Predicting the Next Wave of NBA Stars to Request a Trade
The trade market for NBA stars is in a state of perpetual motion.
That's why the front offices that haven't snagged an available star yet this offseason have no reason to panic. They can always take solace in the fact that another impact player will wiggle loose at some point, probably sooner than later.
Some high-end trade candidates are more obvious than others. A few have already generated trade whispers. With others, it takes a bit of dot-connecting and forward thinking to envision their restlessness, whether that's an apparent stagnation of their team, questionable moves made by the organization or more case-specific factors enhancing the greenness of the other side's grass.
For reasons we'll explain as we go, these five elite talents could be the next to tire of their situation and seek out the nearest exits.
Deni Avdija, Portland Trail Blazers
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Deni Avdija may forever have some soft-spot feels for the Portland Trail Blazers franchise. After all, they were the ones who empowered him with enough touches and spotlight time to fuel his All-Star emergence this past season.
When he looks beyond the sentimental realm, though, what might he start seeing? An overcrowded backcourt group full of ball-dominant guards threatening his usage, perhaps. Or maybe a new ownership group already labeled as penny-pinchers.
Avdija, one of three players to average 24 points, six rebounds and six assists in 2025-26, does his best work with the ball in his hands. How, exactly, can the Trail Blazers guarantee he'll get as many opportunities to do that work with a guard group now featuringโclears throatโDamian Lillard, Ja Morant, Jrue Holiday, Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe?
Now, a trade could help clear congestion, obviously, but it might take multiple moves to ease this concern. And it's unclear if even one is coming, since they "(do) not feel it is essential to unload of (their) guards" and actually "believe the...guards can co-exist," per The Athletic's Jason Quick.
Avdija has two seasons left on his bargain-priced contract. He might not want to spend them fighting for touches on a team that needs to level up just to join the Western Conference's second tier.
Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
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The Phoenix Suns have stiff-armed the idea of trading Devin Booker at every opportunity. The All-Star scoring guard has essentially done the same.
It's probably an endearing show of loyalty to those who cling to their nostalgic thoughts of the league's pre-player empowerment era. It's also shaping up to be an entirely unremarkable way for Booker to play out his prime years, since the Suns have neither the on-hand talent to compete for something of substance, nor the trade chips needed to require that help.
This is a single-star squad that might have to punch above its weight class just to remain in the play-in tournament hunt. The Suns were widely regarded as overachievers this past season while tying for 13th in winning percentage and slotting 15th overall in net efficiency. They needed two play-in games to get one win, then lost all four of their first-round games by an average of 17.3 points.
They have since spent smartly around the margins in free agency. They also burned an unprotected future first-round pick to acquire Miles Bridges, which...yikes. Phoenix was supposed to be past this level of problematic narrow-mindedness. The Bridges trade feels just like the Suns' previous pursuits of instant-gratification, only he doesn't have the accolades Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal possessed.
Is this really the way Booker wants his career to play out? If not, what could the Suns possibly be selling him in terms of a direction change? Unless folks are super bullish on Jalen Greenโa scoring specialist with a career 42.2/33.9/79.6 shooting slashโBooker doesn't even have a co-star candidate on this roster.
Anthony Davis, Washington Wizards
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The best answers aren't always the boldest. Low-hanging fruit is still worth picking, after all.
This is far from the first suggestion that Anthony Davis and the Washington Wizards may not be right for one another. While the Wizards have indicated a desire to keep Davisโthey would notably have nothing to gain by suggesting otherwiseโhe has wondered aloud about the fit.
"I've been in this league a long time, and I've been with losing teams, been on losing teams," Davis told reporters in April. "It's very hard to be a losing team and then a championship contender, right? ... What is our plan for winning going into next season? And how? Not like this is a plan, but how do we execute that? And based on that, we'll kind of see what happens."
The Wizards have since landed No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa and locked Trae Young into a(n awfully expensive) long-term contract. Their long-term future feels a lot more cemented now, but does that really matter to Davis, a 33-year-old with a lengthy injury history?
If it's obvious early that Washington's intriguing young core still has a lot of growing pains to get through, Davis may not have the patience to wait around for it.
Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets
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Kevin Durant's first go-round with the Houston Rockets was...exhausting. That's how it felt from the outside looking in, at least.
Between the injuries to Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams, the runway clearing for Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard and the infamous burner saga, a whole lot happened in Houston.
And none of it changed anything on the year-end results.
The Rockets won the exact same number of games as they did during the 2024-25 season spent without Durant (52), and they were again ousted from the postseason's opening roundโthis time by a Los Angeles Lakers team missing Luka Donฤiฤ for the entire series and Austin Reaves for most of it.
After failing to make it off the launch padโdespite Durant looking every bit the part of his net-shredding bestโdoes Houston just cross its fingers now and hope problems solve themselves? Because it's been a fairly sleepy summer in Space City, save for Tari Eason's new contract and the signing of veteran role players Marcus Smart and Bogdan Bogdanoviฤ.
Maybe Durant is confident in what this club has, but his first season as a part of it did not seem remotely fun. And it would hardly be out of his norm to tire of his hoops home and seek out a fresh start elsewhere.
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
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The 2023-24 NBA season felt like the official arrival of the Minnesota Timberwolves and their superstar Anthony Edwards.
Their 56 wins were the second-most in franchise history. Their Western Conference finals appearance matched their longest ever playoff trek. They had multiple All-Stars for the first time since 2017-18 (Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns), plus the Defensive Player of the Year (Rudy Gobert) and Sixth Man of the Year (Naz Reid). Edwards received his first All-NBA selection and MVP votes that season.
The Wolves now look almost unrecognizable from that team, though. Edwards is still around and still ascending, but just about everything else has changed. Towns was shipped out that offseason, and the primary player brought back for him was just salary-dumped onto the Brooklyn Nets (Julius Randle). Reid was just packaged with an unprotected future first and three first-round pick swaps for LaMelo Ball, perhaps the Association's ultimate risk-reward player.
Invaluable defender and second-team spark Nickeil Alexander-Walker was squeezed out last summer, as Minnesota prioritized re-signing Randle and Reid instead. Alexander-Walker was this season's runaway winner for the Most Improved Player award. Oops.
Among the 15 Timberwolves to log playoff minutes during that run, only Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert remain. Roster reshuffling might be an unavoidable part of basketball business, but that's a wild amount of turnover for a team that appeared cemented as a top-shelf contender.
Maybe that's why "NBA vultures are swirling around Ant in anticipation of him potentially becoming the next superstar who's available in the trade market," as ESPN's Tim MacMahon relayed on Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective in June. Granted, the Ball blockbuster hadn't happened then, but that trade is hardly guaranteed to get things realigned for Minnesota.
The Timberwolves are, to their credit, at least willing to take risks in hopes of making this work, but risks can obviously go wrong. And if Minnesota, which hasn't cracked 50 wins since, wobbles out of the gate next season, those vultures will only feel better about their chances of swiping a superstar.
