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NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: Sacramento Kings

October 10th, 2025 at 10:05am CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the Sacramento Kings.

Free agent signings

  • Dennis Schröder: Three years, $44,427,600. Third year partially guaranteed ($4,350,000). Signed using Bird rights and acquired via sign-and-trade from Pistons.
  • Doug McDermott: One year, minimum salary. Re-signed using minimum salary exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Drew Eubanks: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Terence Davis: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Re-signed using minimum salary exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Jon Elmore: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Elmore has since been waived.
  • Jameer Nelson Jr.: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Nelson has since been waived.
  • Jaylin Williams: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Williams has since been waived.
  • Dexter Dennis: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Dennis has since been waived.

Trades

  • Acquired the draft rights to Nique Clifford (No. 24 pick) from the Thunder in exchange for the Spurs’ 2027 first-round pick (top-16 protected).
  • Acquired Dennis Schröder (sign-and-trade) and either the Pistons’, Bucks’, or Knicks’ 2029 second-round pick (whichever is least favorable) from the Pistons in exchange for the Hornets’ 2026 second-round pick (top-55 protected).
  • Acquired Dario Saric from the Nuggets in exchange for Jonas Valanciunas.

Draft picks

  • 1-24: Nique Clifford
    • Signed to rookie scale contract (four years, $15,769,801).
  • 2-42: Maxime Raynaud
    • Signed to three-year, $5,949,688 contract. First two years guaranteed. Third-year team option.

Two-way signings

  • Dylan Cardwell
    • Two years, non-guaranteed.
  • Daeqwon Plowden
    • One year, $75,000 partial guarantee.
  • Isaiah Stevens
    • Two years, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season); second year partially guaranteed for maximum two-way protection amount (will increase to 50% at start of regular season).

Departed/unsigned free agents

Other roster moves

  • Exercised team option on Keon Ellis ($2,301,587).
  • Exercised team option on Isaac Jones ($1,955,377).
  • Withdrew qualifying offer for Isaiah Crawford.
  • Waived Terence Davis (non-guaranteed contract).
    • Davis was later re-signed to a new Exhibit 10 contract.

Salary cap situation

  • Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and below the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
  • Carrying approximately $182.2MM in salary.
  • Hard-capped at $195,945,000.
  • Full non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($14,104,000) available.
  • Full bi-annual exception ($5,134,000) available.
  • Five traded player exceptions available (largest worth $4,968,600).

The offseason so far

Since winning 48 games and ending their 16-year postseason drought in 2022/23, the Kings have had a tougher go of it. They were eliminated in the play-in tournament in a competitive Western Conference in 2023/24, then fired former Coach of the Year Mike Brown after getting off to a disappointing start in ’24/25.

Interim head coach Doug Christie, who was promoted to the permanent role after the season, guided Sacramento to a winning record after taking over for Brown, but it wasn’t enough to get the team back to .500 or beyond the first game of the play-in tournament. And along the way, the Kings traded star point guard De’Aaron Fox after he made it clear he didn’t intend to sign a contract extension with the team.

In addition to locking in Christie as their full-time head coach, the Kings also named a new head of basketball operations this spring, hiring veteran executive Scott Perry to replace former general manager Monte McNair. Perry was immediately thrown into the deep end in his first offseason in the position — Sacramento entered the summer capped out, without a first-round pick in the 2025 draft, and short on valuable trade chips.

Rather than aggressively trying to reshape the Kings’ roster with limited assets at his disposal, Perry took a relatively conservative approach during his first few months on the job. In the wake of the Fox trade, Sacramento badly needed a point guard, so the new GM went out and got one of the best available options in free agency, working out a three-year deal (only the first two years are guaranteed) with Dennis Schröder. While he was technically a sign-and-trade acquisition, Schröder’s contract is equivalent to the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception.

Schröder is on his eighth team since the start of the 2021/22 season and has been up and down in recent years. In 2024/25, for instance, he got off a great start in Brooklyn, but didn’t play well during a two-month stint in Golden State and wasn’t a whole lot better down the stretch in Detroit. The 32-year-old’s production earlier in his NBA career and on the international stage for the German national team suggest he’s capable of doing far more offensively than he did in 75 games last season (13.1 PPG, .406 FG%), but the Kings won’t be expecting miracles — they just wanted a solid, high-floor veteran to fill a gaping hole on their depth chart.

Besides adding a starting point guard, one of the Kings’ other goals this summer was to get back into the first round of the draft, which they were able to do at a pretty reasonable price. Sacramento acquired the No. 24 overall pick from the Thunder in exchange for a heavily (top-16) protected Spurs 2027 first-rounder that will turn into a pair of second-rounders if it doesn’t convey in ’27.

With that 24th overall pick, the Kings drafted Nique Clifford, a five-year college player who – at age 23 – looks like one of the most NBA-ready players in this year’s rookie class. You could make a case that a team coming off a sub-.500 season should have been looking to roll the dice on a younger prospect with more upside, but trying to find a potential rotation regular is a more realistic goal at No. 24 than hoping to hit paydirt on a future star. Clifford, an All-Summer League first teamer, absolutely looks capable of playing an NBA role.

Long rumored to be a Jonathan Kuminga suitor in a potential sign-and-trade, the Kings were reportedly willing to give up some combination of Malik Monk, Devin Carter, and/or Dario Saric, plus draft assets, in various iterations of offers to the Warriors. And while moving Zach LaVine was essentially a non-starter due to the size of his contract, DeMar DeRozan was also considered a possible offseason trade candidate.

However, Golden State wasn’t moved by Sacramento’s offers for Kuminga, and the Kings didn’t end up working out any other significant deals on the trade market besides their moves for Clifford and Schröder. The only other trade the front office made was a one-for-one swap of Jonas Valanciunas for Saric.

The Kings’ handling of Valanciunas was an example of what happens when a new head of basketball operations with his own ideas about what the roster should look like replaces one that was taking swings in the hopes of saving his job a few months earlier. After giving up two second-rounders to acquire Valanciunas in February, Sacramento traded him for a player who played just 210 total minutes last season and wasn’t effective in his limited role.

Saric is a possible bounce-back candidate and the trade was more about finances than on-court value — swapping out Valanciunas’ $10.4MM salary for Saric’s $5.4MM cap hit ensured the Kings were able to stay under the tax line.

Still, it resulted in a downgrade at the center spot behind Domantas Sabonis, where Saric, Drew Eubanks, and second-round pick Maxime Raynaud are in the mix as potential backups, and it may have been a missed opportunity for the Kings. After they agreed to that trade with Denver, word broke that Valanciunas wanted to return to Europe to play for Panathinaikos. If Sacramento had held onto the veteran center, perhaps the front office could’ve negotiated a buyout that would’ve removed most or all of his cap hit from its books and allowed the team to add a free agent with more value than Saric.

The rest of the Kings’ offseason moves were minor ones. Eubanks and sharpshooter Doug McDermott signed minimum-salary contracts, while Keon Ellis and Isaac Jones had their minimum-salary team options exercised. In general, the summer feels like it could be a prelude to more substantial roster changes in Sacramento, especially if the club continues to hover around or below .500 in 2025/26.

