Stein/Fischer’s Latest: Perry, LaVine, Young, Jones, Dumars, Graham, Horst
New Kings general manager Scott Perry won’t engage an offseason teardown even though De’Aaron Fox was dealt at the trade deadline this season, Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line report in their latest newsletter.
While the roster is lacking a true starting point guard and requires more length and athleticism, as he told the media in a recent press conference, Perry isn’t looking to hit the reset button.
However, there is speculation that Zach LaVine could be on the move again. Perry questioned LaVine’s ability to elevate his teammates a couple of years ago in a podcast. LaVine has two years and approximately $96.5MM remaining on his contract and becomes eligible for an extension on July 7.
Here are several more tidbits from Stein and Fischer:
- Trae Young‘s name has been bandied about in trade rumors in recent years but it appears unlikely Atlanta will look to deal its franchise player this summer. Former Hawks GM Landry Fields broke up the backcourt duo of Young and Dejounte Murray last offseason and one of the players acquired in return, defensive ace Dyson Daniels, meshed well with Young. Moreover, Hawks personnel members have spoken often about Young’s growth as a leader and being a more willing passer. Coach Quin Snyder’s praise regarding Young’s improved effort and defensive commitment also speaks to the likelihood of the Hawks continuing to build around him.
- While there has been speculation regarding James Jones‘ status as the Suns GM, given that his contract expires in June, he’s been tasked with leading the search for a new head coach. Phoenix would ideally determine its new front office structure before hiring a head coach but Jones could be asked to remain in the front office in a different role.
- New Pelicans executive VP of basketball operations Joe Dumars has already made several front office changes, including the addition of former Pistons GM Troy Weaver as senior VP. However, Dumars has decided to retain GM Bryson Graham. The latter has been credited with unearthing underrated talent in the draft, such as Trey Murphy and Herbert Jones.
- The Bucks’ decision to give GM Jon Horst an extension had been in the works for weeks. Front office openings in Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix further pushed the negotiations to fruition. However, Horst’s new deal won’t quell the hope of rival executives that another early playoff exit could lead to a trade request from superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
2025 NBA Free Agent Preview: Point Guards
The 2025 NBA free agent point guard class features three veterans who have earned maximum-salary contracts and have combined to make 21 All-Star teams. And while all three of those players will be among the best options available at the position this offseason, the point guard who signs the most lucrative long-term contract may be a player who has never been named an All-Star or averaged more than 17 points per game.
Let's take a closer look at this summer's free agent point guards, as we kick off our breakdown of the 2025 free agent class by position.
Clippers Notes: Harden, Intuit Dome, Bench, Game 4
During a recent conversation with Marc J. Spears of Andscape about his resurgent 2024/25 season, 11-time All-Star Clippers guard James Harden expressed confidence in his hometown team’s ability to capture its first title this summer.
Before they have a chance to make a serious run at a championship, the Clippers will need to get out of the first round. L.A. is currently knotted with the No. 4 seed Denver, 2-2, in their ongoing first round series. Through four games, the 6’5″ superstar is averaging 21.3 PPG, 9.5 APG, 4.8 RPG and 1.3 BPG, with a shooting line of .453/.400/.833.
“I’m so comfortable in my world and what I supposed to be doing out there,” Harden said. “I think we got the team. We can play isolation basketball with two great ISO players. We got post game with Zu [Ivica Zubac] and ‘Whi [Kawhi Leonard]. Defensively, we’ve been really, really good all year. So, for me, it’s about just keeping my composure, just going out there and reading the game and doing what I am supposed to be doing.
“We got a chance to be the last team standing, which is easier said than done. But we focus on ourselves,” Harden added. “We are playing well right now.”
Last summer, the 35-year-old inked a two-year, $70MM deal to stay with the Clippers. His comeback performance this season may have earned him a raise. Harden has a $36.3MM player option for 2025/26. If L.A. advances and Harden continues to thrive, he could make serious long-term bank.
There’s more out of L.A.:
- The Clippers ultimately split their first two 2025 playoff games at their new arena, the Intuit Dome. Per Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times, L.A. tried to keep an even keel following its 117-83 Game 3 win on Thursday. “We got to build off it,” head coach Tyronn Lue said of the Clippers’ victories in Games 2 and 3. “I liked what we did defensively. It’s still going to be a tough series. It ain’t over ’cause we had a blowout. It’s only one game. So, we got to be ready to come and validate that on Saturday.” Leonard notched a 21-point, 11-rebound double-double. Harden and shooting guard Norman Powell each chipped in 20 points apiece, while Zubac logged 19 points and nine boards.
