NBA free agency is a game of musical chairs, and the music is starting to slow down. Most of the available money has now been spent. Rosters are starting to fill out. Even teams that have slots to fill may not have minutes or shots to offer. By late July, most of the players who haven’t found jobs likely won’t be able to land good ones before the season begins.
This poses problems for those who remain in the 2025 free agent class. While the group as a whole was relatively weak headed into July, there are still a fair number of big(ish) names still available. So let’s go through some of those players now. Can we find homes for some of the most accomplished and promising players left on the market?
You can probably rule the contender class out here. He just had his best season in years with Denver and the Nuggets still elected not to re-sign him. If you’re not compatible with Nikola Jokić, you probably just aren’t going to meaningfully contend for championships as a role player. He’s 0-for-4 on long-term fits with winners between the Rockets, Lakers, Clippers and Nuggets, so really, we’re just looking for a team with limited ambition and a need for some playmaking.
The Kings are the only team out there that even sort of fits that bill. He’s been linked to Sacramento all offseason, and even with Dennis Schröder in place, there still isn’t much passing here. The Kings also fell from 11th in pace in the first half of last season (when they had De’Aaron Fox) to 28th in the second half (when he was replaced by Zach LaVine). They could use someone to push pace and hopefully generate some easy points, and while Westbrook’s off-ball defense is inconsistent, he can be tough against opposing ball-handlers because of his athleticism and strength.
Does that make Sacramento an ideal fit for Westbrook? Probably not. Between LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk and Schröder, there are already for shoot-first perimeter players here. The Kings also already have a 15-man roster, though that could be remedied in a number of ways. Truthfully we might have just hit the end of the line on Westbrook’s NBA career. If he’s going to catch on, it’s going to be a with a team like this: not good enough to harbor playoff ambitions, not young enough to be rebuilding in earnest.
Boston is an interesting fit. They’re in a gap year, so it’s a low-pressure environment for the time being, and they obviously have the shooting to take advantage of him as a ball-handler. But Joe Mazzulla wants everyone to be able to shoot. He likely wouldn’t be thrilled by the idea of an on-ball player that neither takes 3s nor ventures into the paint. Unless the Celtics are willing to change the way they play to accommodate him, we can likely do better.
How about the Knicks? The key to maximizing Simmons will be surrounding him with shooting. The Knicks have a shooting big man in Karl-Anthony Towns. The reserves they added this offseason, Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele, can both shoot. Perhaps New York could lean on Simmons as a creator when Jalen Brunson goes to the bench. He gives them yet another big wing to deploy defensively, and if they want to switch as much as they did in the later stages of the postseason, Simmons can do so. The pressure of Madison Square Garden is a potential issue, but we’re talking about a 10-15-minute reserve here, not a star. It’s a low-risk, high-reward gamble.
We won’t spend too much time on this one. It’s been pretty widely reported that Golden State expects to land Horford at some point. The holdup is likely financial. The Warriors are still sorting through Jonathan Kuminga’s future (more on that later), and they likely want to know how much flexibility they’ll have after dealing with him before putting pen to paper on a contract with Horford. Regardless, the fit is perfect. They need a shooting big man and they prefer to switch defensively, which Horford still does exceedingly well. It takes smart players to survive in Golden State and Horford is an exceedingly well-respected veteran. He’ll be a great Warrior once they make it official.
It seems pretty notable that Moses Moody played only around nine minutes per game in the Minnesota series. Steve Kerr seemingly lost faith in him toward the end of last season, and then, when Stephen Curry wasn’t around to mask his offensive deficiencies, he was nearly unplayable. The Warriors need a second point-of-attack defender, and that’s what Payton has given them in his two stints with the team.
He obviously has offensive deficiencies as well, but the Warriors have a far easier time masking those deficiencies than other teams do. His smart cutting and underrated screening make much more sense in a free-flowing offense like Golden State’s than a more traditional, pick-and-roll heavy attack that would be hurt by his relatively weak shooting (though in fairness, he made above 41% in the corners last season and has always been reasonably strong there). Other defense-needy teams will want him, but he saw firsthand in Portland that the grass isn’t always greener. Both sides are stronger together.
