Golden State Warriors Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Heat ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Moving Butler By Deadline

January 28th, 2025 at 10:32am CST by Luke Adams

10:32am: The Warriors, viewed near the start of the month as an unlikely suitor for Butler, are one of the teams back in the mix now that the Heat have lowered their asking price, reports Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).

Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel hears from a source that the Heat would be satisfied to receive a “potential contributing” player on a one- or two-year contract, expiring salary, and a pair of draft picks in exchange for Butler.

9:48am: The Heat are “cautiously optimistic” about the possibility of making a Jimmy Butler trade before the February 6 deadline, according to Barry Jackson and Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald, who report that Miami has been engaging “several” teams besides the Suns.

While Phoenix has long been viewed as Butler’s preferred landing spot and the team most willing to give the 35-year-old the maximum-salary contract he’s seeking, the Suns haven’t had much luck finding a trade structure that works, per The Herald.

Bradley Beal would have to be sent to a third team in order for the Suns to acquire Butler, since Phoenix can’t aggregate contracts and Miami isn’t interested in the veteran guard, who has two more years and nearly $111MM left on his contract after this season.

Finding a taker for Beal has been a challenge, especially since he has the ability to veto any deal using his no-trade clause. While Beal is reportedly open to waiving that clause to join a contending team, ideally one in a warm-weather city, he also seems to be comfortable with the idea of remaining in Phoenix, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.

Appearing on ESPN (Twitter video links), NBA insider Brian Windhorst backed up the notion that the Heat are talking to teams besides the Suns about Butler and said Miami is “really, really trying to make this happen,” adding that the team’s asking price on Butler has dropped a little from where it was earlier in the month.

“Obviously, the Phoenix Suns have tried to get this done for weeks,” Windhorst said on SportsCenter. “They have tried three-, four-, five-team machinations. They have not been able to overcome the fact that what they’ve really got to trade is Bradley Beal, who has a no-trade clause and not a very big market. So now I do believe this is going to bring in some other teams. We could see some surprising moves in this little battle in the next couple of days.

“… I am not saying for sure this is going to happen. I’m not predicting what’s going to happen. But I do think some teams that thought they were out of this are coming back in because it doesn’t look like the Suns and Heat are going to be able to consummate a deal. I think we might see a team swoop in here and get Jimmy Butler at a cheap price. A guy who can be the best player in a playoff series at a bargain price.”

Windhorst went a step further during an appearance on ESPN’s First Take on Tuesday morning (Twitter video link).

“Jimmy Butler’s going to get traded,” he predicted. “I wasn’t sure about that maybe seven to 10 days ago. I really am more sure than ever that that’s going to happen.”

The Heat announced on Monday that they’ve suspended Butler for a third time. Following a five-game suspension earlier this month and a two-game suspension that just concluded on Saturday, the latest suspension is an indefinite one and was said to be for “withholding services.” That means it will cost Butler 1/91.6th of his $48.8MM salary for each game he misses — the previous suspensions for conduct detrimental for the team cost him 1/145th of his salary per game.

Since word of Butler’s desire to be traded first broke last month, reports have indicated that the Heat are willing to hang onto the six-time All-Star through this season and revisit trade talks in the summer if they don’t get the sort of return they want by February 6. The club is said to be prioritizing win-now players with contracts that don’t extend beyond 2025/26.

However, with the standoff between the two sides continuing to escalate, it appears increasingly untenable for Butler to remain on the roster for several more months, which is why the front office is more motivated than ever to find a viable deal.

As Jackson and Chiang point out, while Butler’s camp has long conveyed that he intends to decline his 2025/26 player option in favor of free agency, the veteran forward could make life difficult on the Heat by picking up that option in June and essentially putting Miami back in the same situation it’s in now — with a disgruntled star on a maximum-salary deal, hamstringing the team’s ability to improve the roster around him.

Additionally, while the Heat are theoretically saving some money as a result of Butler’s suspensions, team-imposed suspensions don’t affect a team’s tax bill, and based on existing precedents, it’s very possible Butler will regain a chunk of his lost salary through the appeal process. In other words, the financial incentives to continue suspending him are minimal.

