The widespread expectation heading into the summer of 2025 was that the NBA was headed for one of the wildest offseasons in recent league history. We just couldn’t preview it properly without knowing the NBA Draft order. Well, now we know it after Monday’s surprising NBA Draft Lottery. Cooper Flagg will almost certainly be a Dallas Maverick. The San Antonio Spurs hold the No. 2 pick, and the Philadelphia 76ers will pick No. 3… at least for now.
Usually, the top picks are held by pure rebuilders. That’s not the case this year. The Mavericks and 76ers are emphatically focused on the present. The Spurs started moving in that direction the moment they landed De’Aaron Fox at the trade deadline. Suddenly, almost anything seems like it’s on the table heading into the draft and free agency.
So naturally, we’re going to try to mock some of this out. Below are five viable trades involving teams in Monday’s lottery. They won’t all include the top lottery picks themselves, but they will to some extent be based on the results. So, without further ado, let’s make some trades.
Trade 1: Mavericks-Lakers round 2
- Mavericks get: Anfernee Simons
- Lakers get: Daniel Gafford
- Blazers get: Maxi Kleber, Caleb Martin, Dalton Knecht, Dwight Powell, Lakers’ unprotected 2029 (from Mavericks) and 2031 first-round picks, 2030 swap rights with the Lakers
The Mavericks probably wouldn’t be too eager to go back to the Lakers another deal, but lotteries make strange bedfellows. Dallas was already loaded up front even before landing Flagg. Introducing him into a frontcourt mix with Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively, P.J. Washington, Naji Marshall and, of course, Gafford creates a minutes crunch while a gaping hole exists in their backcourt. Gafford is a free agent next summer and reportedly wants starter money. Dallas probably can’t justify giving it to him. Lively is extension-eligible next offseason, Davis is making the max, and while Flagg is obviously a bargain on his rookie deal, he’s still going to make around $14 million next season. That’s not nothing.
The logical move, then, would be to trade Gafford before paying him and get a guard back who can lead the offense while Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL. Not many teams have are eager to trade shot-creating guards for non-shooting big men. The Lakers might be one of them, but Austin Reaves is probably a bit too valuable for Gafford and Dallas likely won’t want to sacrifice the younger Lively. Instead, they offer Luka Dončić his old pick-and-roll partner back in exchange for the package the Lakers originally planned to spend on Mark Williams. Dallas wouldn’t keep that package, though. They would instead shop it with the Laker pick they already have to go get that guard.
And that’s how we land on Simons, probably the best non-All-Star guard on the market this offseason. Aside from being a sorely underrated scorer (especially in crunch time), Simons is only 25. He could be a long-term sidekick for Flagg even after Davis and Irving age out of stardom. For Portland, this trade clears the way for 21-year-olds Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson to fully take over the back court. It also gives the Blazers a diversified portfolio of draft picks, as they still control three Bucks picks from the Damian Lillard trade. Some construction like this, in which the Lakers take a center from the Mavericks and Dallas uses those Laker assets to get a guard, is one of the easiest fake trade constructions of the offseason. The only real obstacle would be the public backlash Nico Harrison would receive for trading with Rob Pelinka again.
Trade 2: Giannis to the Spurs
- Bucks get: Stephon Castle, Harrison Barnes, Keldon Johnson, 2025 No. 2 overall pick, most favorable of Milwaukee and New Orleans’ first-round pick in 2026
- Pelicans get: No. 14 pick, Atlanta’s unprotected 2027 first-round pick
- Spurs get: Giannis Antetokounmpo
One of the biggest questions of the offseason was whether it was wise for San Antonio to go all-in on a 30-year-old Antetokounmpo when Victor Wembanyama is a decade younger. Jumping up to No. 2 in the Draft Lottery means they won’t have to. They’ll still have to pay a bundle to get the two-time MVP, of course, but that pick is so valuable on its own that San Antonio could preserve the bulk of its remaining future draft capital while still making Milwaukee the best offer in the field. That’s going to matter in four or five years when Antetokounmpo has aged out of stardom and De’Aaron Fox is in the back part of his prime. It preserves enough ammunition for the Spurs to go make another star trade down the line, when Wembanyama is in his prime.
This deal costs them their Rookie of the Year and this year’s second pick (likely Rutgers guard Dylan Harper), but keeps scoring forward Devin Vassell and defensive ace Jeremy Sochan in place. Not a bad starting point to support their new three-headed monster. They’d have to go get more shooting, of course, but they’re still more than financially flexible enough to do it. Sam Merrill on a mid-level contract in free agency would become an obvious target.
For the Bucks, this would be a monster package. Harper has a chance to be a star. Castle, obviously, has a chance to be a star, and his limitations as a shooter are less severe in Milwaukee, where he wouldn’t be playing alongside Fox. The cherry on top? They manage to get their own 2026 pick back (or, if the Pelicans are somehow worse than them, an even better one) by flipping two pretty valuable picks that currently belong to the Spurs to New Orleans. This is similar to the maneuver Brooklyn pulled with Houston last offseason. When a team is trading a star, it typically wants to have the ability to tank. The Bucks could do so for a year, add one more high pick a Castle-Harper core, and go off to the races from there.