Between the loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and their reported interest in Damian Lillard before his return to Portland, it seems safe to assume Minnesota wants to devote one of its two remaining roster spots to a guard. Given Mike Conley‘s age, it probably makes some sense to get a traditional floor-general at point guard as a bit of a hedge. Anthony Edwards is not a point guard, and while Rob Dillingham may be listed as one, he’s a shoot-first player.
The ulterior motive of a Brogdon signing: tradable salary. Tim Connelly tried to trade for Kevin Durant earlier this offseason. He’s among the more creative traders in basketball, so if he can find a way to render Conley redundant with a free-agent signing, that’s $10.8 million or so in easily movable salary at the deadline. The hope here is that Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. can grow into the guards of the future next to Edwards, so while Conley’s presence as a veteran is good for the locker room, they likely wouldn’t hesitate to move him if they could improve the roster in a way that empowers those youngsters.
Restricted free agents are much harder to place than their unrestricted counterparts. Their original team can match any offer. That scares most potential suitors away early in the process, which tends to mean that most of the money on the market has dried up before anything gets solved. In many cases, that forces restricted free agents to re-sign with their original teams for favorable terms. Given Kuminga’s desire to escape Golden State, though, he may be forced to take his one-year qualifying offer to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
For now, we’ll forecast a sign-and-trade. Those are tricky because of a cap rule known as base-year compensation. Essentially, this means that when Golden State trades Kuminga, he will only count for around half of his new salary when it comes to outgoing money for their purposes. His new team, however, will count Kuminga at the entire figure. Matching money with this restriction is difficult. Miami has reportedly been interested, but the player that would make the most sense for the Warriors, Andrew Wiggins, just makes too much to be viable.
Phoenix is reportedly interested as well. They have a similar 3-and-D forward who would make sense for the Warriors, though he’s ironically someone Golden State has an iffy history with: Dillon Brooks. He makes a decent chunk less than Wiggins does at around $21 million. Golden State could send Kuminga out at around $25 million, and then offload Moody, who fills a similar role, to another team to both satisfy salary-matching rules and ensure they have enough money leftover to fill out their roster. This would take Phoenix over the tax line, but the Suns could then turn around and trade Nick Richards and his $5 million salary into someone else’s space or trade exception to get back under.
Phoenix is still a questionable basketball fit for Kuminga. He wants shots and half of the Suns’ roster is comprised of shooting guards. But more than anything, the Suns need upside. They need to hit on a young player or two and rebuild their broken core. Kuminga is a chance on that front. He’d have to defend better than he has with the Warriors and figure out how to fit on a quietly stuffed offense, but if he could, he has a chance to be a very good player.
The Bucks might have waived Damian Lillard to create the money needed to sign Myles Turner, but he’s really more of a replacement for Brook Lopez. They still need a guard who can score 20 or more per game to keep this offense afloat. They brought back Kevin Porter Jr. and Gary Trent Jr., and they signed Cole Anthony as well, but those are reserves. They need to take an upside swing. They’ve been interested in Thomas in the past, and in Milwaukee, with Giannis Antetokounmpo capable of serving as a top playmaker, he could just focus on scoring.
The Bucks would have to trade Kyle Kuzma to match money on a potential contract. The Nets wouldn’t want to take him back. Perhaps Milwaukee could grease the wheels with an unprotected first-round swap in 2032? That would leave their 2031 first-rounder available for another trade now and ensure that their 2033 first-round pick would be tradable next offseason as well, and as the Nets have two first-round picks in 2032, they could arrange the swap so that it applies to either of their picks. That’s a steep price to pay on Milwaukee’s end, but if they believe Thomas can be the high-level scorer they need to convince Antetokounmpo to stay put long-term, they might be willing to pay it.