Up next

The Kings currently have 13 players on standard guaranteed contracts, plus Ellis on a non-guaranteed deal. That leaves one opening on the projected 15-man regular season roster. Terence Davis, who has played for Sacramento off and on since 2021 and is in camp on a non-guaranteed contract, could be the best candidate to fill it.

Still, I won’t be surprised if Davis is waived at the end of the preseason. The Kings don’t have a ton of wiggle room below the luxury tax line, so they may want to maintain the extra cap and roster flexibility that would come with leaving that 15th spot open for now.

It’s also worth noting that Russell Westbrook has been linked to Sacramento since the start of free agency and remains a candidate to end up with the team. I’ve gotten the sense that the Kings would need a clear-cut role – not just an open roster spot – to bring Westbrook aboard, so unless they trade one of their guards after having hung onto Monk and Carter through the offseason, a deal with the former MVP may not be in the cards.

Potential contract extensions for two of the Kings’ most promising young players – former No. 4 overall pick Keegan Murray and defensive stalwart Ellis – are probably more pressing issues in Sacramento than back-of-the-roster machinations. The team has until October 20 to work out a new deal with Murray, whereas Ellis will remain extension-eligible all season. Finding the right price point will be challenging in both cases.

Murray showed a ton of promise as a rookie in 2022/23, averaging 12.2 points per game and making 41.1% of his three-pointers, and he has improved defensively since then. However, his offensive numbers have stagnated — his shooting percentages of 44.4% from the field and 34.3% on three-pointers last season were career lows, as were his 13.0 points per 36 minutes. In order to invest heavily in Murray at this point, the Kings would have to be pretty confident in his ability to take another significant step forward within the next couple years.

As for Ellis, the former undrafted free agent has shown he’s capable of providing a little value offensively after initially establishing himself as a reliable point-of-attack defender. His 8.3 points per game and 43.3% three-point mark last season were career highs. Still, he can’t realistically be relied upon as a go-to play-maker or volume shooter, so the Kings will have to decide just how highly they value his defensive contributions.

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2025/26 NBA Over/Unders: Pacific Division

October 7th, 2025 at 11:45am CST by Luke Adams

With the 2025/26 NBA regular season tipping off later this month, we’re getting serious about predictions for the upcoming campaign and continuing an annual Hoops Rumors tradition.

With the help of the lines from a series of sports betting sites – including BetMGM and BetOnline – we’re running through the predicted win totals for each of the NBA’s 30 teams, by division. In a series of team-by-team polls, you’ll get the chance to weigh in on whether you think those forecasts are too optimistic or too pessimistic.

In 2024/25, our voters went 13-17 on their over/under picks. Can we top that in ’25/26?

We’ll continue our series today with the Pacific Division…

Los Angeles Clippers

Los Angeles Lakers

Golden State Warriors

Sacramento Kings

Phoenix Suns

Previous voting results:

Atlantic

  • New York Knicks (53.5 wins): Over (63.2%)
  • Boston Celtics (42.5 wins): Over (52.7%)
  • Philadelphia 76ers (42.5 wins): Under (58.7%)
  • Toronto Raptors (37.5 wins): Over (50.2%)
  • Brooklyn Nets (20.5 wins): Over (54.4%)

Central

  • Cleveland Cavaliers (56.5 wins): Over (58.0%)
  • Detroit Pistons (46.5 wins): Over (60.5%)
  • Milwaukee Bucks (42.5 wins): Over (74.4%)
  • Indiana Pacers (37.5 wins): Over (50.1%)
  • Chicago Bulls (32.5 wins): Over (60.8%)

Northwest

  • Oklahoma City Thunder (62.5 wins): Over (62.9%)
  • Denver Nuggets (53.5 wins): Over (72.1%)
  • Minnesota Timberwolves (49.5 wins): Over (58.7%)
  • Portland Trail Blazers (34.5 wins): Over (57.1%)
  • Utah Jazz (18.5 wins): Over (55.3%).
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NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: Philadelphia 76ers

October 6th, 2025 at 1:56pm CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the Philadelphia 76ers.

Free agent signings

  • Quentin Grimes: One year, $8,741,209. Re-signed using Bird rights. Accepted qualifying offer.
  • Justin Edwards: Three years, $7,076,338. Third-year team option. Re-signed using Non-Bird rights.
  • Trendon Watford: Two years, minimum salary. Second-year team option. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Eric Gordon: One year, minimum salary. Re-signed using minimum salary exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Kyle Lowry: One year, minimum salary. Re-signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Emoni Bates: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Kennedy Chandler: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Malcolm Hill: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Igor Milicic: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Saint Thomas: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Marcus Bagley: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Bagley has since been waived.
  • Jaylen Martin: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
    • Note: Martin has since been waived.

Trades

  • None

Draft picks

  • 1-3: VJ Edgecombe
    • Signed to rookie scale contract (four years, $50,438,478).
  • 2-35: Johni Broome
    • Signed to four-year, $8,685,386 contract. First two years guaranteed. Third year non-guaranteed. Fourth-year team option.

Two-way signings

  • Dominick Barlow
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).
  • Hunter Sallis
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).
  • Jabari Walker
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).

Departed/unsigned free agents

Other roster moves

Salary cap situation

  • Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and above the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
  • Carrying approximately $194.6MM in salary.
  • No hard cap.
  • Full non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($14,104,000) available.
  • Full bi-annual exception ($5,134,000) available.
  • Three traded player exceptions available (largest worth $7,975,000).

The offseason so far

Coming off a massively disappointing year in which the Sixers entered the season as one of the NBA’s title favorites and finished with a 24-58 record, there was some speculation entering the 2025 offseason that the team might look to shake up its roster. President of basketball operations Daryl Morey has never been shy about taking big swings on the trade market, and stars Joel Embiid and Paul George – who combined to make 60 appearances in 2024/25 – suddenly looked like major liabilities on their long-term maximum-salary contracts.

But the reasons the Sixers might have sought to move Embiid and/or George – age, health, and cap concerns – were the same reasons why there was no chance they’d be able to get fair value on the trade market for either player. Even if the club wanted to hit the reset button, it would mean giving up those two stars for pennies on the dollar, perhaps even having to attach assets to get a return of any real value for them.

So instead of a summer of change in Philadelphia, it was one of relative continuity. Neither Morey nor head coach Nick Nurse lost his job after last season’s 24-win showing. Embiid and George didn’t go anywhere. Potential free agents like Kelly Oubre Jr., Eric Gordon, Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, and Justin Edwards all either signed new contracts with the 76ers or picked up player options to return to the team.

Even Quentin Grimes‘ restricted free agency – which lasted a full three months and went all the way down to the wire on October 1, the deadline for him to accept his $8.74MM qualifying offer – ended in anticlimactic fashion, as Grimes ultimately did sign that QO. The Sixers reportedly weren’t very aggressive in their efforts to work out a longer-term agreement with the 25-year-old — their best offer to Grimes was said to be for about $39MM over four years, which was never going to get it done after he finished the season by averaging 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game in 28 outings for Philadelphia.

I was a little surprised that the Sixers didn’t try harder to avoid a scenario in which Grimes signed his qualifying offer, which gives him a no-trade clause for the season and lines him up for unrestricted free agency in 2026. But it seems like there were a couple primary reasons why the front office didn’t make it a priority to sign him to a multiyear contract.

