10 Hot Takes from the 2025 NBA Offseason
With the NBA movement peak of early July several weeks behind us and actual games another several weeks ahead, now is the perfect time to put some of our wilder offseason ideas on the official record.
What outlandish conclusions can we draw from the summer's transactions? How bold can we get in our predictions without sounding completely ridiculous?
The ideal hot take is one that isn't measured or likely to be proved completely right. It needs to be plausible enough to warrant discussion, hopefully supported by a piece of actual evidence and, most importantly, just rational enough that you'd say it out loud in public.
Some of these will cut it pretty close by those standards.
OKC Will Win the West by 10 Games
1 of 10
The defending champs finished an incredible 16 games ahead of the second-seeded Houston Rockets last year, marking the first time in a decade the No. 1 seed had that large of a cushion in the West.
With all the offseason buzz about how much more formidable the conference is this year, the safe assumption would be that OKC will coast a bit as it recovers from a championship run while threats in Houston, Denver, Minnesota and elsewhere push the pedal down a little harder in pursuit of postseason seeding.
This is a bet on the Thunder's potential to hit yet another level in their evolution. That's not to say Oklahoma City will tax its top talent and try to win 70-plus games. It's an acknowledgement that one of the all-time best regular season records might just arise organically as the team's many young players keep improving.
Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren are the obvious upward-movers, but even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has room to get better. Stephen Curry won an MVP and a championship, only to rise even higher the following season. A unanimous MVP is highly unlikely, but Gilgeous-Alexander could sharpen up his playmaking and passing pretty easily, which would have a positive trickle-down effect on every teammate.
The top teams out West are more dangerous than ever. OKC is going to make sure the gap between itself and those squads stays historically wide.
This Will Not Be the Revenge Season Everyone Expects from Luka Dončić
2 of 10
It's almost impossible to play better than Luka Dončić did during the first six seasons of his career. After winning Rookie of the Year, he finished no worse than eighth in MVP voting and made the All-NBA first team in each of the next five campaigns.
The hiccup happened in 2024-25, when he started the season injured, concerns about his conditioning intensified and the Dallas Mavericks traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he looked sluggish and posted the worst Box Plus/Minus since his rookie year.
Dončić's outlook is complicated. Should we buy the hype that he's finally in shape because a calculated PR push and some tasteful airbrushing say we should? Is it possible last year was the catalyst that turns Dončić into the best version of himself? Perhaps.
Dončić is firmly in "prove it" territory when it comes to his health and conditioning. He also enters a season with some tricky vibes, as LeBron James' diminished importance to the Lakers could create an uncomfortable dynamic. James didn't get an extension over the summer and has no experience as his team's second most important player.
Lastly, Los Angeles didn't use its remaining draft picks and assets to swing a win-now trade that would surround Dončić with more supporting talent. The Lakers had a solid offseason, but they definitely didn't push their chips in.
Dončić has been a professional basketball player for over a decade, if you count his European career. Nobody seems to be considering the possibility that we've already seen the best of him.
The Hawks Could Win the East
3 of 10
Massive leaps up the standings seem to be happening more often. The Detroit Pistons tripled their 2023-24 win total last year, while the Houston Rockets went from 22 to 41 to 52 victories across the last three seasons.
The Atlanta Hawks are next, but we're going to take things a step beyond "they'll win lots more games" and argue they've got a real shot to finish first in the East.
It helps that the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers, the last two Finals representatives from the conference, are cooked as contenders for this season because of key injuries. The Philadelphia 76ers are a giant question mark, the Cleveland Cavaliers might not push as hard during the year after losing steam in another first-round ouster and the Milwaukee Bucks don't have much besides Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Atlanta is poised to capitalize.
Trae Young isn't so far removed from guaranteeing a top-flight offense all by himself, only now he has hidden-gem star Jalen Johnson at his side. Dyson Daniels finished second in DPOY voting and will pair with Onyeka Okongwu, Kristaps Porzingis and Nickeil Alexander-Walker to wreak havoc on D. Porzingis also brings mismatch-busting offense to the mix.
