The Knicks are less than a week removed from winning their first NBA championship since 1973, and the news cycle is already on to the offseason. That's how it works. The 2026 Draft is next up on the league calendar (June 23), and once that goes down, we'll be in full free agency mode.
In the meantime, there's a new bit of trade buzz every day. Giannis Antetokounmpo. Jaylen Brown. De'Aaron Fox. All these guys could be on different teams come training camp. As could LeBron James, who's officially unsigned as an impending free agent.
How will it all end up? Here are 10 big offseason questions that will, one way or another, be answered over the next few months.
1. Will LeBron and Curry join forces?
At this particular time, an arranged marriage of this historical magnitude -- even at this stage of their respective careers -- actually feels more realistic than any of the other times we've heard this rumor going around (remember when Golden State inquired at the 2024 deadline about a LeBron trade?).
Why? Because the Lakers are on Luka Dončić's timeline now, and though they do have the money to give James a max contract, do they really want to commit that much to a guy who will be 42 this December, in what will be his 24th season, when they are already looking at paying Austin Reaves near max money?
If they don't, which would not be an unreasonable stance to take (frankly, it would be the prudent one, as the Lakers need to be getting younger around Dončić and Reaves, not older) and James is faced with having to play for less, why not the Warriors?
They can give him somewhere around the non-taxpayer midlevel exception ($15 million and change), make it a two-year deal, and not have to give up anyone of note to get him. That way, the roster remains intact.
They would be old as hell, but if they could bide their time until Jimmy Butler returns from ACL rehab (probably after Christmas) and somehow go into the playoffs with a healthy Curry, LeBron, Butler, Draymond Green and/or Kristaps Porziņģis (Green would have to decline his $27M player option and sign for less annual money to keep both him and Porziņģis while remaining below the tax line), that is not a team that can be totally dismissed in the contention conversation.
2. Who wins the Giannis sweepstakes?
The Knicks almost certainly would've been in on this had they not blown the doors off this postseason en route to their first championship in more than half a century. Now, it feels like the Heat and Celtics are the frontrunners. That said, you can never rule out a mystery team. The Trail Blazers make some sense on paper. The Clippers could do something with Kawhi Leonard and/or the No. 5 pick (we'll talk about this below). The Timberwolves are a sleeper. The Cavaliers could swap Evan Mobley.
Antetokounmpo holds the cards, though, as he could become a free agent next summer, which means all he has to do is tell whichever team wants to trade for him that he won't sign an extension there and that will be that. Nobody is going to pull a Kawhi-to-Toronto and give up the assets it would take to get a 32-year-old (in December) Antetokounmpo for a one-year rental.
So we're back to the Heat and Celtics. Both are in the East, where Antetokounmpo reportedly prefers to stay, but to me it's the Celtics who can most easily make the best offer by shipping Jaylen Brown to a third team -- which can then send back the young/draft assets to Boston to reroute to Milwaukee.
Those are all hypotheticals at this point, but this will all become very real very quickly. There is just no way the Bucks can string this out any more. They have to trade him. Wherever he ends up, it will surely shake up the competitive landscape to at least some degree.
3. Is Jaylen Brown done in Boston?
Brown just seems increasingly irked about not being regarded as a 1A star. He outright said this was his favorite season, when Jayson Tatum was out, and he was fantastic as the unquestioned alpha on a No. 2-seeded Celtics team that fizzled out in the first round of the playoffs. Boston needs to get bigger. It needs someone who can create consistent rim pressure instead of having to survive on all these jumpers. Antetokounmpo to Boston makes a ton of sense, and Brown, as outlined above, is the guy who could facilitate a multi-team deal.
On that front, Bill Simmons recently inferred that he's heard rumblings about the Clippers getting involved in a four-team deal with Milwaukee, Miami and Boston. It could work. Milwaukee ends up with a package centered on the Clippers' No. 5 pick as the main asset, Brown goes to the Clippers, who in turn send Kawhi Leonard to the Heat. The bones of a deal like this are sturdy.
Even if it's not Antetokounmpo going to Boston, there are other reported suitors for Brown's services. Marc Stein reported back in May that Atlanta, Portland and Houston all have "legitimate interest" in trading for Brown. The Clippers could make sense if they want to pair Brown with Leonard and Darius Garland. Or even if they move Leonard, Garland and Brown can be your next duo.