For one, after they lucked out in the draft lottery by moving up to No. 3 and hanging onto their top-six protected first-round pick, the 76ers selected standout Baylor guard VJ Edgecombe, adding him to a backcourt that already features Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain. Theoretically, Grimes can share the court with multiple guards, but at 6’4″, he’s a better fit at the two himself. Philadelphia’s front office may have felt that investing heavily in another guard didn’t make sense when Maxey, McCain, and Edgecombe project to be the club’s top options in the backcourt for years to come.

Getting Grimes back on the qualifying offer is also the most favorable outcome for Philadelphia’s 2025/26 cap, since any multiyear deal or one-year balloon offer would have started higher – and perhaps much higher – than $8.74MM. With that modest figure on their books, the Sixers are operating less than $7MM above the luxury tax line, giving them a potential path to duck below that threshold before the end of the season. Sending out Oubre at the trade deadline and replacing him with a free agent on a prorated minimum-salary contract would do the trick, for example.

You can certainly argue that maintaining the flexibility to get out of the tax shouldn’t be a top priority for a 76ers team that still ostensibly believes it can be a contender. But after the way last season played out, it’s understandable that ownership would want to see how the first two or three months of the season go before deciding whether it’s worth paying luxury tax penalties for this roster.

The Edgecombe pick and Grimes accepting his qualifying offer were the most significant developments of the Sixers’ offseason, but it’s worth highlighting the three-year deal they did with Edwards and the two-year contract they worked out with Trendon Watford, both of which are worth the minimum and feature a team option on the final season.

Edwards was effective in a limited role as a rookie last season, while Watford has been a somewhat underrated role player in Portland and Brooklyn in recent years. It wouldn’t be a shock if one or both of them earn regular minutes in the forward rotation for Philadelphia, and given the modest cost of their respective contracts, they won’t have to do a whole lot to justify the team’s investment.

Finally, while most of the Sixers’ departing free agents weren’t rotation players, the one notable exception was Guerschon Yabusele, one of last season’s most pleasant surprises in his first NBA season since 2018/19. Philadelphia reportedly only offered Yabusele a Non-Bird deal that would have started at 120% of his minimum salary.

Increasing that offer would have required using the taxpayer mid-level exception, which would’ve hard-capped the 76ers at the second tax apron and put them at risk of losing Grimes to an offer sheet. Even then, there’s no guarantee Yabusele would’ve taken Philadelphia’s offer over a similar one from the Knicks that was worth nearly the full taxpayer MLE. Losing Yabusele was unfortunate, but unless the club was OK with losing Grimes instead or had been able to shed salary elsewhere on the roster, it was an outcome that was hard to avoid.

Up next

The Sixers are carrying just 14 players on standard contracts, but as we established above, they’re wary of going too much deeper into tax territory, so they’ll likely leave that 15th spot open to start the regular season.

In two-way players Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow, Philadelphia is carrying a pair of three-year veterans with 288 combined regular season appearances between them, which will help make up for the lack of a 15th man — either of those guys could play 10 or 15 minutes off the bench if needed. Undrafted rookie Hunter Sallis, the third Sixer on a two-way contract, is less likely to see action at the NBA level immediately.

Gordon and Drummond have been rumored as trade candidates throughout the offseason, but if a deal involving one of them goes down, it’s probably more likely to happen closer to the trade deadline. The emergence of second-year big man Adem Bona will be an interesting development to keep an eye on. If he emerges as a reliable backup center and Embiid can stay relatively healthy (a big if), Drummond would become more expendable.

Assuming the Sixers don’t make any preseason trades or unexpected roster changes, it should be a relatively quiet couple weeks in Philadelphia, since the team doesn’t have any extension-eligible players on its roster.

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NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: Memphis Grizzlies

October 5th, 2025 at 3:58pm CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the Memphis Grizzlies.

Free agent signings

  • Santi Aldama: Three years, $52,500,000. Third-year team option. Re-signed using Bird rights.
  • Ty Jerome: Three years, $27,660,150. Third-year player option. Trade kicker (15%). Signed using room exception.
  • Cam Spencer: Four years, $10,396,518. Fourth-year team option. Re-signed using cap room.
  • Jock Landale: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Tyler Burton: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Braxton Key: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Lawson Lovering: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.

Trades

  • Acquired Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, the No. 16 pick in the 2025 draft, the Magic’s 2026 first-round pick (with swap rights; details below), the Magic’s 2028 first-round pick, the Magic’s 2030 first-round pick, and the right to swap first-round picks with the Magic in 2029 (top-two protected) from the Magic in exchange for Desmond Bane.
    • Note: The Grizzlies will have the ability to swap the Magic’s 2026 first-round pick for the Suns’ 2026 pick (if the Wizards’ first-rounder lands outside of the top eight) or for the least favorable of the Suns’ and Wizards’ 2026 picks (if the Wizards’ first-rounder lands in the top eight).
    • Note: Anthony was subsequently bought out.
  • Acquired the draft rights to Cedric Coward (No. 11 pick) from the Trail Blazers in exchange for the draft rights to Yang Hansen (No. 16 pick), the Magic’s 2028 first-round pick, the Hawks’ 2027 second-round pick, and the Kings’ 2028 second-round pick.
  • Acquired the Trail Blazers’ 2029 second-round pick and the right to swap their 2031 second-round pick for either the Pacers’ or Heat’s 2031 second-round pick (whichever is least favorable) from the Pacers in exchange for Jay Huff.
  • Acquired the draft rights to Jahmai Mashack (No. 59 pick), the Warriors’ 2032 second-round pick (top-50 protected), and the draft rights to Justinian Jessup from the Warriors in exchange for the draft rights to Will Richard (No. 56 pick).

Draft picks

Two-way signings

  • PJ Hall
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).
  • Olivier-Maxence Prosper
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).
  • Javon Small
    • Two years, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season); second year partially guaranteed for maximum two-way protection amount (will increase to 50% at start of regular season).

Departed/unsigned free agents

Other roster moves

  • Renegotiated Jaren Jackson Jr.‘s 2025/26 salary (from $23,413,395 to $35,000,000) and gave him a four-year, $205,000,000 veteran contract extension that begins in 2026/27. Includes fourth-year player option.
  • Bought out and stretched Cole Anthony (gave up $2,000,000 of $13,100,000 salary).
  • Waived Zyon Pullin (two-way contract).

Salary cap situation

  • Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and below the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
  • Carrying approximately $171.5MM in salary.
  • Hard-capped at $195,945,000.

The offseason so far

It has been a fascinating few years in Memphis, where the Grizzlies looked like one of the NBA’s best up-and-coming young teams as they won 56 games in 2021/22 and 51 more a year later. Ja Morant‘s off-court behavior and a series of injuries derailed the 2023/24 season, but the team seemed well on its way to picking up where it left off in ’24/25, running out to a 35-16 start and holding the No. 2 seed in the West at the trade deadline.

However, a 13-18 finish resulted in a late-season coaching change – Tuomas Iisalo replaced Taylor Jenkins – and some pretty significant offseason roster moves, creating some uncertainty about what exactly this team’s ceiling looks like going forward.