Zaccharie Risacher offers three-and-D upside, Luke Kennard is one of the best shooters of his generation and head coach Quin Snyder presided over similarly balanced conference-winners in Utah just a few seasons ago.
This group is deep, loaded and perfectly positioned to exceed what are already high expectations.
.png?w=256)
The Suns Haven't Changed
4 of 10
Don't get caught up congratulating the Phoenix Suns for trading Kevin Durant and buying out Bradley Beal. Nobody deserves credit for putting out fires they set in the first place, so the Suns don't get praise for offloading two players they gave up way too much to acquire and kept too long. Neither returned anything close to maximum value, with Beal a literal write-off Phoenix will continue to pay for five seasons.
Those moves aren't even the ones that should inspire the most concern. Phoenix's decision to extend Devin Booker earns that distinction.
Booker is a tremendous player—a multi-time All-NBA honoree who already holds Phoenix's all-time franchise scoring mark. But he was already on the books through 2028 and, more importantly, should have been the first player Phoenix shopped over the offseason.
That the Suns only dealt the stars who already had a foot out the door, rather than turning Booker into a package of picks and assets that could have given them hope over the next five years, was the perfect window into the addled thinking that has defined the franchise under Mat Ishbia.
Teams Are Back in Control
5 of 10
It's unusual that four key restricted free agents—Jonathan Kuminga, Josh Giddey, Cam Thomas and Quentin Grimes—seem nowhere close to getting offer sheets or new contracts with September just around the corner. Soon enough, that'll be the norm as the apron era progresses and teams continue to carve out stronger negotiating positions.
For several years, rookie-scale extensions felt like foregone conclusions. Potential superstars will continue to get their maxes, but we're clearly seeing players in the next tier down struggle to land the kinds of deals that used to be rubber-stamped.
The plight of the RFA owes to the collective bargaining agreement's punitive tax and apron provisions. Teams are more wary than ever of overspending, which means those second contracts are much harder to get than they used to be.
Restricted free agency already gave incumbent teams a powerful tool in the form of matching rights. Even when spending was freer, teams would occasionally force their RFAs to establish their market values by getting an outside offer sheet. Now, with few teams possessing cap space and even fewer eager to tie up their funds with offer sheets that might get matched anyway, restricted free agents are getting squeezed harder than ever.
This is a boon for teams but a potentially severe earnings-diminisher for players.
Toronto Needs Some New Ideas
6 of 10
The organization lauded for the forward-thinking "Project 6'9"" approach now feels like it has its finger nowhere near the pulse of modern roster-building trends.
The Raptors re-upped with non-spacing big man Jakob Poeltl, added a shaky-shooting rookie forward in Collin Murray-Boyles who'll overlap with Scottie Barnes and extended Brandon Ingram after a hail mary trade brought him aboard during the year.
Toronto also doesn't really have a point guard, though Immanuel Quickley and his infamous contract will man the position.
Quickley's 32.0 percent assist rate was strong for a combo guard, which means less because that's not the position he'll play for the Raptors. Though a career-high by a mile, that percentage wouldn't have sniffed the top 10 among point guards (minimum 900 minutes) last season. His career mark is in the low 20s, which would have been 28th in that same sample.
Toronto will be better than last year if the core stays healthy, but this is a roster that doesn't sync with many of the stylistic trends around the league—one that is also too expensive at several positions and led by promoted GM Bobby Webster, who assumes President of Basketball Operations duties after presumably having a lot to do with the current build.
The Kings Are Nearing Catastrophe
7 of 10
It was fun while it lasted, but the days of the Sacramento Kings resembling a functional organization are over.
De'Aaron Fox's exit was an in-season move, but it followed head coach Mike Brown's firing and preceded an offseason of troublingly familiar mismanagement. Dennis Schroder was Sacramento's big free-agent get, and it's very difficult to be excited by a journeyman point guard whose whole game has been based on speed aging deeper into his 30s.