- A big component of the Clippers’ success has been their impressive bench depth, opines Janis Carr of The Orange County Register. Forwards Nicolas Batum and Derrick Jones Jr.and guards Bogdan Bogdanovic and Ben Simmons have all made vital contributions to the team’s playoff push so far. L.A.’s bench outscored Denver’s 31-6 in the aforementioned Game 3 triumph. “Our bench has been good for us all year long,” Lue said. “I think just understanding the plays we’re trying to run and how we want to attack – we can’t waste possessions. The second unit is just trying to get caught up as far as understanding what we’re trying to do.”
- The Clippers’ sunny series outlook suffered some late-game gloom on Saturday night, when a buzzer-beating Aaron Gordon dunk gave the Nuggets a 101-99 win and evened the series, writes Law Murray of The Athletic. The loss summoned flashbacks of another L.A. series against Denver, the 2020 West semifinals, which the Clippers had led 3-1. A spectacular unraveling yielded a shocking seven-game L.A. defeat. Murray also recalls the unexpected Deandre Ayton dunk in Game 2 of the 2021 Western Conference Finals that helped the Finals-bound Suns snag a late win, and the 2020 buzzer-beater then-Mavericks guard Luka Doncic nailed to draw Dallas even with L.A., 2-2, in a first round series.
Warriors Notes: Butler, Hield, Curry
The Warriors expect six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler will return from his deep gluteal muscle contusion in Game 4 of their ongoing series against Houston, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic (Twitter link). A source informs Slater that Butler took part in an on-court workout ahead of the team’s eventual Game 3 victory against Houston on Saturday. He was held out so that his body could better recuperate, but the team is hoping he will return for Game 4 on Monday.
Butler suffered the injury during a scary fall early into Game 2, and has been sidelined ever since. Golden State has gone 1-1 without him.
On Saturday, ESPN’s Shams Charania told colleague Malika Andrews (Twitter video link) that Butler had “no mobility” on Saturday, which ultimately led to the team’s decision to sit him.
Head coach Steve Kerr, meanwhile, indicated that he considers Butler officially day-to-day, and has no idea whether or not the star forward will play, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN (via Twitter).
There’s more out of Golden State:
- With Butler shelved, Warriors guard Buddy Hield stepped up to help the club secure a Game 3 home win, Slater writes in another piece. An eight-point Hield run in the second quarter helped stabilize Golden State heading into the halftime break. He ultimately finished with 17 points and a plus-14 mark across 29 minutes of action. “I knew Robin was out, so I had to step up,” Hield said, referencing Butler’s repeated suggestion that he is the Robin to All-NBA guard Stephen Curry‘s Batman. “I had to be Alfred.”
- Stephen Curry was the star of the show for the Warriors in Game 3 on Saturday, Youngmisuk writes for ESPN.com. The two-time league MVP took it upon himself to score more against a tough Rockets defense, notching 25 of his 36 total points in the second and third quarters to propel his team to a 104-93 victory. “He’s one [of the] greatest players of all time,” Kerr said. “He’s 37. He’s one of the most well-conditioned athletes I’ve ever seen in my life. To play 41 minutes against that kind of defense, to have a slow start and then find his rhythm, which we have seen him do countless times over the years, to hit big shots, to only turn it over twice against that kind of pressure, he was brilliant.”
- In case you missed it, Rockets forward Dillon Brooks defended teammate Amen Thompson‘s play on Butler that led to his injury.
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson Returns After Game 4 Ankle Injury
2:13 pm: Brunson has returned to the hardwood after receiving treatment in the visitors’ locker room. He had been wearing a brace on his right knee, but removed it before returning to action, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link).
2:09 pm: Knicks All-Star Jalen Brunson, who missed a month down the stretch of the 2024/25 regular season with an ankle injury, appeared to suffer some bad health luck again late into the third quarter of New York’s ongoing Game 4 matchup against the Pistons.
With 2:52 remaining in the third period, Detroit guard Dennis Schroder landed on the right foot of Brunson. The Knicks guard was on the ground for a while, James L. Edwards III of The Athletic tweets, and crawled to the sideline.
According to Adam Zagoria of NJ Advance Media, Brunson appeared to aggravate an ankle injury that cost him 15 games in March and April. The 6’2″ Villanova alum left the floor and was replaced by reserve Cameron Payne, per Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter link).
Detroit has capitalized on the absence of New York’s lead play-maker, and currently leads the Knicks, 71-64, early in the fourth quarter. Brunson had been leading the Knicks as a scorer with 21 points on 8-of-18 shooting from the field, plus nine assists and five rebounds.