- Suns get: Paul George, 2025 No. 3 overall pick
- 76ers get: Kevin Durant
The 76ers could really go in any direction. They’re the rare top-three team that could justify a trade down. While Flagg and Harper are the obvious top two picks, it’s a bit of a crapshoot starting at No. 3. If they don’t love anyone at that spot and someone else does, it never hurts to collect a few extra assets, and the 76ers probably need to shed a bit of salary given how expensive it could be to re-sign Quentin Grimes, so using such a trade as a dumping ground could make sense as well.
But come on, this is Daryl Morey. Nobody hunts stars like Daryl Morey, and this pick is one of the most powerful tools he’s ever had to do it with. So here, he takes one last swing on the Joel Embiid era and escapes the last three years of George’s contract by going after Durant. Given his age at 37, it’s unlikely anyone is willing to offer something more valuable. Under normal circumstances, it would never make sense to trade a pick like this for such an old player. If any part of this front office thinks Embiid can be an MVP candidate again, Durant makes Philadelphia one of the favorites in the East.
Still, don’t count this one as especially likely. Morey himself told reporters that the plan is to keep the pick. Given the enormous medical risk Embiid poses, that’s probably the right call. This pick is a chance to grab Tyrese Maxey a long-term running mate, and with Grimes and Jared McCain in place as well, the 76ers could develop a pretty interesting young core independent of Embiid. If a younger star becomes available, of course the 76ers would explore it, but in all likelihood, the 76ers are taking a youngster.
- Jazz get: Deandre Ayton, Matisse Thybulle, 2025 No. 11 overall pick, most and least favorable of Milwaukee, Portland and Washington’s first-round picks in 2029
- Blazers get: Lauri Markkanen
OK, let’s get weird. The Jazz have made it perfectly clear they are willing to tank egregiously to try to land a star. They were fined $100,000 for violating the NBA‘s player participation policy in a brazen push to lose games. That didn’t pan out this year. The Jazz wound up with the No. 5 pick. They could simply try to tank again next year with Lauri Markkanen on the team, but doing so would mean testing league policy again. They explored Markkanen deals last offseason, but he became ineligible for a trade during the season when he renegotiated and extended his contract. That limitation is now out of the way, so Utah can move him for the right offer. Would three first-round picks do it? It didn’t a year ago, when Danny Ainge asked opposing teams for the moon. But Markkanen just isn’t as valuable on his current deal.
The Blazers are the anti-Jazz. They traded a lottery pick for Deni Avdija at least year’s deadline and proceeded to compete for a play-in spot. They are probably too good at this point to tank for a pick. So instead, what if they go the other way and trade for a veteran as they did last year? Markkanen would be an obvious fit in Portland. Scoot Henderson’s poor shooting means he probably needs to play with at least one sharpshooter in his front court, and Markkanen fits the bill. Meanwhile, Avdija, Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan could protect Markkanen on defense. The Blazers could even replenish some of the draft value they lose in this deal by turning around and flipping Simons elsewhere as described above.
Trade 5: Houston backs out
- Nuggets get: No. 10 pick
- Rockets get: Denver’s 2032 first-round pick unprotected, 2031 first-round swap rights with Denver
A year ago, the Spurs and Timberwolves made one of the more unusual trades in draft history. San Antonio sent the No. 8 pick to Minnesota for a lightly protected first-round swap six years in the future and an unprotected first-round swap seven years in the future. The Spurs, who also picked at No. 4, didn’t want to try to fit two rookies onto their team at once. The Timberwolves, meanwhile, were capped out and had spent all of their picks getting Rudy Gobert. They needed a long-term upside play at point guard to eventually replace Mike Conley and had no other way of finding someone as promising as Rob Dillingham. It was an odd trade, but it made sense for both sides.
There is no way the Rockets want to try to fit a lottery pick onto next year’s roster. They just took Reed Sheppard No. 3 overall and didn’t even use him. A No. 10 pick is very valuable to an older, thin roster. To a younger, deep team like the Rockets? It’s just another asset to throw onto the pile, almost a waste. Houston has too many young guys to develop and eventually pay as it is. They need to turn this pick into an asset or assets that won’t impact their immediate roster.
That’s where the Nuggets come in. Denver has an aging core. The Nuggets have been completely unable to develop a bench behind Nikola Jokić for basically his entire career. They’ve traded most of their upcoming picks, so their odds of drafting and developing players to support him aren’t great. They’re entirely capped out as it is and things get even tighter if Christian Braun extends this offseason. The thought of getting a No. 10 pick to develop as a long-term part of the core would be very appealing to the Nuggets. He’d start out as a reserve, but could potentially replace one of the expensive starters if the team ever needed to save money.
Would Denver want to sacrifice picks when Jokić is at the end of his career or retired? Probably not. Those picks could be quite valuable. But their championship window is open so long as he’s in his prime. It makes sense to maximize it. Houston, meanwhile, would have to grapple with potentially empowering a Western Conference rival. The Spurs did it with Minnesota a year ago, though, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. This would be a risky trade on both sides, but the potential reward makes more sense than just standing pat would for either of them.