Neither Windhorst nor the duo of Jackson and Chiang named specific teams outside of Phoenix that might be exploring a deal for Butler. Previous reporting has indicated that the Grizzlies have kicked the tires on the possibility, despite being warned against it, while Marc Stein said on Monday that rival clubs continue to wonder if the Bucks will get involved.

Warriors’ Kuminga Out At Least Two More Weeks; Green Day-To-Day

January 27th, 2025 at 4:36pm CST by Rory Maher

Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, who sustained a right ankle sprain on January 4 and has missed the past 11 games, will be out for at least two more weeks, the team announced in a press release (Twitter link).

According to the Warriors, Kuminga was recently reevaluated. He’s making good progress in his recovery and will start light on-court individual workouts in the next week, but he won’t return to action until after the February 6 trade deadline.

Anthony Slater of The Athletic reported a few days ago that Kuminga was still weeks away from returning, so Golden State’s announcement is more of a confirmation than anything new.

“He’s not close to coming back,” head coach Steve Kerr said of Kuminga on Saturday, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “He’s on a bike just now. He’s not been on the court in any other capacity other than just shooting stationary shots. So it’s going to be some time.”

It’s unfortunate news for the 22-year-old, who was playing his best basketball of the season prior to the injury, averaging 24.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.0 steal in the six games leading up to Jan. 4. Kuminga will be a restricted free agent in the offseason.

On a more positive note on the injury front, Draymond Green is now considered day-to-day following his own reevaluation. The former Defensive Player of the Year has missed the past four contests with a left calf strain, but he has been doing some light on-court work recently and will soon begin practicing.

No Untouchables In Bulls’ Trade Talks

January 27th, 2025 at 2:00pm CST by Luke Adams

Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, and Lonzo Ball have been the Bulls players most frequently cited this season as trade candidates, but head of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas would be open to moving just about anyone on the roster if he thinks the deal is in the team’s best long-term interests and helps Chicago keep its top-10 protected 2025 first-round pick, says Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times.

Cowley identifies Matas Buzelis as the only exception, but clarifies that the rookie forward isn’t “completely untouchable” either.

The report doesn’t come as a real surprise. Chicago has also reportedly made forward Patrick Williams available, and Cowley suggested last month that guards Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu aren’t off the table in trade talks.

The Bulls also aren’t likely to be especially attached to reserves like Jalen Smith, Jevon Carter, Chris Duarte, Torrey Craig, and Talen Horton-Tucker, while youngsters Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips haven’t established themselves as long-term keepers.

That leaves Josh Giddey, who was viewed as Chicago’s probable point guard of the future when the team acquired him last summer from Oklahoma City in exchange for Alex Caruso. Giddey didn’t sign a rookie scale extension last fall and has had an up-and-down first season as a Bull, but I’d still be a little surprised if he’s moved by next Thursday, given that his value on an expiring contract would be limited.

A source tells Cowley that Karnisovas has come down to some extent on what teams viewed as “unrealistic” asking prices for his top trade chips earlier in the season, though that doesn’t mean he’s simply willing to sell off players to the highest bidder.

Discussing the latest on Vucevic within a trade rumor round-up on his Substack, Marc Stein of The Stein Line reports that the Bulls are still seeking a first-round pick in return for the veteran center. Stein describes the Warriors as “at the front of the line” of Vucevic suitors, but says Golden State has been unwilling to offer more than second-round capital to this point.

As for LaVine, he was at the center of one of the season’s earlier notable trade rumors when a report in mid-December indicated that the Nuggets had real interest in the Bulls guard. However, LaVine has been on a tear since then, further increasing his value by staying healthy and averaging 27.0 points per game on .524/.467/.786 shooting over his past 18 games. Nuggets guard Jamal Murray has heated up too, putting up 21.3 PPG and 5.9 APG with a .485/.404/.913 shooting line during the same time frame.

As Bennett Durando of The Denver Post writes, Murray’s resurgence will likely make “big-game hunting less of a priority” for the Nuggets, while LaVine’s heater will make it more difficult for Denver to meet Chicago’s asking price. So the odds of a trade sending LaVine to the Nuggets look slimmer than they did a month ago.

In case you missed it, we wrote about another Bulls-related rumor earlier today, passing along word that Chicago has talked to the Suns about Bradley Beal.

