The NBA's 2025 trade deadline has the potential to be the most impactful in recent memory, primarily because of two trades: the Lakers' acquisition of Luka Doncic and the Warriors' deal for Jimmy Butler.
The Lakers are 9-2 since Doncic made his Los Angeles debut and have moved from fifth place in the Western Conference standings up to the No. 2 spot. Golden State has been just as hot, going 10-1 in games Butler has played over the past month and rising from 10th in the conference to sixth. Suddenly, two teams that looked like they'd be lucky to win a playoff series this spring are playing like legitimate contenders to come out of the West.
Outside of those two trades, there's at least one more you could absolutely call a blockbuster -- the three-team deal that sent De'Aaron Fox to the Spurs and Zach LaVine to the Kings may not have the same sort of short-term effect on the Western Conference playoff picture, but Fox's presence in San Antonio alongside Victor Wembanyama figures to be a major factor in future seasons.
I'd add one more deal to this list of pre-deadline "blockbusters" by including the four-team trade that saw Khris Middleton head from the Bucks to the Wizards, with Kyle Kuzma going in the other direction.
Classifying it as a blockbuster may be generous, given Middleton's recent injury history and Kuzma's down year, but Middleton is a three-time All-Star, Kuzma averaged over 21 points per game in each of the past two seasons, and both players have won championships as top-three scorers on their respective teams. A trade that includes both of them is a significant one.
Beyond those four deals, there were 16 others completed during the week leading up to the trade deadline. Many of those have rightly flown under the radar -- the Hornets and Thunder swapping 2029 and 2030 second-round picks, for instance, won't have any effect on the rest of the 2024/25 season.
But there are a handful of deals that have already made a real impact in the month since the February 6 trade deadline and have been somewhat overshadowed by the Doncic and Butler mega-deals. We want to shine a light on several of those trades today, highlighting the best and worst of them.
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