Young NBA Players 25 and Under Who Already Need a Trade
Changes of NBA scenery are most often associated with established stars. Oftentimes, though, young players of note desperately need new surroundings.
Opportunity is everything for unfinished products. If they do not have a clear pathway to meaningful minutes or have seen their role upended by other moves that conflict with their long-term trajectory, the odds of them sniffing anything near their best-case career outcome become virtually nonexistent.
At that point, it's time for a fresh start.
These five players under the age of 25 know exactly what we're talking about.
Bub Carrington, Washington Wizards
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More than one of the Washington Wizards' perimeter prospects is bound to fall by the wayside relative to the current roster construction. Bub Carrington appears to be in the most immediate danger.
Continuing to start is out of the question with Trae Young aboard. AJ Dybantsa, Anthony Davis and Alex Sarr will take up three of the remaining four slots, and the Wizards have to swing on higher-volume shooting or more aggressive defense with their final choice.
Coming off the bench isn't a death sentence, but Washington's reserve ranks are awfully crowded. Carrington needs to outstrip some combination of Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Will Riley and Tre Johnson to guarantee himself a regular role. This says nothing of Khris Middleton and Justin Champagnie. Cam Whitmore is still somewhere around here, too.
The 21-year-old's on-ball poise no longer qualifies as an ironclad assurance. George and Riley flashed plenty of ball-handling last year. Both of them, along with Johnson, also promise more outside volume.
This isn't to say Carrington is functionally inflexible. He is more than capable when he's not on the ball. His uncertain place in Washington's pecking order is more of a numbers game.
Scoot Henderson, Portland Trail Blazers
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Particularly ill-timed injuries have complicated Scoot Henderson's place in the Portland Trail Blazers hierarchy. The roster construction is what's absolutely nuked it.
Henderson has seen his share of the Blazers' on-ball usage decline year-over-year. That's a troubling trend for a third-overall pick billed as a potential cornerstone floor general. Especially when he's never once entrenched himself as a starter.
Navigating Portland's pecking order isn't getting any easier for the 22-year-old either. It's actually getting much harder.
Damian Lillard re-enters the fold next season, and the Blazers just traded for Ja Morant. Bake in the on-ball touches Deni Avdija now requires (and deserves), the presence of Jrue Holiday and Shaedon Sharpe and Portland's enduring desperation for outside shooting, and you've got the ingredients for total Scoot Henderson erasure.
This dynamic is quite frankly untenable. With Henderson entering the final year of his rookie-scale contract, he and the Blazers should work together to find him a new squad more invested in his development.
Dereck Lively II, Dallas Mavericks
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Dereck Lively II's spotty place in the Dallas Mavericks' bigger picture has more to do with a lack of information than anything else. He has missed more than 60 percent of the team's regular-season games since entering the league.
Complicated still, nearly two-thirds of his career minutes have come alongside Luka Dončić. And in case you haven't heard, he's played for the Los Angeles Lakers since February 2025.
Though Lively needs to show his lower body can hold up for an entire season, the Mavs aren't set up to optimize his performance if and when he does. His defensive versatility fits the current direction, but Dallas' offense lacks the spacing and playmakers needed to capitalize on his screen-and-dives or short-roll decision-making.
Time is on nobody's side at this point. Lively is heading into the final year of his rookie-scale contract, and the Mavs can't justify giving him an extension when he's proven incapable of staying on the floor these past two seasons.
Viewing Lively through a long-term lens also presumes Dallas' lead executives think he's a building block. Team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Mike Schmitz aren't the ones who drafted him. And not only that, but they just added two more bigs, Morez Johnson Jr. and Santi Aldama, to a roster already featuring Cooper Flagg and PJ Washington.
Reed Sheppard, Houston Rockets
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Reed Sheppard more than doubled-up his minutes per game as a sophomore last season. All it took was the Houston Rockets losing Fred VanVleet for the entire year.
There is no telling how far Sheppard's court time falls with FVV back in the fold. Head coach Ime Udoka has never seemed especially enamored with the 22-year-old. Would anybody be surprised if Marcus Smart begins the season ahead of him in the rotation?
To Udoka's credit, Sheppard isn't doing himself any favors. His 39.4 percent clip from distance last year is a big deal, but he hasn't showcased as much on-ball escapism or rim pressure as hoped.
Then again, in Sheppard's defense, the Rockets haven't routinely entrusted him with a ton of responsibility. He was regularly treated like the fourth or fifth option in crunch-time situations without VanVleet. Houston's spacing also isn't conducive to ball-handlers other than Amen Thompson reaching the basket.
If nothing else, this partnership just doesn't feel like a good match. The Rockets have too many other established mouths to feed. They aren't going to fully plumb the depths of what Sheppard is—or isn't—without selling off a key veteran or two. And given their intent to win now, clearing the way for an unproven third-year guard doesn't figure to be very high on their to-do list.
Nikola Topić, Oklahoma City Thunder
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Despite entering his third NBA season, Nikola Topić remains a veritable mystery box.
He missed all of his would-be rookie year with a left knee injury and wasn't able to make his career debut until February 2026 because he needed to undergo treatment for a testicular cancer diagnosis. He also had a procedure to fix a bulging disk in his lower back this past June.
Writing off Topić when he has fewer than 20 combined regular-season and playoff games under his belt would be foolish. He nevertheless needs a clear path to more playing time. The Oklahoma City Thunder can't offer it.
Minutes are technically up for grabs after the team shipped out Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins and Lu Dort. But Topić doesn't profile as a replacement for any of them. He is more of a Swiss Army knife playmaker.
Those reps are spoken for in Oklahoma City. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell have primary ball-handling responsibilities sewn up, and Topić will be hard-pressed to beat out Jared McCain, Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso for what remains.
Unless the plan is to develop him in the vein of a three-and-D wing, the 21-year-old is unlikely to chisel out a meaningful role on any iteration of the title-contending Thunder.
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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