suffering a season-ending ACL tear in November.

After a passable 6-9 start, the Hornets went into a tailspin, losing 18 of their next 19 games to slip to 7-27. As discouraging as that stretch was, it made the team's approach to the rest of the season fairly straightforward -- Charlotte was once again in seller mode, sending out Nick Richards, Cody Martin, Vasilije Micic, and Mark Williams in three separate trades in January and February.

The Williams deal was ultimately voided by the Lakers due to concerns about his physical, but the fact that the Hornets were prepared to trade a 23-year-old big man for far-off draft assets (a 2030 pick swap and a 2031 first-rounder) was eye-opening. Maybe the Hornets have their own concerns about Williams; maybe they really like rookie forward Dalton Knecht, who would've ended up in Charlotte if that deal hadn't fallen through; maybe they just thought the offer was too good in terms of overall value to pass up.

Generally speaking though, the move suggested that Peterson is in no hurry to transition out of a rebuild and into win-now mode. It'll be interesting to see if that thinking carries over to the offseason or whether the Hornets begin acting with a little more urgency to end a nine-year playoff drought, the NBA's longest active streak.

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2025 NBA Offseason Preview: New Orleans Pelicans

May 18th, 2025 at 2:43pm CST by Luke Adams

Coming off a 49-win season in 2023/24, the Pelicans had real reasons for optimism heading into the '24/25 campaign.

They'd gone out and acquired a legitimate two-way point guard in Dejounte Murray, which would allow CJ McCollum to shift back to his more natural combo/shooting guard spot. And while they were thin in the middle, the Pelicans were confident they had enough talent at wing and forward - led by Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Herbert Jones, and Trey Murphy - to make up for it.

As it turned out, New Orleans never really got the opportunity to see if there was enough roster depth at center to get by. The injury bug plagued the Pelicans early and often, preventing the team from ever gathering any real momentum.

Murray broke his hand in the first game of the season and later tore his Achilles tendon, ending his season after just 31 appearances. Williamson, who battled hamstring problems during the first half and a back injury in the spring, appeared in only 30 contests. Ingram saw action in 18 games before being sidelined by an ankle injury. Shoulder issues limited Jones to 20 games before he underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. Murphy underwent a similar shoulder procedure later in the season. The list goes on.

There were actually a few positive takeaways from an otherwise forgettable year. Murphy took his game to a new level when healthy, averaging a career-high 21.2 points per game. Rookie center Yves Missi emerged as a pretty solid option up front, starting 67 games and averaging 9.1 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per night. And trade-deadline additions Kelly Olynyk and Bruce Brown fit in nicely.

But health has been an ongoing issue in recent years for the Pelicans, who reached a crossroads with oft-injured forward Ingram during his contract year and decided trading him for the best offer at February's deadline made more sense than continuing to try to make it work with him and Williamson.

After moving on from Ingram, one of their longest-tenured players, the Pelicans will now have to figure out whether more drastic changes are necessary or whether there's still reason to believe that the rest of this core can succeed with a few tweaks and some better health luck.

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2025 NBA Offseason Preview: Toronto Raptors

May 15th, 2025 at 7:44pm CST by Luke Adams

It was an injury-plagued season in 2024/25 for the Raptors, who only had one player - rookie Jamal Shead - appear in more than 65 games. Regulars like RJ Barrett (58 games), Jakob Poeltl (57), Gradey Dick (54), and Immanuel Quickley (33) all missed significant time, while Brandon Ingram didn't play at all after a trade-deadline deal in February sent him from New Orleans to Toronto.

The Raptors seemed to be playing it safe with Ingram and a few other veterans down the stretch after falling out of playoff contention. But injuries were a legitimate issue during the first half of the season, preventing the front office and coaching staff from getting a consistent look at their core players - led by forward Scottie Barnes (65 games) - on the court together for any extended period.

Toronto's presumed opening-night starting lineup of Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, Poeltl, and Dick appeared in just eight games together over the course of the season, logging 107 total minutes.