Pacific Notes: Curry, Fox, Richards, Dunn

January 26th, 2025 at 9:58pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Stephen Curry has a right thumb injury, but the Warriors superstar won’t use that as an excuse for his recent subpar shooting, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN writes. Curry missed all eight of his second-half field goal attempts in a loss to the Lakers on Saturday. He’s averaging 16.5 points per game over his last four outings.

“It sucks, but it’s not an excuse for anything,” Curry said. “Got to play through it. I went 8-for-8 with it [against the Sixers). It’s just something that has been lingering to the point that it gets hit every once in a while. It’s one of those things. It is almost gone, and then it gets knocked again. I will deal with it, but it shouldn’t bother me like it did (Saturday).”

We have more from the Pacific Division:

De’Aaron Fox has a sprained right thumb but, like Curry, the Kings guard says he can play through it. Fox went 6-of-20 against the Knicks on Saturday and has shot 32% from the field over his last six games. “People can make up the excuse they want,” he said, per Chris Biderman of the Sacramento Bee. “Sometimes you just don’t play well. I’m just missing shots. That’s the way the game goes sometimes.”
In his fourth game since being acquired by the Suns, Nick Richards had a 20-point, 19-rebound outing against Washington on Saturday. “I’m just taking full advantage of it,” Richards said of his opportunity to be Phoenix’s starting center, per a tweet from PHNX Sports (video link). “It was a great time in Charlotte, I had the most amazing time with some of the best people in the world. But I’m here right now, and I’m taking full advantage of every single thing that the Suns are giving me.”
Suns rookie forward Ryan Dunn won’t play on Monday against the Clippers. He’s listed as out due to a left ankle sprain, Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports tweets. Dunn, who has started 24 games, played just two minutes against the Wizards before suffering the injury.

Warriors Notes: Kuminga, Podziemski, Anderson, Trades, Post

January 24th, 2025 at 9:33pm CST by Luke Adams

Jonathan Kuminga has been out since January 4 due to a right ankle sprain and the Warriors forward remains weeks away from returning to action, tweets Anthony Slater of The Athletic. According to Slater, Kuminga still has his ankle wrapped and hasn’t been able to do any real on-court work yet.

While Kuminga is around the team and is in “positive spirits,” he may not suit up for Golden State until after the All-Star break, says Slater.

Still, as Slater notes in another tweet, the Warriors’ injury situation on the whole is improving. Brandin Podziemski made his return on Thursday following a 12-game absence due to an abdominal issue and was effective in his first game back, scoring 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting as the Warriors outscored Chicago by 22 points during his 21 minutes. Kyle Anderson has been cleared to return on Saturday vs. the Lakers after missing the past five games due to what the club described as left gluteal bursitis.

Although Kuminga and Draymond Green (left calf strain) remain on the shelf for now, Golden State may have everyone else available on Saturday. Podziemski, Andrew Wiggins (back soreness), and Gary Payton II (illness) are the only other names on the injury report and they’re each listed as probable to play.

Here’s more on the Warriors:

While the Warriors would love to acquire an impact player via trade, they’re unlikely to make a significant splash at this season’s deadline, according to Tim Bontemps and Brian Windhorst of ESPN (Insider link). ESPN’s duo anticipates Golden State will wait until a “true difference-maker” hits the trade market and expects any move the Dubs make by February 6 to be on the smaller side, like last month’s Dennis Schröder acquisition.
Mark Medina of RG.org is also skeptical that a major in-season move is on tap for the Warriors.
Meanwhile, Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic considers whether it makes sense for Golden State to do something bold at the deadline, focusing specifically on Bulls guard Zach LaVine as a potential target, which seems like a long shot to me.
The Warriors’ staff has “gained increasing belief in recent weeks” that rookie center Quinten Post might be able to address the club’s need for a floor-spacer in the frontcourt, Slater writes for The Athletic. After making three brief appearances in the first 41 games of the season, Post has averaged 11.3 points in 16.0 minutes per night over Golden State’s past three games, making 7-of-18 (38.9%) three-pointers during that stretch. “He picks and pops,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “That means the other team’s big guy has to go with him. That means that defender’s not in the paint. Steph (Curry) was the happiest guy in the building tonight with all that room to work with. The game got a lot easier for all of our guys.”