Through his first three games in the series, Brunson had been on fire offensively, averaging 33.7 points, 8.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and 0.7 steals in 41.0 minutes per night.
After splitting the opening two contests in Madison Square Garden, New York bested Detroit on the road and leads the Pistons in the series, 2-1.
Central Notes: Sheppard, Pacers, Bulls, Strus
After starting Pacers swingman Andrew Nembhard got into foul trouble during Indiana’s Game 3 playoff series loss to Milwaukee, reserve guard Ben Sheppard found himself playing more minutes than he had in the contests prior.
Sheppard knocked down a three-point shot during his six first-half minutes and the Pacers outscored Milwaukee by six points during those minutes. He went just 1-of-4 from the field in the second half, but was a +3 in 15:26 of action on the night.
According to Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star, head coach Rick Carlisle hinted that he may want to play Sheppard more going forward.
“Time to get him involved,” Carlisle said. “He did some really good things in the first half…. He gives us another guy to chase (Damian) Lillard around a little bit. Look, we need all hands on deck. We need everybody. Guys are gonna have to be able to come in and possibly play short minutes from time to time to help us with matchups, to help us with rebounding, to help us with spacing. You name it.”
There’s more out of the Central Division:
- A lot went wrong in the Pacers’ 117-101 Game 3 defeat, as Dopirak details in another story. Two-time All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton believes that the team’s defense was the foundational issue. “We have to do a better job of rotating,” Haliburton said. “I gotta do a better job of staying down on shot fakes. Ground and contest, second-jumper contest. It starts with me. That was my matchup to start the game, so I gotta be better, but we were rotating and I thought we had a couple of miscommunications that led to some open ones and he got hot.” Dopirak also notes that the club leaned too heavily on isolation scoring for All-Star forward Pascal Siakam.
- The first round of the playoffs are highlighting the major problems in longtime Bulls president Arturas Karnisovas’ team construction, opines Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. As Cowley explains, Chicago was among the NBA’s fastest-paced offenses and ranked in the bottom half of the league in defense, a profile that doesn’t match many serious contenders.
- Cavaliers swingman Max Strus has emerged as a perfect role player for the team as it gears up to sweep Miami, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
Grizzlies’ Kleiman: We Should Have Picked Up LaRavia’s Option
Before the 2024/25 season began last fall, the Grizzlies declined to exercise their fourth-year team option on forward Jake LaRavia. That 2025/26 option was worth $5,163,127.
Because his option was declined, LaRavia is now on track for unrestricted free agency in 2025 instead of restricted free agency in 2026. It also made his free agency more complicated than it is for most players — the team he ended the season with cannot offer him a starting salary that exceeds the declined option.
With those factors in mind, the Grizzlies wound up trading LaRavia to Sacramento ahead of February’s deadline, even though he was having his most productive campaign as a pro.
At his end-of-season press conference on Sunday, executive vice president of basketball operations Zach Kleiman admitted he made a “mistake” by turning down that option, tweets Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal.
“I think we should’ve picked up Jake LaRavia’s team option,” Kleiman said. “The mistake was there. … I think Jake could’ve helped us down the stretch.”
According to Cole (Twitter link), Kleiman explained that he thought Vince Williams Jr. and GG Jackson would be able to replace LaRavia in the rotation. Both players dealt with injuries in the first few months of the season and returned to action before the deadline.
“I probably overweighted just how much of a burden they would have been able to put on in a playoff push,” Kleiman said.
Memphis was eliminated from the playoffs on Saturday after being swept in its first-round series with Oklahoma City.
Duke’s Khaman Maluach Declares For NBA Draft
Duke freshman Khaman Maluach declared for the 2025 NBA draft prior to Saturday’s early entrant deadline, the school announced (via Twitter).
A 7’2″ center from South Sudan, Maluach averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 21.2 minutes per game while shooting 71.2% from the field and 76.6% from the line across 39 appearances for the Blue Devils in 2024/25. He is a projected lottery pick, coming in at No. 8 on ESPN’s latest big board (subscriber link).
Maluach won’t turn 19 years old until September, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony notes, making him one of the youngest players in the class. Maluach has a strong motor, is quite mobile for his size, and is viewed as having a great deal of long-term upside, according to Givony.
Pistons Notes: Schröder, Beasley, Stewart, Ivey, Game 3
Veteran guard Dennis Schröder struggled with his shot after the Pistons traded for him in February, averaging 10.8 points on .378/.302/.833 shooting in 28 regular season games (25.2 minutes per contest).
