Someone walk me through why Minnesota or really any winning franchise would consider trading for Ja Morant

I would keep an eye on a Terry Rozier trade

His contract is a get out of jail free card

NBA will presumably be voiding his contract

Meaning it will not count for cap or tax purposes

For example, Boston is presently ~$12.1M over the luxury tax line, their luxury tax bill set to be ~$39.5M

The Washington Wizards needs to get their active roster down from 16 to 15 players over the next few days. Most likely players to get traded or waived are Khris Middleton, Malaki Branham, and Justin Champagnie. A contender in need of a quality depth piece should trade a 2nd for Champagnie.

My pre-February trade deadline Jonathan Kuminga trade prediction:

Kuminga + filler (probably Gui Santos) to Sacramento

1st round pick (lottery protected) + DeMar DeRozan to Golden State

Ages of key GS players as of 3/15/26:

Curry 38
Green 36
Butler 36
Horford 39
DeRozan 36
Hield 33

What to make of Miami bringing in Precious Achiuwa on a non-guaranteed minimum salary contract:

- no way will Miami enter the regular season over the luxury tax line

- Miami currently ~$1.6M below the tax line; keeping Achiuwa but making no other moves puts them back over the tax line

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Been trying to figure out since the Anfernee Simons trade how Boston can get below the luxury tax line for 2025-26. And Boston definitely wants to get below the tax line during a season where they have zero shot at winning the championship.

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We can expect next NBA offseason to feature more restricted free agents unable to come to terms on extensions from their current teams

Players drafted in the first round of the 2022 draft who are still waiting on an extension:

4 Keegan Murray
5 Jaden Ivey
6 Bennedict Mathurin

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In order to make room for both Malcolm Brogdon and Landry Shamet, the Knicks will need to dump somebody

Mitchell Robinson notoriously injury prone and on an expiring contract, he’s the obvious player to trade

Probably into Brooklyn’s cap space, Knicks would need to attach a 2nd round pick or two

After coming to an agreement with Josh Giddey, the Chicago Bulls have 15 players under contract for 2025-26 and are ~$16.3M below the tax line

Bulls in position to make a trade where they increase team salaries

Boston (Anfernee Simons?), Toronto (Ochai Agbaji?) needing to reduce team salaries

Which team is going to sign Kawhi Leonard to a bargain one year contract (maybe a two year contract with a player option for year two, which is effectively a one year contract) after the NBA voids his contract with the Clippers here in a few weeks?

LeBron James trade watch:

John Collins becomes eligible to be aggregated with other Clippers players this Friday (9/5/25)

Collins’ contract (owed ~$26.6M in 2025-26) expires at the end of the upcoming season

Bogdan Bogdanovic (owed ~$16.0M in 2025-26) has a team option for 2026-27

My projected NBA final standings:

East

1 Cleveland 57-25
2 Detroit 51-31
3 Atlanta 50-32
4 New York 49-33
5 Indiana 48-34
6 Orlando 47-35
7 Miami 46-36
8 Milwaukee 39-43
9 Toronto 38-44
10 Chicago 37-45
11 Boston 33-49
12 Charlotte 23-59
13 Washington 22-60
14 Philadelphia 21-61
15 Brooklyn 20-62

The Boston Celtics can get very safely below the luxury tax line completely by making this trade:

Anfernee Simons to Brooklyn; Dariq Whitehead + maybe one or two 2nd round picks to Boston

Boston was never going to keep Simons

Boston would presumably decline Whitehead’s 2026-27 team option

Indiana Pacers - my assumptions + expectations for the remaining offseason + trade deadline

1 IND currently at $178,892,609 in team salaries (assumes James Wiseman makes active roster + Tony Bradley doesn’t)

2 therefore IND has 14 active roster players and are $9,002,391 below the luxury tax line

The main unfinished business for NBA teams this offseason:

1 The four remaining unsigned restricted free agents (J. Giddey, C. Thomas, J. Kuminga, Q. Grimes) need to either be signed to extensions, signed-and-traded, or accept their qualifying offer