NBA Unveils 2025 All-Star Game Starters

January 23rd, 2025 at 7:01pm CST by Earnest Marshall

The 2025 All-Star Game starters were revealed on Thursday during Inside the NBA’s pregame show and confirmed by the NBA on social media (Twitter links).

In the Eastern Conference, a pair of Knicks made the cut, with Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns – in his first season in New York – earning nods. Joining Brunson in the backcourt is Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, while Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo secured frontcourt spots.

Lakers star LeBron James extended his all-time record to 21 consecutive All-Star selections in the Western Conference. Warriors guard Stephen Curry and Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander accounted for the backcourt spots in the West while Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets and Kevin Durant of the Suns joined James as frontcourt starters.

The starters are selected by a weighted voting process with the fan vote accounting for half of the final outcome. The player and media portions of the vote each counted for 25 percent. Three frontcourt players and two guards were selected from each conference.

The reserves, who are picked by the league’s coaches, will be announced on Jan. 30. LaMelo Ball of the Hornets narrowly missed out on being a starter after ranking first in the fan vote, having finished third in player voting and seventh in the media vote. The Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama also barely missed out, finishing second in media voting but fourth for both players and fans.

Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, De’Aaron Fox, Devin Booker, Norman Powell, Anthony Davis, Jalen Williams, Alperen Sengun, Trae Young, Damian Lillard, Cade Cunningham, Darius Garland, Tyrese Maxey, Tyler Herro, Evan Mobley and Jaylen Brown are among the names who could be voted in as reserves.

The 74th NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 16 will feature a new format, complete with a mini-tournament composed of four teams and three games. Two teams will meet in a semifinal while the other two will play in another. The victors in each of those games will meet in a final. The winner of each game is the first to 40 points.

The format change means that the 10 players named starters on Thursday won’t be the only players who actually start on All-Star Sunday. The 24 players ultimately named All-Stars will be split among three eight-man teams, with the roster’s drafted by Inside the NBA’s Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley.

The draft will air on Feb. 6 on TNT. The fourth team of eight players will be made up of the winning team from the Rising Stars event.

The four teams participating in the NBA All-Star Game will compete for a prize pool of $1.8 million. Each player on the team that wins the final will receive $125,000, while members of the second-place team earn $50,000. Players on the third- and fourth-place teams will receive $25,000.

The full voting results can be found here.

Pacific Notes: Durant, Leonard, Zubac, Post, Schroder, Hield

January 23rd, 2025 at 9:41am CST by Dana Gauruder

The Suns’ pursuit of Jimmy Butler has been big news for weeks in NBA circles. They also acquired center Nick Richards last week and made a draft-pick trade with Utah this week, seemingly with an eye toward additional deals.

The best thing the Phoenix players can do is tune out all the trade chatter, Kevin Durant told Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic (Twitter link).

“It’s just a part of the game now,” Durant said. “We know it’s important. The locker room is sacred. The bus is sacred. Hotel, walkthrough, all that stuff is sacred. It’s stuff we don’t talk about. It’s a brotherhood in here, but we know the noise is going to always be going on around us. As much as we can bunker down and focus on one another, the better we are as a group.

“It’s a business, though. We understand it’s a business. Anything can happen in this business. We traded one our brothers, Josh (Okogie) to Charlotte and that happened pretty quickly. We’ve just got to focus on in one one another and keep grinding.”

We have more from the Pacific Division:

The Clippers almost defeated the Celtics without four of their starters on Wednesday. Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac all sat out, yet they took the Celtics to overtime (story via The Associated Press). Leonard sat out due to right knee injury management but he has shown flashes of his old self in recent games. He scored 19 efficient points in 24-plus minutes against the Lakers on Sunday. “I’m happy with the progress,” Leonard told Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “For me, it’s just about how I’m feeling and I’m coming out of the games feeling great. But I still got work to do and we’re going to keep taking each step.”
Zubac, who missed Wednesday’s game due to an eye injury, is averaging a career-best 15.0 points, 12.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per night. He’s been a steadying force with Leonard sidelined most of the season. “I’ve been confident in my game. I always knew what I could do. It was just not my role (previously),” Zubac told Janis Carr of the Orange County Register.
Warriors two-way player Quinten Post got some court time on Wednesday, contributing five points and six rebounds in 15 minutes, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN tweets. Coach Steve Kerr says he’ll continue to hunt opportunities to play Post, as he gives the offense a different look with his ability to help spread the floor. Kerr moved Dennis Schröder to the bench in favor of Buddy Hield, who contributed 17 points in 25 minutes. Schröder, who had started in his first 17 games since being acquired from Brooklyn, had seven points and five assists in 21 minutes. Kerr wants Schröder on the floor when Stephen Curry is getting a rest and also likes the chemistry between Curry and Hield, Youngmisuk adds in another tweet.

