5 Players Most Likely to Demand a Trade During 2025-26 NBA Season

A new NBA season always brings a ton of fresh developments to track with it.

That includes a list of trade-request candidates.

Players try orchestrating exits from their current digs for all sorts of reasons: contract statuses, proximity to title contention, hurt feelings, plays for the Sacramento Kangz incurably bleak outlooks and so on and so forth. This list will not discriminate against any potential motivating factors.

Instead, we're on the hunt for five players who have the household-name status to request a trade—and both the reasons and gall required to do it.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

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Waiving and stretching Damian Lillard, signing Myles Turner and bringing back Thanasis Antetokounmpo are not moves the Milwaukee Bucks make without believing Giannis Antetokounmpo is committed to them through this season.

In reality, they have bought themselves time—a runway to show their two-time MVP that they have an instant or imminent line to championship contention.

Nowhere in the (nonexistent) superstar rulebook does it say Giannis has to give them the entire year. If the Bucks' season goes off the rails before the calendar flips to 2026, he may not see value in waiting around for the summer just because the team will have up to three first-round picks to trade.

Before you declare "Giannis would never pull the ripcord midstream," please consider he confirmed that he surveyed the landscape over the offseason. And then remember that he couldn't recall a (purported) conversation with team governor Wes Edens in which he (allegedly) declared his happiness in and loyalty to Milwaukee.

LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers

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Contract negotiations between LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers prior to him picking up his player option this past summer got awkward…largely because it doesn't sound like there were any. That version of events tracks with why the four-time MVP's agent, Rich Paul, made "Thanks for the memories, even if they weren't all great" type comments back in June. 

Everything seems hunky-dory on the surface entering the season. And yet, president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka was nothing if not noncommittal about LeBron's future during his pre-training-camp media availability.

Everyone in the Milky Way Galaxy agrees the Lakers are now on the Luka Dončić Timeline plan. It's hard to argue with that logic when he's nearly 15 years LeBron's junior. 

James himself may not have an issue with his displacement from the center of L.A.'s universe—so long as the team is a contender. If the Lakers are anything less, he is on an expiring contract with a no-trade clause and has the kind of track record that suggests he'd attempt to extricate himself to save face ahead of 2026 free agency.

Jonathan Kuminga, Golden State Warriors

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Whether Jonathan Kuminga has the cachet to ask for a trade is debatable. Whether he has the self-belief to is not.

A contentious stalemate between he and the Golden State Warriors this summer ended with a bizarrely worded breaking-news tweet from ESPN's Shams Charania detailing a contract that exists to be moved. Kuminga signed a two-year deal, with a team option in 2026-27, while waiving his implicit no-trade clause.

Golden State will almost assuredly look to jettison the soon-to-be 23-year-old once his restriction lifts on Jan. 15. Except, this seems like a classic "Get you before you get me" situation. 

Sources told ESPN's Anthony Slater that Kuminga "felt forced into the team option structure.". His ire could be directed at his agent, Aaron Turner. His longstanding issues with the Warriors suggest at least some of his frustration lies with them. 

Regardless, this dynamic is dripping with enough drama that Kuminga texting a trade demand to general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. at 12:01 a.m. the day his restriction lifts would be a fitting end to the entire saga. 

Domantas Sabonis, Sacramento Kings

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Domantas Sabonis said back in March he would "seek clarity" about the Sacramento Kings' plan over the summer. It is not clear how that discussion went, or if it actually took place. Even if it didn't, the Kings have made their plan perfectly clear:

They have no plan.

Sacramento's roster is light on wings and completely bereft of dependable backup bigs. Sabonis himself asked for a point guard, and the Kings delivered Dennis Schröder, a perfectly serviceable not-really-a-point-guard. With all due respect to Doug Christie, who may turn out to be a brilliant head coach, the franchise's search for Mike Brown's permanent replacement was either performative or an outright farce.

Sabonis has to know he's on a sinking ship—and not just because water is rising past his chin. 

Sacramento is headed nowhere, fastly and furiously. Though Sabonis' defensive limitations and the three years and $136.4 million remaining on his contract render him a complicated trade piece, none of that prevents him from attempting to hatch an escape plan.

Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans

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Building this list and not including Zion Williamson would be flat-out reckless.

Staying healthy and leading the New Orleans Pelicans to a top-six spot in the Western Conference is the only scenario in which the 25-year-old escapes trade-request watch. We can envision him being available enough to drive winning, because it's happened once or twice before. The problem is, the Pelicans aren't built to win even if he's available.

New Orleans has zero healthy primary playmakers beyond Williamson himself, a center rotation that is neither proven nor ideally suited to its best player and very little defense. It will require Peak Zion and loads of help from the implosive Sacramento Kings and/or Phoenix Suns just to finish better than 13th in the West. 

Imagining a Zion trade request is far easier than picturing the Pelicans contending for a playoff spot. Healthy, not healthy, playing like an MVP, having a career-worst season, landing somewhere in the middle—it doesn't matter. He could grow wary of repping a franchise addicted to spinning its wheels and long for a fresh start…if he hasn't already.

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.