Black Friday sales are everywhere… except the NBA.
There will be no day-after-Thanksgiving trades in the NBA — but that doesn’t mean the shopping hasn’t started. Trade talks have started to slowly warm up around the league, although discussions rarely get serious before Dec. 15 — when many of the players who signed new contracts this summer become eligible to be traded — and it usually takes the pressure of the Feb. 6 trade deadline to get anything done. How much will actually get done this year remains to be seen, as the new salary cap apron rules hamstring nearly every. But those teams are talking.
Where will front offices do their Black Friday shopping? Here are three teams that could be selling.
BROOKLYN NETS
It’s not a surprise that the rebuilding Nets are open to trading away veterans, despite their solid 9-10 start under new coach Jordi Fernandez (who deserves a lot of credit for getting buy-in from this roster). When writing about potential trade partners before the season, I gave Brooklyn its own section. Pretty much every player you can name in Brooklyn — Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith, Bojan Bogdanovic, Cam Thomas, Cameron Johnson, Nic Claxton — is available for the right price.
However, as a source told Brian Windhorst notes at ESPN, don’t look for rebuilding Brooklyn to take back a bad, long-term contract in return.
“Just about everyone on their roster is available as long as they don’t take back long-term money,” one source told ESPN of Brooklyn, which also could have up to $70 million in cap space next summer. “They’re not giving anyone away. At least not yet.”
Nets GM Sean Marks has shown previously he is patient and knows how to build a team from the ground up, he’s not going to change course and take on bad contracts. However, teams looking for a playoff push will come around to the Nets’ asking price.
CHICAGO BULLS
Currently, the Chicago Bulls are tied for the No. 8/9 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft (obviously dependent on lottery results). That matters because the Bulls owe their pick to the Spurs as part of the DeMar DeRozan trade, but it is Top-10 protected — if the Bulls play well enough behind a hot shooting Zach LaVine, they could move up the standings and suddenly have the No. 11 or 12 pick. Which means they have no pick. There has been an expectation around the league that the Bulls would make trades and pivot to losing at some point to ensure they hold on to that pick in a deep draft.
All of which is a long-winded way…