Let’s start with what, in some ways, was the most important decision of the Grizzlies’ offseason — with former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr. entering a contract year and Memphis unable to offer him a market-value deal via a standard veteran extension, the team opted to dip under the cap in order to renegotiate his contract. Using that newly created cap room, the team was able to give Jackson an immediate raise of nearly $12MM for 2025/26, then extend him off his new $35MM salary. The end result was nearly $217MM in new money for Jackson, who is now locked up through at least the 2028/29 season, with a player option for ’29/30.

The Grizzlies made it clear with their actions that Jackson is one of the cornerstones they intend to build around for years to come. And they essentially confirmed that Morant – despite some poor off-court decisions a couple years ago and some nagging health issues since then – still falls into that category as well when they dealt Desmond Bane to Orlando in one of the biggest trades of the NBA offseason.

As I observed when I previewed Memphis’ offseason in early June, as good as Bane is, he had become a logical trade candidate as long as he was the third-most important player on this roster. His near-max deal was going to make it difficult for the Grizzlies to build a quality supporting cast around Morant and Jackson, especially with Jackson and some of the team’s younger players about to get more expensive.

I suggested at the time that it might make sense from a roster-building perspective for the Grizzlies to split up Bane’s salary slot into two or three players, which is essentially what the team did. The package Memphis got from the Magic was heavy on draft picks, and one of the two players sent to the Grizzlies in the trade (Cole Anthony) was bought out a few weeks later. But Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a logical (albeit older and less dynamic) replacement for Bane in the lineup, and the Grizzlies used a couple of the first-round picks they acquired from Orlando to trade up in this June’s draft to nab forward Cedric Coward.

It’s a major roll of the dice for the Grizzlies, who paid a significant price (an unprotected future first-rounder and two second-rounders) to move up from No. 16 to No. 11 for Coward after he was limited to just six games in his senior college season due to a shoulder injury.

Coward, who spent his freshman year at Willamette University in Oregon and then played two seasons for Eastern Washington before transferring to Washington State, didn’t have a huge body of work against high-level college competition, but he was reportedly a standout during the pre-draft process — and, at age 22, he could be more ready than most first-rounders to contribute right away at the NBA level.

It would be misguided to believe that Coward is capable of immediately giving the Grizzlies what last year’s version of Bane did, but the front office clearly has high hopes for what the rookie can become. He’ll also be on a very team-friendly contract for at least the next four seasons, giving the team the flexibility to invest more heavily in some other role players who will complement Morant and Jackson.

One of those players is big man Santi Aldama, a notable 2025 restricted free agent who didn’t have to wait multiple months for a new deal. The Grizzlies and Aldama agreed to terms early in the summer on a three-year, $52.5MM contract that includes a third-year team option. It looks like a pretty good arrangement for both sides after Aldama enjoyed the best season of his career in 2025/26. He gets a nice payday after earning just $10.2MM in his first four NBA seasons, while Memphis has an out after just two years in case the 24-year-old doesn’t continue improving.

The Grizzlies also worked out a new multiyear agreement with Cam Spencer, who spent his rookie season on a two-way contract with the club. Spencer’s numbers – 4.2 points and 1.4 assists per game in 25 appearances – certainly don’t jump off the page, but he gave Memphis solid minutes when given the opportunity, and the front office hasn’t been shy about investing in longer-term, team-friendly deals for young players who show some promise. Spencer’s new four-year contract is fully guaranteed for three years, but is worth just $10.4MM overall, so it’s quite low-risk.

With Jackson and Spencer signed using cap room and Aldama’s Bird rights used to eventually complete his deal, the Grizzlies had the opportunity to use the $8.78MM room exception to go shopping for an outside free agent. They ultimately used that entire exception to land Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome, signing him to a three-year, $27.66MM contract. While the deal includes player-friendly terms like a third-year player option and a 15% trade kicker, it’s still a nice get for Memphis, given that Jerome was widely viewed as a strong candidate for a mid-level type contract in the neighborhood of $12-14MM per year.

The combined cap hits for Jerome, Caldwell-Pope, and Coward in 2025/26 are almost exactly equivalent to what Bane will earn in Orlando, and the Grizzlies will hope that the various skills those three players bring to the table can help fill the significant hole created by Bane’s exit. Jerome has his limitations, especially on the defensive end, but he showed last season that he can be a valuable scorer, shooter, and secondary play-maker.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting one more minor move made by the Grizzlies. As part of their efforts to clear cap room for Jackson’s renegotiation, they sent center Jay Huff to Indiana in exchange for a second-round pick and a second-round swap. Huff, a rim-protecting big man who can stretch the floor on offense, had flashed some upside in limited minutes in Memphis and could be primed for a larger role in Indiana.

While I certainly don’t expect Huff to become a star, it’s possible that move could backfire to some extent on a Grizzlies team that will likely start the season without Jackson, Zach Edey, and Brandon Clarke available in the frontcourt due to injuries. Minimum-salary free agent addition Jock Landale took Huff’s spot on the roster and could become the team’s opening night starting center by default.

Up next

The Grizzlies have 15 players on guaranteed salaries and three on two-way deals, so their regular season roster looks pretty much set. Two-way moves are always a possibility during the preseason, but Javon Small was a 2025 second-round pick who signed a two-year contract, Olivier-Maxence Prosper is a former first-rounder who could play his way into Memphis’ rotation, and PJ Hall could provide valuable frontcourt depth early in the season until the Grizzlies gets healthier.

As for potential preseason contract extensions, the Grizzlies have no players eligible for rookie scale extensions, but there are a few who could theoretically get veteran deals, starting with Morant.

While I do view the Bane trade as a vote of confidence in Morant, I’d be shocked if an extension happened this year. The former No. 2 overall pick is coming off a down year and still has three seasons left on his current deal. If the coming season goes well, the two sides could open negotiations in earnest during the 2026 offseason.

Clarke and John Konchar are also extension-eligible until October 20, but neither one looks like a legitimate extension candidate at this point. Clarke just underwent a procedure on his knee, while Konchar’s role declined significantly last season. Both players have two years left on their current contracts and seem more likely to be traded than extended at this point — that could change if they play well in 2025/26.

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Seven NBA Two-Way Contract Slots Currently Open

October 5th, 2025 at 12:26pm CST by Luke Adams

While most of the NBA’s 30 teams filled all three of their two-way contract slots before training camps tipped off, there are still seven teams carrying just a pair of players on two-way deals, leaving one two-way slot open on their respective rosters, as our tracker shows.

Those teams are as follows:

  • Brooklyn Nets
  • Cleveland Cavaliers
  • Dallas Mavericks
  • Miami Heat
  • Oklahoma City Thunder
  • Orlando Magic
  • Portland Trail Blazers

The majority of the players around the league who are in camp with teams on Exhibit 10 deals will ultimately end up with those clubs’ G League affiliates, but there’s an opportunity for the Exhibit 10 signees on those seven teams listed above to earn an 18-man roster spot entering the regular season.

Exhibit 10 contracts can be converted into two-way deals before the season begins, so several of those clubs are in the process of essentially holding an open competition for that last two-way slot. Besides the Nets (Fanbo Zeng) and Mavericks (Moussa Cisse; Matthew Cleveland), the rest of those teams have at least four players in camp on Exhibit 10 deals.