However, as Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press writes, the 31-year-old has played a critical role for the Pistons in the playoffs, making timely shots and serving as a secondary ball-handler alongside All-Star Cade Cunningham. Through three playoff games (28.3 MPG), Schröder is averaging 15.3 points, 2.7 assists and 2.3 rebounds on .556/.615/.800 shooting.
“He’s played in so many big games, and when you go back and watch his history, he’s clutch in big games,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after Game 2, when Schröder made the winning basket, securing Detroit’s first playoff victory in 17 years. “We talked about it early on when he got here, he’s just fearless. There’s no moment, there’s no crowd, there’s no noise that’s too big or that’s gonna rattle him. Works his tail off on his game, but a lot of people in that situation don’t have the courage and he’s got the courage to take big shots.”
Schröder will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, Sankofa notes.
Here’s more on the Pistons:
- While Schröder has caught fire in the playoffs, the opposite has been true for Malik Beasley, another impending free agent. After averaging 16.3 points and converting 41.6% of his three-point tries in the regular season, the Sixth Man of the Year runner-up has posted 13.7 PPG while shooting 30.0% from long distance thus far in Detroit’s first-round series vs. New York. “I think he’s getting his looks. They just haven’t fallen for him … we know he’s capable of making those shots,” Bickerstaff said of Beasley (Twitter link via Sankofa).
- Big man Isaiah Stewart battled through a right knee injury in Game 1 and missed the second and third games of the series. He’ll also be sidelined for Sunday’s Game 4 due to ongoing right knee inflammation, as Hunter Patterson of The Athletic relays (via Twitter).
- Although the Pistons technically didn’t rule out Jaden Ivey for the remainder of the postseason when they provided an update on his status last night, Bickerstaff sounded skeptical about the third-year guard’s chances of playing again in ’24/25, per Patterson (Twitter video link). “Our aim will always be to protect our guys,” Bickerstaff said. “This would just be a very difficult situation for a guy to come back into after dealing with the injury. … The more he progresses, we’ll take a look.” Ivey is recovering from a broken fibula in his left leg.
- Both the Pistons and Knicks were frustrated by the officiating following a controversial ending to Game 3, writes Chris Herring of ESPN. Detroit was livid that Jalen Brunson wasn’t called for a backcourt violation in the closing seconds, though the NBA supported that non-call, notes Jared Schwartz of The New York Post. The Knicks, meanwhile, were angered that Detroit got possession of the ball after Brunson intentionally missed a free throw with 0.5 seconds left.
- Despite finding themselves in a 1-2 hole, the Pistons remained positive after the Game 3 loss, as Patterson writes for The Athletic. “We won’t be deflated,” Bickerstaff said when asked about the mood in the Pistons locker room. “Our guys are too committed to one another. We’re not results-driven. We’ll show up Sunday and we’re going to lay it on the line. We’re going to fight like hell and see what happens.”
Carter Bryant Among Draft’s Final Early Entrants
The deadline for early entrants to declare for the 2025 NBA draft was last night at 10:59 pm CT. Arizona freshman Carter Bryant was among the players who declared for the draft before the deadline passed, a source tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN (Twitter link).
It’s unclear whether or not the 19-year-old intends to stay in the draft, but Bryant is ranked No. 20 on ESPN’s latest big board (Insider link), making him a projected first-round pick.
A 6’8″ combo forward, Bryant averaged 6.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.0 block in 37 appearances for the Wildcats in 2024/25 (19.3 minutes per game). He posted a shooting slash line of .460/.371/.695.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Woo, Bryant is a plus athlete with a strong frame, and has shown flashes of versatility on both ends of the court. While Bryant is viewed as being somewhat raw right now, his upside is considerable and he has a chance to move up draft boards over the next couple months.
Here are a few more players who entered the draft before yesterday’s deadline:
- Guard Joson Sanon, who spent his freshman season at Arizona State but has committed to transfer to St. John’s, is testing the draft waters, per Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report (Twitter link). Sanon will be looking for feedback from NBA teams, but he is expected to eventually withdraw from the draft and suit up for the Red Storm in ’25/26, according to Adam Zagoria of NJ Advance Media.
- Sophomore forward Devon Pryor will also be testing the draft waters, reports Jon Chepkevich of Draft Express (via Twitter). Pyror spent ’24/25 in a limited role with Texas, but he has committed to transfer to Oregon for his junior season.
- Bassala Bagayoko, a 6’10” center from Mali, submitted the paperwork necessary to enter the draft, according to Chepkevich (Twitter link). Bagayako has played for Spanish club Bilbao this season, Chepkevich notes.