Pacific Notes: Green, Poole, DeRozan, Nurkic, Finney-Smith

January 22nd, 2025 at 11:00pm CST by Arthur Hill

Draymond Green offered another apology over the weekend for the punch he threw at former Warriors teammate Jordan Poole during training camp in October of 2022, but he also indicated that he wants to stop talking about the incident, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.

The latest apology came after Poole and the Wizards visited Golden State on Saturday. Asked about his relationship with his former team following a positive reception from the Bay Area crowd, Poole said he loves “most of those guys over there.” Green understood the message from Poole and posted “I really am sorry” on social media.

“I responded because it’s been three years,” Green said Wednesday on the podcast he hosts with Baron Davis. “Like, let’s move on. We’ve moved on. I really am sorry. That statement [by Poole] was kind of like it was looking for some sympathy … kind of keep on make me out to be the bad guy. Move on, bro. It is what it is. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have punched him. But it happened. Let’s move on.”

The punch marked a turning point for the Warriors, who were coming off an NBA title in 2022. They weren’t able to repair the chemistry of the team, and Poole was traded to Washington after the season.

There’s more from the Pacific Division:

DeMar DeRozan came to Sacramento to play for Mike Brown, but the Kings fired their head coach in late December. In an interview with Marc J. Spears of Andscape, DeRozan said it’s a first for him in his long NBA career. “That was the first time I ever dealt with the firing of a coach in the middle of the season,” DeRozan said. “It’s new for a lot of the guys who played for him for multiple years. It’s much different from my standpoint of still being new having to adjust to that. It’s hard to process it when you’re still going through it.”
Suns coach Mike Budenholzer doesn’t believe “benched” is the proper word to use with veteran center Jusuf Nurkic (Twitter video link from Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic). Nurkic was removed from the starting lineup on January 6 and hasn’t played since the following night. He’s currently getting back into game shape in Phoenix following a bout with the flu. “It’s a long season,” Budenholzer said. “He didn’t play a couple of games and now he’s been sick. He’s home reconditioning. We’ll see how he comes through when we go back.”
The Lakers have relaxed their minutes restriction for Dorian Finney-Smith, whose playing time has been limited by an ankle issue since he arrived in a trade with Brooklyn last month, per Khobi Price of The Orange County Register. Coach J.J. Redick talked Tuesday about the difficulty of getting Finney-Smith comfortable with his new teammates. “It’s been hard because he’s been on a minutes restriction since we got him, so just having to kind of navigate that and try to save him, save those like four or five minutes for the end of the game, it’s been challenging,” Redick said. “We got word [on Tuesday] that we can up his minutes from 20 to 24. So that helps, that helps.”

Pacific Notes: Warriors, Curry, Green, Sabonis, Beal, Nurkic

January 21st, 2025 at 8:10pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Warriors endured a 40-point beatdown at the hands of the Celtics on their home floor on Monday and they admit that the 2022 Finals, in which they defeated Boston, feels like ancient history, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN writes.

“Yeah, we have an entirely different roster pretty much, obviously,” Stephen Curry said. “Especially without Draymond [Green] out there (due to injury). But you look [at what] they have, besides [Kristaps] Porzingis, they have pretty much the whole rotation still, and they are the defending champs. So, they’re coming in with a level of confidence and swagger about ’em, and it’s the exact opposite of what we have right now. So yeah, obviously great memories, but definitely feels like a long time ago.”

“Seems like an eternity ago,” Warriors center Kevon Looney added. “We have had a lot of iterations of the team since then. Each season brings on a new challenge. That year seems further and further away. But hopefully, we can get back to that feeling of being a champion. But we got a long way to go.”