Not every player who is on an Exhibit 10 contract can have it converted to a two-way deal in the next couple weeks. For instance, while the Cavaliers have Killian Hayes, Chaney Johnson, Miller Kopp, Norchad Omier, and Tristan Enaruna in camp on Exhibit 10 deals, only the latter four are candidates for two-way conversions — Hayes already has five years of NBA service and is ineligible to have his contract converted. A player is only eligible to receive a two-way contract if this would be his first, second, third, or fourth NBA season.

[RELATED: 2025/26 Non-Guaranteed Contracts By Team]

Although many of these seven teams will likely reward one of their standout camp invitees with a promotion to a two-way contracts, that’s not necessarily how all of them will fill their remaining opening. When teams make roster cuts later in the preseason, some intriguing two-way targets will shake loose on waivers and in free agency, so these clubs could turn to the open market to address their third two-way slot.

Even teams that already have their three two-way slots filled could end up making changes between now and opening night, which would result in some current two-way players being waived, creating more potential targets for the teams with open slots.

A player on a two-way contract is eligible to be active for up to 50 NBA regular season games and can earn up to $636,435 (half the rookie minimum) if he remains under contract through at least January 7. Teams can continue swapping players on and off on two-way contracts until March 4. You can learn more about two-way deals in our glossary entry.

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Oldest, Youngest Players On NBA Rosters For 2025/26

October 5th, 2025 at 8:24am CST by Luke Adams

For a third straight fall, Lakers star LeBron James will enter the NBA season as the league’s oldest player.

James will turn 41 before the calendar year is over, but he’s not the only NBA player in his 40s like he was a year ago. His good friend Chris Paul, the NBA’s second-oldest player, turned 40 in May, and veteran point guard Kyle Lowry will join that club later in the season — he turns 40 in March.

It’s safe to say that not every player on the list of the NBA’s 10 oldest players will provide the level of production that James – or even Paul – will in 2025/26. Garrett Temple and Joe Ingles are among the players in that group who have transitioned to the “veteran leader” stage of their careers and will likely see limited action this season.

Still, it’s worth noting that Stephen Curry has cracked the list of the NBA’s oldest 10 players for the first time and continues to play at an All-NBA level, while Kevin Durant just missed making the cut (he’s currently the NBA’s 12th-oldest player) and is still putting up gaudy numbers as well.

Before we share the full list, we should also acknowledge that it’s subject to change. A few of the veterans who were on this list a year ago – P.J. Tucker, Taj Gibson, and James Johnson – remain unsigned, but it’s possible they’ll find new NBA homes in the coming days or weeks.

For now, here’s the list of the oldest players in the league heading into the 2025/26 NBA season:

  1. LeBron James, Lakers (born 12/30/1984)
  2. Chris Paul, Clippers (born 5/6/1985)
  3. Kyle Lowry, Sixers (born 3/25/1986)
  4. Garrett Temple, Raptors (born 5/8/1986)
  5. Al Horford, Warriors (born 6/3/1986)
  6. Jeff Green, Rockets (born 8/28/1986)
  7. Joe Ingles, Timberwolves (born 10/2/1987)
  8. Mike Conley, Timberwolves (born 10/11/1987)
  9. Stephen Curry, Warriors (born 3/14/1988)
  10. Brook Lopez, Clippers (born 4/1/1988)

It comes as no surprise that the Clippers and Warriors – the two oldest teams in the league – have multiple players on this list. Beyond these 10 veterans, there are only seven more active NBA players who were born in the 1980s, and three of them are either members of the Clippers or Warriors: Nicolas Batum, James Harden, and Jimmy Butler.

The Timberwolves are the only other club with multiple players among the NBA’s oldest, but Minnesota balances that out by being one of just two teams with a pair of players on the list of the league’s 10 youngest active players, joining the rebuilding Nets. Brooklyn actually just narrowly missed out on having three players in that top 10, with Egor Demin coming in at No. 11.

Here are the 10 youngest players currently on NBA rosters, each of whom was a 2025 draft pick:

  1. Cooper Flagg, Mavericks (born 12/21/2006)
  2. Noa Essengue, Bulls (born 12/18/2006)
  3. Joan Beringer, Timberwolves (born 11/6/2006)
  4. Jeremiah Fears, Pelicans (born 10/14/2006)
  5. Khaman Maluach, Suns (born 9/14/2006)
  6. Ace Bailey, Jazz (born 8/13/2006)
  7. Rocco Zikarsky, Timberwolves (born 7/11/2006)
    • Note: Zikarsky is on a two-way contract.
  8. Kasparas Jakucionis, Heat (born 5/29/2006)
  9. Nolan Traore, Nets (born 5/28/2006)
  10. Ben Saraf, Nets (born 4/14/2006)

Flagg accomplishes the rare feat of entering the NBA as the league’s youngest player after after being selected first overall in the draft. He won’t turn 19 until two months into the regular season. No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper nearly joined him in this top 10, but his March 2, 2006 birth date wasn’t quite recent enough to make the cut.

Outside of the Timberwolves and Mavericks, the NBA’s rebuilding or retooling teams are fairly well represented on this list. One notable exception is the Wizards, who would have multiple players mentioned here if we expanded to a top 15 — Tre Johnson was born on March 7, 2006, while Will Riley was born about a month earlier, on February 10.

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NBA Roster, Contract Deadlines To Watch In October

October 3rd, 2025 at 1:46pm CST by Luke Adams

After a couple relatively quiet months around the NBA, October is full of important deadlines for roster and contract decisions. Here’s our round-up of the dates to keep an eye on this month:

Regular season roster decisions

The 2025/26 regular season tips off on Tuesday, October 21, which means teams must set their rosters for the season by 4:00 pm Central time on Monday, October 20. To be in accordance with regular season roster limits, a team must be carrying no more than 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals.

While teams have until Oct. 20 to set their regular season rosters, many clubs will make their final cuts on or before Saturday, October 18. That’s the final day that a team can waive a player on a non-guaranteed contract and avoid paying any of his salary.

[RELATED: 2025/26 Non-Guaranteed Contracts By Team]

Because a player gets paid for the time he spends on waivers, a player who is cut on Monday, Oct. 20 wouldn’t clear waivers until Wednesday, Oct. 22, the second day of the regular season. That means that even if his contract is non-guaranteed, he’d earn two days’ worth of his salary.

Teams who intend to waive players with partially or fully guaranteed salaries are in better position to wait until the Monday before the regular season begins. For instance, if the Nets decide to cut Jalen Wilson, who has an $88,075 partial guarantee, it wouldn’t matter if they do so on October 20 or 22 — he’d receive his $88,075 either way.

However, if the Nets want to waive Tyrese Martin, whose salary is entirely non-guaranteed, they’d likely do so on the Saturday. Waiting until the Monday would mean paying him $25,194 (2/174ths of his $2,191,897 salary).

Two-way contract conversions

A player on an Exhibit 10 contract can have his deal converted into a two-way contract, but only up until Monday, October 20, the day before the regular season begins.

If a player on an Exhibit 10 contract remains on his team’s roster through that Monday without being converted to a two-way, his Exhibit 10 deal would become a standard non-guaranteed contract.

Since most players on Exhibit 10 contracts will be waived on or before October 18, it’s worth keeping tabs on which of them hang onto their roster spots through that Saturday — those players will be good bets to have their deals converted into two-ways or perhaps even to claim a 15-man roster spot.

Contract extensions

The deadline for a player to sign a rookie scale extension is Monday, October 20 at 5:00 pm Central time.

