Top 50 NBA Offseason Trade Candidates: Giannis Antetokounmpo & More Big Names

When the Golden State Warriors added Kevin Durant to their 73-win team in 2016, there was a sentiment around the NBA that teams would be best-served punting the next couple of years, allowing Golden State to stack a few inevitable championships, and wait for the Warriors to become more vulnerable before spending their assets to try to improve. The NBA's best general managers disagreed.

"They are not unbeatable," then-Rockets GM Daryl Morey told ESPN  in June 2017. "There have been bigger upsets in sports history. We are going to keep improving our roster." Then-Celtics general manager Danny Ainge actually played for one such unbeatable team, the 67-win 1986 Boston Celtics , and understands how fragile those situations truly are. "Something can happen that nobody foresees," Ainge told ESPN. "I don't look at it as doom and gloom right now."

Well, we know what happened. Morey acquired Chris Paul and the Rockets pushed the Warriors to the absolute brink. Boston signed Gordon Hayward in 2017 and traded for Kyrie Irving in 2018. It went south due to a combination of injuries and locker room factors, but Vegas actually pegged the Celtics as Golden State's biggest preseason threat in the 2018-19 season. Toronto, after trading for Kawhi Leonard , ultimately knocked Golden State off in the 2019 Finals. That victory triggered an unparalleled stretch of ongoing NBA parity. We've had seven different champions in the last seven seasons.

I bring all of this up because there are surely a lot of fans feeling that doom and gloom Ainge brushed off almost a decade ago. There isn't one unstoppable juggernaut anymore. There are two. The Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs are the most talented teams in the league, the most asset-rich teams in the league and among the youngest in the league. Even after San Antonio's Finals loss to the New York Knicks, and even in light of the eight different champions we've seen over the past eight years, dual dynasties seem almost inevitable.

It's never that simple, or at least, the people running the other 28 teams won't let it be that simple without a fight. It's going to be quite the opposite. The Spurs and Thunder have created an arms race. "We are used to long odds," Morey said back in 2017. "If Golden State makes the odds longer, we might up our risk profile and get even more aggressive."

In other words, you can expect a very active 2026 offseason trade market, and now that the playoffs have concluded, we can really start digging in on who might be available on that market. Below are the top 50 trade candidates for the summer of 2026.

These are not the 50 players likeliest to be traded. Rather, these are the players who will define the market, the ones who can make a substantial difference for the teams that acquire them or are necessary outgoing pieces for significant teams looking to improve. In short, these are the players to watch with the offseason now at hand. The 50 players are divided into nine tiers and listed in order of salary

Tier 1: Defining stars of the offseason

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo, $58,456,566: Look, it's either happening now, or it's not happening at all. Antetokounmpo is extension-eligible in October. The Bucks have made it clear that Antetokounmpo will either be extended or traded this offseason, and if he doesn't signal a willingness to extend quickly, the Bucks would prefer to get something done before the draft so they could use any picks they acquire to start rebuilding for the post-Antetokounmpo era.

2. Jaylen Brown, $57,078,728: Boston just won 56 games with Brown as its best player. The Celtics proceeded to blow a 3-1 first-round lead in a way that suggested this team is much further away from true contention than it hoped. Brown is Boston's ticket to a significant addition, and some odd Twitch streams after the season didn't exactly scream harmony between player and team. If he's moved, it's likely for another All-Star with a different skill set or a bounty of cheaper assets.

3. Kawhi Leonard, $50,300,000: No matter what the Aspiration investigation finds, the partnership between Leonard and the Clippers has reached its logical endpoint. They traded James Harden and Ivica Zubac for youth and flexibility, so cashing out on Leonard after an unusually healthy and productive season is the logical play. With only one year left on his contract, though, he'll have some say in where he winds up.

4. Donovan Mitchell, $50,105,628: Mitchell just made the first conference finals of his career. If the goal is a championship, well, his noncompetitive loss to the Knicks suggests Cleveland still isn't close. Mitchell can become a free agent in 2027 and, like Antetokounmpo, is entering an "extend or trade" offseason. Cleveland traded Darius Garland for James Harden in part to appease Mitchell, so the Cavaliers will probably do whatever it takes to convince Mitchell to stay. He has similarly expressed a desire to remain in Cleveland. Until that extension is actually signed, though, we can't rule anything out. What is said publicly and what is intended privately don't always align. If Cleveland is less certain about its ability to contend with Mitchell, or if Mitchell sees a more desirable situation elsewhere, anything should be treated as possible. That's what happens when an all-in team gets embarrassed as thoroughly as the Cavaliers were against the Knicks.

Tier 2: Only for Giannis

5. Evan Mobley, $50,105,628: Mobley is about as good as supporting players get. A monster defender and a sorely underrated passer, he even shot well from 3-point range in the playoffs after a down year. But he hasn't grown into the sort of alpha superstar Cleveland hoped he'd be. Antetokounmpo is that player, and if the Cavaliers think they need one, Mobley is their only realistic path there.