We have more from the Pacific Division:

Is it time for the Warriors to hit the reset button? Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo.com endorses that approach, saying they should look to deal Curry and Green while they still have a lot of value. O’Connor explores a number of trade possibilities involving Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, the Lakers and Orlando to demonstrate what the return could be for each player.
Domantas Sabonis has knocked down 48.4 percent of his 3-point attempts this season, far above his 34.9 percent career average. The Kings big man told Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee that he has gradually developed his long-range game. “It’s something I’ve been working on ever since I started playing basketball,” Sabonis said. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to keep doing it one summer, another offseason, another offseason. You just hope at one point you’re going to break through, and so far this year it’s been going in, so I’ve just got to keep sticking with it and shooting with confidence.”
The Suns list Bradley Beal as questionable to play against the Nets on Wednesday due to a left ankle sprain (Twitter link). Beal returned to action on Monday at Cleveland after a two-game absence but contributed just five points and four assists in 25 minutes. Jusuf Nurkic, who last played on January 7, remains out due to “return to competition reconditioning.”

Community Shootaround: Western Conference Playoff Race

January 21st, 2025 at 4:02pm CST by Luke Adams

Of the 15 teams in the Western Conference, only two are clearly focused more on the 2025 draft lottery than the 2024/25 standings. The 10-31 Jazz and 14-28 Trail Blazers don’t have realistic postseason aspirations this season, with management prioritizing the development of young players and the possibility of landing another high draft pick.

Those two teams are sandwiching the 12-32 Pelicans, who definitely didn’t expect their season to play out like this. Plagued by injuries since top offseason acquisition Dejounte Murray broke his hand on opening night, New Orleans has won its past four games but likely dug too deep a hole in the first half to seriously vie for a play-in spot this season, even if the roster gets (and stays) fully healthy.

Still, that leaves 12 teams in the hunt for eight playoff spots in the Western Conference.

We can safely pencil in the Thunder for one of those spots — and it will almost certainly be the top one. At 35-7, Mark Daigneault‘s squad has a seven-game cushion on the next-best team in the conference.

The Rockets (28-14), Grizzlies (28-15) and Nuggets (26-16) round out the current top four in the West and appear well positioned to claim playoff berths. That’s not necessarily a lock, given how competitive the conference is — a single injury could be all it takes for one of those teams to fall back to the pack. But they’re in strong positions.

After the top four, things gets interesting. Here are the current Western Conference standings from five through 12:

Los Angeles Clippers (24-18)
Los Angeles Lakers (22-18)
Dallas Mavericks (23-20)
Sacramento Kings (22-20)
Minnesota Timberwolves (22-21)
Phoenix Suns (21-21)
Golden State Warriors (21-21)
San Antonio Spurs (19-22)

These eight teams are separated by a total of 4.5 games. The gap from No. 6 to 11 is just two games. A five-game winning streak or losing streak for any of these clubs could significantly change the perception of how their season is going.

To that point, as recently as January 4, the Kings were 12th in the conference at 16-19, while the Spurs were in eighth place at 18-16. A Sacramento hot streak and a San Antonio cold spell have resulted in those two clubs swapping places in the standings just seven games later.

The Spurs are probably a little ahead of schedule in their rebuild and didn’t necessarily expect to make the postseason this year, so if they continue to slump, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for them. But the rest of the clubs listed above had serious playoff aspirations this season. The Clippers, Lakers, Mavericks, Timberwolves, Suns, and Warriors are all spending into the tax on their rosters, and the Kings aren’t far off.

Barring a major collapse from one of the top four seeds, one of these clubs (or two, if San Antonio sticks around) will finish outside the top 10, missing out not just on the playoffs but on the play-in altogether. Two more will be eliminated in the play-in tournament and will fail to clinch one of the eight playoff spots in the West.

What happens at the trade deadline could go a long way toward determining how this race plays out down the stretch, but we want to know what you’re thinking at the halfway point of the season.

Which teams do you expect to finish outside of the top 10 in the West? Which teams will be eliminated in the play-in? Which clubs besides the Thunder are the most serious contenders to represent the conference in this year’s NBA Finals?

Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!