In the weeks leading up to the 2025 NBA trade deadline, the prevailing wisdom among the basketball punditry held that we wouldn’t see much transaction action, what with the big, bad collective bargaining agreement restricting stars’ freedom of movement, and all those high-spending teams bound tightly by the strings of the first and second aprons. A funny thing happened on the way to all that boredom, though: LIKE EIGHT FRIGGIN’ ALL-STARS GOT TRADED.
It turns out that, in an environment in which 20 teams participate in the postseason, with just a handful of wins separating home-court advantage and the fringes of the play-in, NBA decision-makers found plenty of ways to hustle and flow within the CBA’s confines, which ultimately proved less restrictive than some had feared.