5 NBA Teams That Should Trade Their Best Player
Brutally honest conversations about NBA teams and the future of their best players are always difficult to have and just as frequently avoided. We sugarcoat, we equivocate and, oftentimes, we avoid.
That won't be happening here.
Every team on this list can convince itself not to move on from its best player. Those internal pitches vary in legitimacy.
There are scenarios in which hanging onto these top-of-the-roster names can work out. But the odds range from long to basically nil, and in most cases, both the players and their teams will be better off in the long term if they part ways.
Brooklyn Nets: Cam Johnson
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Cam Johnson's future with the Brooklyn Nets can be likened to Lauri Markkanen's with the Utah Jazz. Keeping him isn't going to adversely impact the rebuild or lottery odds, and trading him for blasé returns serves little purpose when the team has 16 first-round picks over the next seven years, including four in the upcoming draft.
Unlike Markkanen, though, Johnson's value will never be higher than it is right now. He is a non-star with two years and $44.1 million left on his deal, with his age-30 season just around the corner.
Brooklyn's prospective return for his services will only get lower after the summer, at which point teams will be guaranteed fewer seasons with him under contract and have to worry about how much he'll cost as he ages.
Unless the Nets envision Johnson sticking around long enough to be part of their next playoff-bound iteration, the time to move him is now.
Chicago Bulls: Coby White
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Coby White doesn't turn 26 until the middle of next February, so he can theoretically be part of the Chicago Bulls' future. But his contract status doesn't align with their window—insofar as they have a window, or even the loose concepts of a plan.
Chicago locked in one of the league's team-friendliest deals two summers ago when it signed White for three years and $33 million. That bargain is now a limitation. He is extension eligible, but the Bulls' max offer tops out at four years and $80.8 million.
He's not signing that. Nor should he. There will be more cap space available next summer, when the 25-year-old's four-year max from another team could reach $219.4 million. Chicago can roll the dice and assume he won't get that much. And look, he probably won't.
Then again, White has hovered on the fringes of All-Star territory the past two seasons. It's easier to envision a suitor giving him the full freight if he does the same—or gets over the hump—next year.
Paying White market value will be a risk for any team. It is flat-out counterintuitive for a Bulls squad nowhere near contention that may be about to shell out $150 million to re-sign Josh Giddey.
In keeping with our brutally honest motif, they should have traded White already.
Dallas Mavericks: Anthony Davis
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Operating under the belief that a 32-year-old Anthony Davis does more for the Dallas Mavericks' immediate and long-term championship chances than a 26-year-old Luka Dončić was and remains, at its most charitable, questionable logic by president of basketball operations Nico Harrison. The decision looks even weirder now.
Yours truly counts himself as mostly timeline agnostic, but the Mavs have no discernible alignment anymore. Kyrie Irving, 33, is going to miss a chunk of next season while recovering from a torn left ACL and could be up for a new contract (player option), and Dallas is about to draft 18-year-old phenom Cooper Flagg.
Building around the latter should be the Mavs' top priority. Plopping him into a situation where, as of now, they need him to be no worse than the co-lead ball-handler of a team the C-Suite fancies a contender runs in stark contrast to that—and likely the reality of Dallas' position inside the Western Conference.
Make no mistake, these Mavs are deep. Even without Irving, they could be pretty good. But "pretty good" misses the point when the vast majority of your rotation is in the heart of or entering the back end of its prime.
It makes more sense for Dallas to trade Davis for a future-focused package teeming with picks and prospects and enter the rebuilding phase they should have initiated when shipping out Dončić.
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Milwaukee Bucks: Giannis Antetokounmpo
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Giannis Antetokounmpo is the toughest inclusion of this exercise, in large part because he no longer seems like someone readying a trade request.
Typically, teams aren't in the business of dealing franchise icons and top-three players unless their hand is forced. And when they do make the call by their own hand, they are the 2024-25 Dallas Mavericks.
No one's pretending this is an easy decision for the Milwaukee Bucks. Necessary choices seldom are. The fact of the matter is, their future with Giannis no longer oozes eternal possibility.
They can talk about grand, aggressive plans all they want. That optimism rings hollow when they only have one first-round pick to trade (in 2031 or 2032), no top-of-the-line prospects on the roster and will likely be without Damian Lillard all of next season as he recovers from a torn left Achilles.
Even accessing the non-taxpayer mid-level exception of $14.1 million this summer may cost the Bucks Brook Lopez. And the appeal of a gap year is nonexistent when they don't control their own pick, and when they have no idea what Lillard will look like entering his age-36 season coming off a major injury.
Moving Giannis lacks usual benefits for the same reason. Milwaukee doesn't control its own first again until 2031. But he's the kind of player who can bring back a haul of prospects and other teams' first-rounders that allows the Bucks to rebuild earnestly and effectively.
Passing on that opportunity, in this case, feels akin to delaying the inevitable.
Sacramento Kings: Domantas Sabonis
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The Sacramento Kings punted on the opportunity to rebuild when they sent De'Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs, instead prioritizing a three-team framework that landed them Zach LaVine rather than additional draft (and prospect) equity. Their path forward is now murky at best.
New general manager Scott Perry inherits a roster built to be the Chicago Bulls of the Western Conference. The Kings have trade assets, along with the non-taxpayer mid-level exception of $14.1 million, to make improvements but feel more than a modest player or two away from doing more than jockeying for play-in positioning.
Starting over is the call they should have made before. They can still make it now.
Domantas Sabonis' market value is complicated. He is both uniquely skilled and flawed and on a contract that will pay him $136.4 million over the next three years and vary in worth by the beholder.
The playmaking, stretch, rebounding and durability he provides at the center spot will nevertheless be worth something to someone. Even if it's not the perfect return, there is value in getting off the one player who's so good he damages your draft-lottery odds but not good enough to ferry a middling, ill-built roster to heights any higher than we've seen the past two seasons.
Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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