4 NBA trade deadline winners, and 4 big losers after a wild week of deals

Let’s hand out winners and losers from the 2025 NBA trade deadline.

The 2025 NBA trade deadline started with a double-bang (word to Mike Breen) when the Dallas Mavericks made the unfathomable decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. The Mavs and Lakers each made surprising moves in the days that followed, leading to one of the wildest NBA trade deadlines we’ve ever seen.

This trade deadline had it all: superstars getting traded, the Golden State Warriors finally making an aggressive move to get Stephen Curry some help, the Toronto Raptors again doing something totally perplexing, and that’s just the start of it.

We tracked every move of the trade deadline and graded the biggest deals as they were happening. Now let’s take a big picture approach and look the league’s biggest winners and losers following the frenzied dealing at the deadline.

Winner: Jimmy Butler

Jimmy Butler’s disgruntled star routine totally worked. The 35-year-old got everything he wanted: a one-way ticket out of Miami to a contender, and (most importantly) a new contract extension worth $121 million over two years. Butler’s behavior might have turned off a lot of NBA fans on his way out of Miami, but clearly it worked out exactly as planned to secure another big payday.

The Warriors have been an average team ever since their Cinderella run to the 2022 NBA championship. Stephen Curry is about to turn 37 years old, and while he’s still an excellent player, he doesn’t have quite as much juice as he used to. Golden State had to make a bold move if it wanted to give Curry one more chance at another deep playoff run, and trading for Butler certainly qualifies as one.

I’m worried about Golden State’s spacing and size limitations with Butler and Green on the floor together. The defense should be amazing, though, and Curry’s brilliance will always give them a chance to score. Butler offsets his shaky shooting by being an outstanding driver who can muscle his way to the free throw line without turning the ball over. It’s hard to see how this move gets the Warriors over the top barring injuries from other contenders, but it’s still a good move for Golden State and a great move for Butler.

Winner: Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers acquired a five-time First-Team All-NBA player coming off an NBA Finals run who is still only 25 years old. They only had to trade one first-round pick to make it happen.

The Luka Doncic-for-Anthony Davis deal will be talked about for decades. The Lakers have a lot more work to do on the roster before they’re a contender around Doncic, but just getting him is a historic move that deserves to be celebrated. The Lakers also acquired Mark Williams from the Charlotte Hornets at the deadline, a risky move that somehow involved more draft capital than trading for Doncic. Williams could be a great fit next to Luka, but only if he can prove to be more durable than he’s been to this point in his NBA career.

I really thought the Lakers would have been wise to convince LeBron James to waive his no-trade clause and deal him for younger pieces. That didn’t happen, so the work must continue to build a suitable roster around Doncic. Either way, the Lakers are the definitive winner of this deadline.

Winner: San Antonio Spurs

The Spurs badly needed to add a legitimate co-star next to Victor Wembanyama, and they found a good one at a reasonable cost. De’Aaron Fox wanted to be in San Antonio, and the Spurs stepped up by engineering a three-team trade that cost them a few draft picks (the 2031 Timberwolves’ pick chief among them) but not much else. The fact that San Antonio was able to add Fox while keeping its young core fully intact and also retaining the Hawks’ unprotected draft picks they own in 2025 and 2027 is a major win.

By the way, those Hawks picks have become even more juicy after the deadline. Jalen Johnson is out for the season, and Atlanta just off-loaded De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic to save money. San Antonio is getting a lottery pick out of Atlanta this year most likely, and it might be a really good one. The Spurs have the best building block in the NBA in Wembanyama, and they still have plenty of ways to improve the team even after landing Fox.

Loser: Mavs fans

Imagine having a generational 25-year-old superstar on your favorite team who is destined to have his jersey retired and a statue built outside the arena ... and then your weird GM trades him for a deeply underwhelming package. Our Mavs community Mavs Moneyball has been going through it all week, and I get it. Please read Kirk Henderson’s wonderful open letter to Nico Harrison after the Doncic trade, which captures the feeling in Dallas right now to a tee. Mavs fans met the moment in their sorrow, showing their deep disdain for the decision to trade Doncic in creative and funny ways.