6. Jaden McDaniels, $26,200,000: McDaniels was one of the breakout players of the postseason. He's young, cheap and on the same timeline as Anthony Edwards . But Tim Connelly is one of the most aggressive general managers in the NBA, and he tried for Giannis in February. Any hope Minnesota has surely involves McDaniels, but letting him go would surely be gutting for a team that has watched him grow into one of the NBA's best two-way wings.

7. Paolo Banchero ,  $41,250,000:  The fit with Franz Wagner has always been strange. Neither shoots consistently. The lineup data tends to favor Wagner-led units over groups both are a part of or that Banchero leads separately. The Magic just hired Sean Sweeney as their next head coach. He was an assistant in Milwaukee early in Antetokounmpo's career, and the two were reportedly close. Orlando's top decision-makers, John Hammond and Jeff Weltman, both worked in Milwaukee when Antetokounmpo was drafted in 2013. There are dots to be connected here if the Magic feel they are an Antetokounmpo away from contention.

Tier 3: Who wants to roll the dice?

8. Anthony Davis, $58,456,566: The Wizards traded for Davis in February. His quotes about the situation have seemed... less than enthusiastic. Now the Wizards have the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft . They're less dependent on a splashy name like Davis to carry them next season. Davis seems to want to play for a win-now team. Few can deal with his contract, and his injury history remains a concern.

9. Zion Williamson, $42,166,510: Speaking of injury histories, Williamson is coming off a remarkably healthy year. He's also playing on a team that no longer needs him as rookie Derik Queen occupies a very similar role. The Pelicans have signaled a desire to keep Williamson, but for the right offer, given Queen's presence, they'd be crazy not to consider a deal.

10. Kyrie Irving, $39,491,282: He's 34, he's expensive and he's coming off a torn ACL, but if you need a playoff bucket, there aren't many players out there better equipped to get you one than Irving. With Dallas operating on the Cooper Flagg timeline and short several draft picks, sending Irving to a win-now team makes plenty of sense.

11. Ja Morant, $42,166,510: The Grizzlies launched a rebuild by trading Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr . within the past year. They've tried to move Morant as well, but given his injuries, his salary, his off-court behavior, his defensive vulnerabilities and his limitations as a shooter, well, there are a lot of reasons why that hasn't happened. Some team is going to talk itself into the idea that if the front office builds an offense around him, he can recapture the rim-pressure that once made him a star. The numbers don't support that idea, but maybe a change of scenery could get him back on track.

12. Jalen Suggs, $32,400,000: The Magic are basically at the second apron for next season, and with Anthony Black's rookie extension coming, the financial crunch in Orlando is about to become a problem. Suggs is one of the NBA's very best defenders. He's also played 60 games or shot above 34% on 3s just once in his career. He's expensive, but his contract descends in annual value. If you can keep him healthy and get his shot right, he's still a very impactful player.

Tier 4: Take this contract, please?

13. Joel Embiid, $57,985,752: We saw the Embiid dilemma play out in fairly succinct fashion in the playoffs. He missed the first three games of the Boston series, then returned for Game 4 and was spectacular in the last three. Then he got hurt again against the Knicks and wasn't the same. He's still capable of All-NBA-level play. He also has three supermax years left on his contract. The 76ers would presumably love to escape those years if anyone wants to take a swing at the things he's capable of when healthy.

14. Paul George,   $54,126,380: The same principle applies to both Embiid and George: still productive, frequently hurt, old and expensive. George has only two years left on his deal, and as a wing, he's much easier to fit onto most other rosters. It would still probably cost Philadelphia something to get off of him, but doing so would be easier than trading Embiid.

15. Domantas Sabonis, $45,472,000: The NBA has never been harder for centers who neither protect the basket nor make 3s, especially when those centers are making max money and coming off of unhealthy seasons. The Kings are presumably about to start a rebuild, so if a team with the shooting and defense to cover up his weaknesses wants him, he's probably pretty gettable.

16. DeMar DeRozan,   $25,740,000: He's still productive, and only $10 million on his contract is guaranteed. But he's going into his age-37 season, and the Kings will want to give his minutes and shots to younger players. He'll likely be waived. It's just a matter of who's eating that $10 million guarantee before doing so.

17. Jakob Poeltl, $19,500,000: The Raptors signed him to a totally unnecessary extension last offseason, and when they needed movable salary at the deadline, found that the market liked him less than they did. He has three expensive years left on his deal and probably isn't a starter on a good team anymore, but centers are in demand right now, so with an asset attached or as part of something bigger, Poeltl is plausibly movable.

18. Jarred Vanderbilt,   $12,428,571: As one of the few guaranteed contracts left on the books for the Lakers , if they try to trade one or more of their three available first-round picks, Vanderbilt's money will probably be in the deal. It's not a huge contract, but he's not offensively viable in the playoffs, so it will be treated as a clear negative.

Tier 5: Potentially sensible, probably unlikely

19. De'Aaron Fox, $49,500,000: The Spurs traded for him before they knew they'd be able to draft Dylan Harper . Now Harper appears destined for stardom, and Fox's four-year max extension kicks in this offseason. He had a disastrous Finals, and if he's on the team next year, he really should be relegated to third-guard status behind Harper and  Stephon Castle . The Spurs have signaled that t

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-offseason-trade-candidates-2026/)._