As of Friday, five of the 22 players who were eligible for a rookie scale extension entering the offseason have signed or agreed to one, while a sixth was waived, leaving 16 players who still may be seeking new deals that would keep them off the 2026 free agent market.

Hawks guard Dyson Daniels, Nuggets guard Christian Braun, Pistons teammates Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey, and Kings forward Keegan Murray are among the notable rookie scale extension candidates to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

It seems like a safe bet that a few more players eligible for rookie scale extensions will sign them — in each of the past four offseasons (2021 through 2024), at least 11 players have done so.

As for veteran extension candidates, a player who is extension-eligible and who is in the final year of his current contract can sign an extension at any time before or after the regular season begins, all the way up until June 30, 2026.

However, a player who is eligible for a veteran extension but who is not in a contract year will only be eligible to sign a new deal up until Monday, October 20.

For instance, Rockets forward Kevin Durant would remain eligible to sign a veteran extension even after the regular season begins, since he’s in the last year of his current contract. But Heat guard Tyler Herro, who has two guaranteed years left, can only sign an extension up until Oct. 20. After that, he’ll become ineligible to sign a new deal until next summer.

An extension-eligible veteran who holds an option for 2026/27 will remain extension-eligible after the season begins as long as his option is declined as part of any extension agreement, with his new contract replacing the option. A player like Hawks guard Trae Young would fall under this umbrella, since his current deal includes a player option for ’26/27.

Salary guarantee dates

The league-wide salary guarantee date to watch is January 7, 2026. A player on a non-guaranteed contract who isn’t waived by that date and doesn’t clear waivers before January 10 will have his 2025/26 salary become fully guaranteed.

However, certain players have contracts that call for them to receive partial or full guarantees at the start of the regular season. Our list of early salary guarantee dates shows which players fall into that boat, with Sixers big man Adem Bona, Bucks guard Andre Jackson Jr., and Hornets center Moussa Diabate among the candidates to have their salaries for this season become fully guaranteed.

Rookie scale team option decisions

A team that wants to exercise its 2026/27 third- or fourth-year option on a player on a rookie contract must do so on or before Friday, October 31.

As our tracker shows, the Bulls, Heat, and Suns have already made their option decisions, while the Bucks don’t have any to make. But the NBA’s other 26 teams will have to pick up or turn down those rookie scale team options for ’26/27 within the next four weeks.

A team that retains a player without exercising his 2026/27 option would put that player on track for unrestricted free agency next offseason. At that point, his team wouldn’t be able to offer him a salary higher than what his option would have been worth, though rival suitors could offer him more than that.

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2025/26 NBA Over/Unders: Central Division

October 3rd, 2025 at 11:20am CST by Luke Adams

With the 2025/26 NBA regular season tipping off later this month, we’re getting serious about predictions for the upcoming campaign and continuing an annual Hoops Rumors tradition.

With the help of the lines from a series of sports betting sites – including BetMGM and BetOnline – we’re running through the predicted win totals for each of the NBA’s 30 teams, by division. In a series of team-by-team polls, you’ll get the chance to weigh in on whether you think those forecasts are too optimistic or too pessimistic.

In 2024/25, our voters went 13-17 on their over/under picks. Can we top that in ’25/26?

We’ll continue our series today with the Central Division…

Cleveland Cavaliers

Detroit Pistons

Milwaukee Bucks

Indiana Pacers

Chicago Bulls

Previous voting results:

Atlantic

  • New York Knicks (53.5 wins): Over (63.2%)
  • Boston Celtics (42.5 wins): Over (52.7%)
  • Philadelphia 76ers (42.5 wins): Under (58.7%)
  • Toronto Raptors (37.5 wins): Over (50.2%)
  • Brooklyn Nets (20.5 wins): Over (54.4%)

Northwest

  • Oklahoma City Thunder (62.5 wins): Over (62.9%)
  • Denver Nuggets (53.5 wins): Over (72.1%)
  • Minnesota Timberwolves (49.5 wins): Over (58.7%)
  • Portland Trail Blazers (34.5 wins): Over (57.1%)
  • Utah Jazz (18.5 wins): Over (55.3%).
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NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: Milwaukee Bucks

October 1st, 2025 at 3:48pm CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the Milwaukee Bucks.

Free agent signings

  • Myles Turner: Four years, $108,868,482. Fourth-year player option. Trade kicker (15%). Signed using cap room.
  • Bobby Portis: Three years, $43,564,242. Third-year player option. Re-signed using Bird rights.
  • Ryan Rollins: Three years, $12,000,000. Third-year player option. Re-signed using Early Bird rights.
  • Kevin Porter Jr.: Two years, $10,524,700. Second-year player option. Re-signed using room exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Gary Trent Jr.: Two years, $7,579,065. Second-year player option. Re-signed using Non-Bird rights. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Gary Harris: Two years, minimum salary. Second-year player option. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Taurean Prince: Two years, minimum salary. Second-year player option. Re-signed using minimum salary exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Jericho Sims: Two years, minimum salary. Second-year player option. Re-signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Thanasis Antetokounmpo: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Cole Anthony: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Chris Livingston: One year, minimum salary. Re-signed using minimum salary exception. Waived right to veto trade.
  • Amir Coffey: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 9). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Cormac Ryan: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.

Trades

  • Acquired Vasilije Micic from the Hornets in exchange for Pat Connaughton, the Bucks’ 2031 second-round pick, and the Bucks’ 2032 second-round pick.
    • Note: Micic was subsequently bought out.

Draft picks

Two-way signings

Note: The Bucks carried over Jamaree Bouyea and Pete Nance on two-way contracts from 2024/25

Departed/unsigned free agents

Other roster moves

  • Waived and stretched Damian Lillard ($112,583,016 guaranteed salary over two years)
  • Bought out and stretched Vasilije Micic (gave up $6,109,150 of $8,109,150 salary).

Salary cap situation

  • Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and below the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
  • Carrying approximately $174.1MM in salary.
  • No hard cap.
  • Portion of room exception ($3,647,000) available.

The offseason so far

NBA free agency has lost some of its luster in recent years, with many of the league’s best players agreeing to extensions well before they hit the open market, while most of the top players who do become free agents simply signing new contracts with their current teams. This offseason, for example, nine of the top 10 free agents on our top-50 list re-signed with their previous clubs.

The one exception in that top 10? Longtime Pacers center Myles Turner, who left Indiana after a decade with the franchise to sign a four-year contract with the rival Bucks.

Turner’s deal with the Bucks was one of the only truly shocking developments of NBA free agency. The veteran big man had been widely expected to stick with the Pacers after they got within one win of a championship, while Milwaukee entered the offseason operating well over the cap and not particularly well positioned to pursue a top free agent.

But the Bucks’ front office had plenty of reason to be bold this summer. The team had just been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for a third straight year, and star point guard Damian Lillard suffered an Achilles tear in the postseason that would almost certainly sideline him for the entire 2025/26 season. Given that Giannis Antetokounmpo had spoke openly in the past about wanting to make sure he can keep legitimately competing for titles, Milwaukee couldn’t afford to essentially waste another year of the star forward’s prime waiting for Lillard to return.