The Hawks could give up Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Onyeka Okongwu with the No. 8 overall pick. The Rockets could dangle Amen Thompson, along with plenty of draft capital. The Blazers have Jerami Grant's salary and a young stud in Shaedon Sharpe, who still feels like he could have an All-Star trajectory under the right conditions. Would the Magic part with Franz Wagner for the true, consistent star scorer they need in Brown?
The Pistons, as we are about to discuss, would love to have Brown as the second scorer they need. Could the Spurs make a move with Fox and a couple of their future draft picks? Do the Hornets want to get serious after the promise they showed last season? Would the Wolves be willing to give up Jaden McDaniels to put a co-star next to Anthony Edwards?
The point is, there are deals to be made if you're the Celtics. They could bring Brown back, of course, and try to add a rim attacker and/or some size on the margins. But if they don't want to be in the business of two max contracts (unless the second one is Giannis) as the backbone of what is probably not a contending team, barring fortunate circumstances, a Brown trade makes more sense than it ever has.
4. Could the Pistons lose Jalen Duren?
Duren looked like he was headed for a max contract of nearly $300 million this summer after a third-team All-NBA campaign for the 60-win, top-seeded Pistons. Then he went bust when it mattered most, from 19.5 points per game on 65% shooting in the regular season to 10.4 points on 51% shooting in the playoffs. Detroit barely escaped a first-round upset with a 3-1 comeback against the eighth-seeded Magic before being bounced by the Cavaliers.
Detroit needs a second scorer and shooting next to Cade Cunningham, who had to do way too much to even keep the Pistons competitive in the playoffs. If Duren can't be that guy, there is no way Detroit can pay him anywhere near max money and still address the shooting/secondary scoring needs. What if the Nets or the Bulls offered Duren a max contract?
Those teams would be happy just to be competitive, so Duren's strengths would outweigh his weaknesses. What if the Lakers, with all their cap space, let James go and come calling on Duren with a ton of money to pair with Dončić as a rim roller and defensive anchor? Would Detroit really pony up to match an offer like that? We may get our answer next month.
5. Can the Spurs move De'Aaron Fox?
Fox's four-year, $229 million extension starts next season, and Dylan Harper made it obvious this postseason that the training wheels are off and he's ready to be San Antonio's starting point guard. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for the Spurs to keep Fox if he's alright with a sixth-man role.
That's a lot of money to pay for your next Manu Ginobili, but it's a luxury San Antonio can afford for at least one more year while Stephon Castle, Harper and Victor Wembanyama are still on rookie deals. Even in 2027-28, they will still have Harper and Castle on rookie deals. Don't put too much stock into Fox's struggles in the Finals. He was an All-Star last year. He's still very good. He would kill as a sixth man, and you can never have enough high-end injury insurance as long as you can afford it.
That said, the Spurs would probably prefer to trade Fox, assuming they can get fair value back, if only to avoid the potential drama of benching him for Harper or having to walk the fine line all season of appeasing him in a three-guard lineup.
Plenty of teams should be interested. Miami if it misses on Giannis. The Wolves, as we'll get to, need a point guard and co-star for Edwards. The Rockets make sense (a Kevin Durant/Fox swap would make a measure of sense for both sides). The Bulls or Nets could just absorb Fox into their cap space and send the Spurs draft capital.
We'll see how it plays out. Again, it wouldn't be the worst thing if the Spurs kept him. But a trade feels like an inevitability at some point in the next year or two. Might as well get ahead of it if you can.
6. Where will Trae Young end up?
Young plans to decline his $48.97 million player option for next season and become a free agent this summer, during which he reportedly expects "multiple" max offers. The Wizards remain the frontrunner to sign the four-time All-Star for whom they traded this past January. Other teams that could throw max money at him include the Bulls and Nets. There has been talk of the Heat, but that would probably have to be a sign-and-trade with Washington.
Would it be smart to pay Young max or even near-max money? Most people would say no. The Hawks finally gave up on him being the centerpiece of a contending team for pretty clear reasons. He's small. He's a terrible defender. And he's not anywhere near as good a shooter as his reputation suggests. Young, of course, still believes he's a superstar.
"This is the most slept on I've been in my whole life," Young recently said on The Pivot Podcast. "Even when I was in high school, I wasn't this slept on.
"Imagine the Wizards as the No. 1 team in the East next year," he continued. "What are people gonna be saying? I haven't played much in a year and a half, but trust me, I'm just entering my prime. The way people talk about me is just funny."