Those injuries, along with a challenging early schedule, resulted in an extremely poor first half for the Raptors, who lost 31 of their first 39 games and had the third-worst record in the NBA in mid-January. Recognizing at that point that it made more sense to pursue a high lottery pick than an outside chance at a play-in spot, Toronto went into tank mode in the second half of the season and began resting regulars while leaning more heavily on two-way and 10-day players.

Paradoxically though, with the help of one of the league's softest second-half schedules and the ongoing development of a few young prospects, the Raptors played their best basketball of the season in March (10-5). After spending the first half of the year losing games they were trying to win, the Raptors finished out the season by winning games management would've preferred to lose, going 22-21 after their 8-31 start and ending up with the No. 9 overall pick after dropping a couple spots on lottery night.

While it was a disappointing lottery outcome for fans in Toronto hoping to add one more blue-chip prospect to the team's core after a lost season, there are already several foundational pieces in place here, and the strides made down the stretch by second-year head coach Darko Rajakovic and youngsters like Shead, Ja'Kobe Walter, Jamison Battle, and Jonathan Mogbo made for an encouraging trade-off.

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2025 NBA Free Agent Preview: Small Forwards

May 14th, 2025 at 1:36pm CST by Luke Adams

NBA teams in need of an impact small forward this summer likely won't be looking to the free agent market for their answer. While there's a chance that one of the greatest players of all-time will become a free agent, that star is widely expected to remain in Los Angeles. And after that, the starting-caliber small forwards dry up awfully fast.

Still, for teams seeking a depth option at the three rather than someone who can be relied upon to play 30-plus minutes per night, there could be a few interesting - and cap-friendly - targets out there.

Let’s take a closer look at this summer’s free agent small forwards, as we continue our breakdown of the 2025 free agent class by position.

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2025 NBA Offseason Preview: Phoenix Suns

May 13th, 2025 at 2:47pm CST by Luke Adams

After winning 49 games and making a first-round playoff exit in 2023/24, the Suns were confident that their second year with the big three of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal would yield better results.

Having not operated with a traditional point guard for much of the 2023/24 season, the Suns added Tyus Jones and Monte Morris in free agency during the summer of 2024 while also replacing head coach Frank Vogel with Mike Budenholzer.

Those changes, combined with a full season from 2024 deadline addition Royce O'Neale and the prospect of better health luck for Booker, Durant, and Beal - who suited up together for just 41 games in '23/24 - were reasons for optimism in Phoenix.

And through nine games, it looked like that optimism was warranted. The Suns raced out to an 8-1 start and sat tied with Oklahoma City atop the Western Conference standings on November 10.

However, things quickly turned south, as newcomers like Jones, Morris, and Budenholzer didn't make the sort of impact the Suns had anticipated, while Durant and Beal once again battled health issues that sidelined them for 20 and 29 games, respectively.

Most damning of all was the fact that Phoenix's so-called "big three" wasn't even effective when healthy -- in the 667 minutes that Booker, Durant, and Beal shared the court, the team was outscored by 4.1 points per 100 possessions.

The Suns finished the season with a 36-46 record, earning the ignominious honor of becoming the only NBA team that didn't clinch a top-six playoff spot, didn't claim at least a play-in berth, and didn't control a lottery pick -- each of the league's other 29 clubs fell into at least one of those categories. To make matters worse, the Suns finished the season with the NBA's highest payroll and don't control any of their own draft picks through 2031.

Put simply, running it back wasn't an option in Phoenix this offseason. The team has already fired Budenholzer and made front office changes, promoting vice president of player programming Brian Gregory to general manager while former GM James Jones transitioned into a senior advisor position. Next up? Making major changes to this underachieving roster.

The Suns' Offseason Plan

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Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript: 5/13/2025

May 13th, 2025 at 11:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included how much the Mavericks improved by landing Cooper Flagg, the Rockets' options on the trade market, the Spurs' plans with the No. 2 pick, suspicions about the lottery results and more! Use the link below to read the transcript.

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Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript: 5/6/2025

May 6th, 2025 at 11:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Cavaliers and Celtics are in danger of a second-round exit, the Bulls' options with the 12th pick in the draft, the case for the Rockets to trade for a veteran star, the chances of LeBron James heading to Dallas and more! Use the link below to read the transcript.

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