Trading Lillard would have been an option for the Bucks, but with two years and $112.6MM left on his contract, the 35-year-old would have had limited trade value even if he were fully healthy — recovering from an Achilles tear, he was very much a negative asset, meaning that even if Milwaukee attached its lone tradable first-round pick (either 2031 or 2032) to him, acquiring an impact player for Lillard would have been a very tall order.

Lillard’s diminished value – combined with the fact that working out a sign-and-trade with a division rival for Turner would’ve been difficult, if not impossible – spurred the Bucks to go to extreme measures to create the cap room necessary to sign the longtime Pacer. A series of transactions was necessary in order to open up that room, including trading for Vasilije Micic for the sole purpose of buying him out, but the major move that ultimately got them over the goal line was using the stretch provision on Lillard’s contract, spreading the $112.6MM still owed to him across the next five seasons and reducing his 2025/26 cap charge by more than $31MM.

It was an unprecedented move (at least until a couple weeks later, when the Suns pulled off something similar with Bradley Beal), but one that made sense for a Bucks team desperate not just to head off a possible Antetokounmpo trade request but to get the two-time MVP some help while he’s still at the top of his game.

Sure, it’s not ideal that Milwaukee will still be carrying $22.5MM annually on its cap for Lillard three or four years from now, but it was a necessary evil to upgrade the roster in the short term. And if this gambit backfires and the team has to shift into rebuilding mode a couple years from now, those dead-money cap hits wouldn’t be as significant an impediment — just look at the current Nets, who have been trying to spend enough in recent weeks to simply reach the minimum salary floor.

This still isn’t a roster without holes, but in Turner, the Bucks now have a younger, more athletic, and more versatile version of Brook Lopez, the team’s former starting center who left for the Clippers this summer. Lopez’s ability to stretch the floor on offense and to protect the rim on defense – two things Turner can do very well too – were major factors in Milwaukee’s success in recent years.

And because the Bucks didn’t have to trade a first-round pick to move off of Lillard’s massive contract or to acquire Turner, they still have some trade ammunition in their back pocket to search for a mid-season deal that would further upgrade the roster.

After going under the cap and then using up all their room to sign Turner, the Bucks had limited flexibility to fill out the rest of their squad this offseason, but they took advantage of their remaining rights on their own free agents while also making a handful of savvy minimum-salary signings.

Big man Bobby Portis was re-signed using his Bird rights; point guards Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr. were brought back using their Early Bird rights and the room exception, respectively; Gary Trent Jr. returned to Milwaukee on a Non-Bird contract; and Gary Harris, Taurean Prince, Jericho Sims, Cole Anthony, Chris Livingston, and Thanasis Antetokounmpo all received minimum-salary deals from the Bucks.

Many of those players were members of last year’s team that was ousted in the first round of the postseason, but there’s a belief in Milwaukee that younger players like Rollins and Porter are capable of taking another step forward in regular, full-season roles, and that newcomers like Anthony, Harris, and especially Turner can help make the Bucks a more well-rounded team. We’ll see if that belief pays off.

Up next

The Bucks are carrying 15 players on fully guaranteed salaries for 2025/26, but they also have Andre Jackson Jr. on a partially guaranteed deal and Amir Coffey – a productive rotation player for the Clippers last season – on a non-guaranteed Exhibit 9 deal. In other words, those 15 roster spots likely aren’t set in stone yet, a fact that general manager Jon Horst acknowledged on media day earlier this week.

If the Bucks do trade or waive someone with a guaranteed contract in order to clear space to hang onto Jackson and/or Coffey, the players most at risk would likely be 2023 second-round pick Livingston and 2024 second-rounder Tyler Smith. Neither Livingston nor Smith has earned regular rotation minutes yet, and neither one is owed guaranteed money beyond this season.

If we were evaluating the roster purely based on projected performance, Thanasis would be a logical release candidate as well, but it’s hard to imagine the Bucks waiving Giannis’ brother while they’re doing all they can to convince him to remain in Milwaukee long-term.

Speaking of which, while it was good news that Giannis didn’t seek a change of scenery this summer, his comments on media day – confirming he weighed his options during the offseason and saying he didn’t remember a meeting with governor Wes Edens in which he reaffirmed his commitment to Milwaukee – probably won’t shut down speculation about his long-term future with the organization.

As long as no trade request comes, the front office likely won’t be all that bothered about outside chatter, but Antetokounmpo’s remarks were a far cry from fellow NBA MVP Nikola Jokic talking about his plan to “be with the Nuggets forever.” The simplest way to ensure Giannis conveys a similar sentiment a year from now will be for the Bucks to win.

With that in mind, it will be interesting to see what happens with Kyle Kuzma this season. The veteran forward scored a career-low 14.8 points per game and made just 30.7% of his three-pointers in 2024/25. He’ll need to be better for Milwaukee to have a shot at contention in ’25/26. Even if he is, Kuzma could be a prime trade candidate, since he’s one of the only players on the roster earning more than about $5MM this season.

Kuzma is eligible for a contract extension before the season begins, but I don’t expect him to get a new deal at this point — it’s more likely we hear mid-season chatter about the Bucks gauging the trade value of Kuzma and their lone tradable first-round pick.

The more logical extension candidate on the roster is fourth-year sharpshooter A.J. Green, who will remain eligible for a new deal all season long if he doesn’t reach an agreement within the next few weeks. The 26-year-old more than doubled his minutes per game to 22.7 last season while registering a career-high three-point percentage of 42.7%.

Although Green’s counting stats (7.4 points and 2.4 rebounds per game) don’t jump off the page, he’s a reliable shooter and solid defender who fits well next to Antetokounmpo. As long as the price isn’t exorbitant, working out a new contract with him would make a lot of sense for Milwaukee.

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NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: Utah Jazz

September 30th, 2025 at 10:40am CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the Utah Jazz.

Free agent signings

  • Mo Bamba: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Steven Crowl: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.
  • Matthew Murrell: One year, minimum salary. Non-guaranteed (Exhibit 10). Signed using minimum salary exception.

Trades

  • Acquired the draft rights to Walter Clayton (No. 18 pick) from the Wizards in exchange for the draft rights to Will Riley (No. 21 pick), the No. 43 pick in the 2025 draft, either the Heat’s or Pacers’ 2031 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable), and the Jazz’s 2032 second-round pick.
  • Acquired Jusuf Nurkic from the Hornets in exchange for Collin Sexton and either the Jazz’s or Clippers’ 2030 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable).
  • Acquired Kyle Anderson (from Heat), Kevin Love (from Heat), the Clippers’ 2027 second-round pick (from Clippers), and cash ($2.5MM; from Clippers) in a three-team trade in exchange for John Collins (to Clippers).
  • Acquired Georges Niang, either the Celtics’ or Magic’s 2027 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable) and either the Celtics’ or Cavaliers’ 2031 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable) from the Celtics in exchange for RJ Luis (two-way).

Draft picks

  • 1-5: Ace Bailey
    • Signed to rookie scale contract (four years, $41,209,782).
  • 1-18: Walter Clayton
    • Signed to rookie scale contract (four years, $19,324,472).
  • 2-53: John Tonje
    • Signed to two-way contract.

Two-way signings

  • John Tonje
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).
  • Oscar Tshiebwe
    • One year, $85,300 partial guarantee (will increase to $318,218 at start of regular season).