Unless Dallas wins a championship with Anthony Davis, this is a trade Mavs fans should never be willing to forgive.

Loser: Chicago Bulls

Another year, another horrible trade deadline for Arturas Karnsivas. The Bulls GM is quickly becoming the laughing stock of the league, and he just never seems to learn his lesson. Karnisovas traded his best player (Zach LaVine) for Chicago’s own protected first-round pick that they were never in real jeopardy of losing. So why did the Bulls want the pick back so badly? They want to make the playoffs, of course.

The Bulls are deeply addicted to mediocrity, and Karnisovas has no idea how to improve their current situation at all. Karnisovas reportedly had seven deals on the table for Coby White and couldn’t pull the trigger on one. He had an offer from the Warriors for Nikola Vucevic and still turned it down. Rival front offices are going out of their way to call Karnisovas an incompetent hack, and they’re not wrong. The Bulls front office waited far too long to trade LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Alex Caruso, and all they got back was Josh Giddey and their own pick. The NBA can’t let one of its top markets get run into the ground like this. Make Jerry Reinsdorf sell the Bulls, and let Karnisovas go run a team in his native Lithuania where the stakes are much lower.

Loser: Milwaukee Bucks

The Bucks traded a franchise legend in Khris Middleton in a move that gave them financial flexibility and allowed them to make other tweaks to the roster. Then they just ... did nothing else? Milwaukee’s trade decision to take on Kyle Kuzma for Middleton only made sense if other moves were coming, like trading Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton, or even Brook Lopez. GM Jon Horst decided that just because he could aggregate salaries in trades after dropping from the second apron to the first apron with this deal didn’t mean he had to do it.

Kuzma has been legit horrible this season in Washington, but he is younger and healthier than Middleton. There’s a chance he bounces back in a competitive atmosphere, but trading Middleton for Kuzma without doing anything else just feels like a half-measure. The Bucks don’t really feel like a contender going into the playoffs, and that amounts to a massive failure for a team that employs Giannis Antetokounmpo in his prime. Milwaukee is extremely luck that Giannis is so loyal, but it’s easy to wonder how another early playoff exit would test him.

Loser: Phoenix Suns

The Suns desperately tried to trade for Jimmy Butler, but couldn’t pull it off because of Bradley Beal’s no-trade clause. They reportedly tried to trade Kevin Durant to the Warriors, but the veteran star blocked the deal even without a no-trade clause. Phoenix’s decision to turn its unprotected 2031 pick into three less valuable first round picks allowed them to get off Jusuf Nurkic’s contract, but they couldn’t figure out anything else.

It feels like the Suns are deeply screwed. The team is 25-25 and is barely holding on to the last spot in the play-in tournament right now. This is the most expensive roster in league history, and it’s likely to miss the playoffs a year after getting swept in the first round. By the way, a Durant trade request feels like a lock this summer, and this time he’s going to try to pick where he wants to go, whether or not it’s the best deal Phoenix can get. Mat Ishbia talked a big game upon buying the franchise, but his grand plans are unraveling at record speed.

Winner: Washington Wizards

The trade deadline might be the only thing the Wizards win all year. Washington is a pathetic 9-41 overall this year, leading the pack in the race to maximize their lottery ping pong balls for Cooper Flagg. The Wizards aren’t going to be a competitive team for several more years, but they did make a few nice trades this week. Getting Khris Middleton and a future pick swap from the Bucks for a player having a terrible season in Kuzma was great work. They also swooped in to land Marcus Smart and a 2025 first-round pick from Memphis without giving up anything other than second round picks.

The Wizards can flip Middleton and Smart this summer when they will both be expiring contracts. Washington is playing the long game, but they’re making some sharp moves along the way. If the lottery balls bounce the right way, the Wizards could return to relevance in a few years.