Schroder will start and earn $44 million over three seasons, but the low odds that he lives up to his salary aren't even the worst part of the bargain. In order to onboard Schroder, the Kings had to flip Jonas Valančiūnas for Dario Sarić. The former was the best backup big Sacramento had seen in years, while the latter hasn't been a rotation-caliber option for half a decade.
The Kings are bleeding talent, run by a retread top executive in Scott Perry and a Domantas Sabonis trade request away from total disaster.
All of this feels terrifyingly familiar for a fan base that has endured two decades of chaotic management. Kings fans know what's coming because they've been through it before.
Boston Will Not Make Another Finals With Jayson Tatum As Its Best Player
8 of 10
The Boston Celtics had to blow it up. There was no sense in paying half-a-billion dollars for a Jayson Tatum-less roster with no hope of contending.
The trades that sent out Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday were also an admission of sorts—not one the Celtics would readily cop to, but one that realistic observers should see quite clearly: Boston is done contending with this core.
Tatum should return next year but will likely be less than his best self until at least 2027-28. At that point, Jaylen Brown will be 31 and earning $61 million. Derrick White will collect $32 million in his age-33 campaign. Throw Tatum's salary in there, and Boston will have $157 million committed to three players.
That's no way forward, which is why the Celtics will probably look to move Brown and/or White at some point in the next couple of offseasons. Tatum feels like a mainstay because of his stature in Boston and because of the contract that'll keep him maxed out through 2030, but everything else is going to change for the worse by default.
Boston had loads of deep playoff runs with Tatum at the forefront, and it won a title in 2024. Another one won't arrive until long after Tatum is either gone or reduced to second-option status.
Giannis Antetokounmpo Will Request an In-Season Trade
9 of 10
Myles Turner is an ideal big man to put next to Giannis Antetokounmpo, and it's not going to matter.
The Milwaukee Bucks are too short on supporting talent and too stripped of tradeable assets to fill out the rest of the roster in a way that makes championship contention realistic. It's easy enough to stay optimistic about Milwaukee's place in the East right now, but things will change once the actual games start.
Though Antetokounmpo has typically applied pressure to the Bucks in the offseason, which he did again this year by leaving his future plans undefined, he's going to see the writing on the wall during the 2025-26 campaign and conclude there's only one correct reaction.
Two MVPs, a DPOY and a title mean Antetokounmpo is already minted as a franchise legend. But don't be surprised if some portion of Milwaukee fans take issue with him waiting so long to ask for an exit. The Bucks have been bending over backwards, shipping out assets and doing everything they can to appease Antetokounmpo for years, and it's hard to blame them. When you have a player like Giannis, you do whatever you can to keep him—even if it means sabotaging your future.
Had Antetokounmpo requested a trade two offseasons ago, when it was already becoming clear the Bucks were through as contenders, just imagine how much better positioned the organization would be today. Credit him for holding out hope, but also be ready for fans and pundits to criticize him for holding the organization hostage until the worst possible time.
LeBron James Won't Finish the Season in Los Angeles
10 of 10
The anointment of Luka Dončic, the failure to reach an offseason extension, the refusal of the front office to go all-in for rotation help this past summer—all of it points to a LeBron James exit.
While it's true James has non-basketball reasons to remain based in L.A., it's still hard to imagine him accepting status as something other than the most important figure in the franchise for a full year. Especially if the Lakers aren't a top-flight contender.
Maybe if Los Angeles was loaded with star talent, James could talk himself into accepting a more supplementary role—one that still might evolve into him taking over playoff games in the spring. But the West is loaded, and the Lakers' decision not to re-up with James suggests they don't even view him as the second star they want next to Dončić whenever the team reaches contention.
Some of that is understandable given James' age, but the facts are what they are: For the first time, James isn't his team's most valuable asset, and his organization isn't gunning for a title at all costs. That's not going to sit well, and it'll eventually lead to a trade out of town.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
.png?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Breaking News")
.png?w=600 "Play-In Winners and Losers 📊")
.jpg?w=600 "Final Grades for Every Team 🔠")