Note: The Jazz carried over Elijah Harkless on a two-way contract from 2024/25; they also signed RJ Luis to a two-year, two-way contract, but traded him to the Celtics later in the offseason.

Departed/unsigned free agents

Other roster moves

Salary cap situation

  • Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and below the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
  • Carrying approximately $171.5MM in salary.
  • Hard-capped at $195,945,000.

The offseason so far

At his introductory press conference as the Jazz’s new president of basketball operations in June, Austin Ainge was asked about the team’s tanking efforts during the second half of the 2024/25 season and unequivocally stated that you “won’t see that” again in ’25/26.

However, as I wrote at the time, Ainge’s comments didn’t seem to point toward a team ready to add win-now help to try to move up the standings. The tanking he was specifically ruling out was the kind that involves manipulating players’ minutes — for instance, not using optimal lineups during crunch-time situations, or holding veterans out of games due to injuries that they’d typically play through if the team were in the playoff mix.

But if we define tanking more broadly as a front office not trying all that hard to build a roster capable of winning games in the short term, the 2025/26 Jazz will absolutely fall under that umbrella. And you can make a strong case that’s the right play for the organization in the long term.

After all, the Jazz will have to send their 2026 first-round pick to the Thunder if it lands outside the top eight. If it lands inside the top eight, Utah would keep that first-rounder and would no longer owe Oklahoma City any draft pick. For a team that still doesn’t have a surefire long-term franchise player on its roster, taking one more shot at a high lottery choice makes a lot more sense than pushing for a play-in spot and potentially giving up that first-round selection.

So, despite entering the offseason with one of the NBA’s most favorable salary cap situations, the Jazz essentially sat out of free agency. They completed three Exhibit 10 signings, including one with former lottery pick Mo Bamba, but didn’t hand out a single dollar of guaranteed money to a free agent.

And while the Jazz hung onto forward Lauri Markkanen and center Walker Kessler, the two most valuable established building blocks on the roster, they spent the summer purging the roster of most of their other productive veterans.

Jordan Clarkson, who won a Sixth Man of the Year award in 2021 and had averaged 17.5 points per game since being traded to the Jazz in 2019, was bought out of his expiring $14.1MM contract, clearing a path for him to sign a minimum-salary deal with the Knicks.

Collin Sexton, the team’s third-leading scorer in 2024/25 with an average of 18.4 points per game on an efficient .480/.406/.865 shooting line, was traded to Charlotte along with a future “most favorable” second-round pick in exchange for Jusuf Nurkic.

That deal with the Hornets was a surprising one from a value perspective, since Sexton and Nurkic are on nearly identical expiring contracts in ’25/26 and Nurkic’s playing time and production dropped off last season. Given that Sexton was Utah’s most valuable guard in ’24/25, it’s hard to view the trade as anything other than a gambit to open up more playing time for the club’s backcourt prospects. And if the development process for those younger guards is up and down, resulting in fewer Jazz wins in the short term, that’s probably just fine with the front office.

The Jazz also sent John Collins to the Clippers in a three-team trade that netted them Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love, a second-round pick, and cash.

It was a relatively modest return for Collins, who put up 19.0 points and 8.2 rebounds per game on .527/.399/.848 shooting last season, since his $26.6MM salary made him a little tricky to move. But at least in this case, Utah created significant cap savings (Anderson and Love combine to earn just $13.4MM) and acquired a future second-rounder instead of giving one up. It also wouldn’t be shocking if the Jazz are able to flip Anderson for positive value at the trade deadline, though Love will likely just be waived or bought out at some point.

Utah’s one trade for a veteran involved forward Georges Niang, a sharpshooter who played some of the best basketball of his career in Atlanta during the second half of last season. The Jazz acquired him from Boston, though that deal was more about the two second-round picks attached to Niang than the player himself — like Anderson, he’s a candidate to be flipped before February’s deadline if Utah can get a decent return.

While vets like Nurkic, Anderson, Love, and Niang are unlikely to have long-term stays in Utah, the Jazz did add a pair of players on draft night that they hope will remain in the organization for years to come. The team used the fifth overall pick to draft Rutgers forward Ace Bailey, then traded up to No. 18 to nab Florida guard Walter Clayton.

The front office deserves kudos for rolling the dice on Bailey, whose camp was reportedly pushing hard for him to end up elsewhere (Washington was believed to be his preferred destination). While there was some brief post-draft speculation about whether or not Bailey would report to Utah, the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement doesn’t give rookies much leverage to hold out, so it came as little surprise when the No. 5 pick confirmed he’d be joining the Jazz and said all the right things about his new home.

Bailey has more upside than any player in the 2025 draft class not named Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper, and you could even find several talent evaluators around the NBA who were higher on Bailey entering draft night than at least one of those two top picks. He’s not a sure thing to become an All-Star, but he’s exactly the sort of high-ceiling player the Jazz should be taking a shot on after not identifying an obvious star in either of the last two drafts.

As for Clayton, his ceiling isn’t as high as Bailey’s, but he was the leader of a Florida team that won a national title in 2025 and will bring some championship experience to a team that won just 17 regular season games a year ago.

At age 22, Clayton is older than incumbent Jazz guards Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier and figures to push those players for backcourt minutes this fall. It wouldn’t be a shock if he usurped either of them on the depth chart this season, especially after the Jazz gave up three future second-round picks to move up three spots to draft him — Clayton was clearly a prospect the front office specifically targeted.

Up next

While a buyout of Love has long been expected, it doesn’t seem as if he has his next destination lined up yet, so he likely won’t give up any money until that’s sorted out. A roster spot may not open up for him elsewhere until later in the season — the two teams in his hometown of Los Angeles, for instance, won’t be able to add a 15th man until January based on their current hard-cap situations.

The Jazz could simply waive Love at some point before then, since it’s not like they desperately need to save the couple million dollars he might give up. But there’s probably no urgency to make that move unless Bamba has a great camp and the club needs to open up a roster spot to carry him on the regular season squad. If Bamba and the other camp invitees don’t make the team, Utah can simply retain its current 15 players on guaranteed contracts, including Love.

Although Bamba isn’t eligible for a two-way contract, the other two Exhibit 10 signees – Matthew Murrell and Steven Crowl – would qualify, so if they impress in the next week or two, it’s possible the Jazz will make a change to its two-way slots. While Oscar Tshiebwe and John Tonje signed this offseason, Elijah Harkless is a holdover from last season, which could put his roster spot more at risk.

Finally, Kessler looks like the only legitimate extension candidate in Utah this offseason, but a recent report indicated that the two sides aren’t expected to agree to terms before the season begins.

It sounds like the Jazz would be open to getting something done, but only if the terms are very team-friendly. Otherwise, the club would prefer to head into next offseason with Kessler’s relatively modest $14.9MM cap hold in place of what would likely be a bigger first-year salary on a new extension. That will allow the Jazz to maximize their cap room.

For his part, Kessler acknowledged on media day that the situation is somewhat frustrating. It’s worth noting that the young center has been the subject of trade speculation for the better part of the past two seasons. Utah has set a high asking price that teams have thus far been unwilling to meet, but if the 24-year-old is upset at all by how his contract situation is playing out, could the front office become more open to making a deal before February’s deadline? I’m not sure that’s likely, but it’s still worth keeping an eye on in the coming weeks and months.

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