You have to wonder how much Jalen Brunson debunking the "small point guards can't be 1A players on a title team" theory might play into Young's market. Young isn't anywhere near the player that Brunson is, but will the right -- or wrong -- team come along and talk themselves into a Young resurgence as a shot-creating maestro? We'll see.
7. Can Wolves find Anthony Edwards a co-star?
The Timberwolves will be in a lot of the Giannis rumors, if only as background noise, but a deal like that would cost them a lot of what would make them an interesting Giannis team in the first place (namely, Jaden McDaniels). Kyrie Irving is an option. So is Ja Morant. Fox would be the best bet, in my book.
You send out Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, with the incentive for San Antonio being to simply get off of Fox's money, and you get to keep McDaniels. Putting an Edwards-Fox-McDaniels perimeter -- or Irving for Fox -- alongside a defensive anchor like Rudy Gobert with five-out lineup options with Naz Reid would make Minnesota a very scary team in the West.
As mentioned earlier, Minnesota could also be another Jaylen Brown suitor, though that would likely cost them McDaniels. Whatever the case, the Wolves have to keep up with the Joneses of the West if they plan on keeping Edwards happy long-term. As currently constructed, this team has seemingly hit a pretty hard ceiling.
8. Will the Warriors trade Draymond Green?
Green is likely to pick up his $27 million player option for this year rather than forego it for a longer-term deal at a lower annual salary, according to ESPN. That could change. There are a lot of parts potentially moving here. As discussed above, the Warriors could need Green to sign for less annual money to keep Porziņģis and stay under the tax line, which they would have to do if they want to give LeBron James the $15 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception. That's just one hypothetical.
But let's say that doesn't happen and Green ends up exercising the player option; that would seemingly make trading him a real possibility. He would be on an expiring contract at that point, and the Warriors would be in a situation where they would lose him for nothing next summer if they don't want to sign him to another multi-year deal.
The Warriors have long been enamored with Trey Murphy III (for good reason, and they're not the only ones). If they could send Green to New Orleans along with a couple of first-round picks (either this year's No. 11 pick or a couple future picks) for Murphy, that would be a home-run deal from the non-sentimental standpoint of getting better and younger with Murphy. But with Green, sentimentality is a real part of the equation.
9. What happens with Kawhi Leonard?
First, there's the investigation into the whole tree-planting salary-cap circumvention stuff that is taking longer than a big Pharma civil suit. Once that is settled, will the Clippers trade Leonard? Steve Ballmer has "maintained a firm stance against a Leonard trade," according to ESPN, but don't believe everything you read. It's fluid, and a lot of smoke gets put out there. A Warriors trade has always made sense on paper.
From our Sam Quinn: "A deal centered around the injured Jimmy Butler and the No. 11 overall draft pick for Leonard would save the Warriors about $13 million and give them a healthier and perhaps better aging wing superstar with whom to open next season."
There is also the possibility of the four-team deal with Miami, Boston and Milwaukee that was discussed above, in which Leonard ends up with the Heat, the Clippers get Jaylen Brown, the Bucks get the Clippers' No. 5 pick (plus other stuff), and Giannis goes to the Celtics.
If the Clippers don't trade Leonard this summer, they will have to look at dealing him at the deadline. He's on the books for $50.3 million this season, and then he's set to become a free agent in 2027. The Clippers cannot want to sign him to another multi-year deal, can they? If not, losing him for nothing would be silly.
10. The Rockets can't stand pat... can they?
Does Houston really believe that getting Fred VanVleet back will fix what is clearly a broken team? Because if not, they can make just about any trade they want, given the young player and draft assets at their disposal. They may want to look into trading Kevin Durant if they want to keep all their young pieces together, or they could go after a Giannis-Durant superteam.
Alperen Sengun should be on the table. Probably Reed Sheppard, too. Amen Thompsons don't grow on trees, so keeping him should be a priority, but even he shouldn't be untouchable if you don't believe he'll ever turn into the type of shooter who can hold up in a deep playoff series.
As mentioned above, Fox fits perfectly on the Rockets, who we know have also expressed interest in Brown. One way or another, Houston needs to do something significant if it wants to erase the vibes of that ugly first-round exit at the hands of the shorthanded Lakers and carve out a realistic place in the contender conversation.
