D'Angelo Russell
The Russell experience in Los Angeles does not seem to be going well. After a solid start to the season — offensively at least — Russell’s production has nosedived. He was removed from the starting lineup as the Lakers looked for answers to stem their recent swoon, and his defense has been especially poor.
Russell is now eligible to be moved after signing a new contract this offseason, and the Lakers are in the market for an offensive upgrade. There’s too much overlap between Russell and Austin Reaves, with the latter being a better, more valuable player for the Lakers at this point. Russell takes more bad shots out of the flow of the offense and seems to hold onto the ball for too long.
As part of contract negotiations with the Lakers, Russell agreed to waive veto power over a trade in exchange for receiving a player option for next season. That means the Lakers anticipated the possibility of moving him in an in-season trade as far back as last summer. I don’t expect Russell’s market to be robust, but his salary will at least allow the Lakers to enter trade conversations for most of the league’s top available players.
Dejounte Murray
The Hawks clearly want to make some changes, and moving Murray represents the most substantive one they could make this season. The backcourt combination of Trae Young and Murray has not worked as well as the Hawks expected when they traded three first-round picks and a pick swap to acquire Murray from San Antonio. Atlanta’s hope was that pairing Young with a bigger, defensively conscious, playmaking guard like Murray would allow Young to thrive on or off the ball and would stop the Hawks from hemorrhaging points when he left the floor. Murray, who was coming off an All-Star season, was an intriguing bet.
Ultimately, it’s become clear the Hawks should want the ball in Young’s hands as much as possible. While Murray has made strides as a 3-point shooter — he’s hitting 39 percent on six attempts per game this season — he’s not as impactful off the ball as he is on it, which has diminished his overall impact. Additionally, Murray’s strong defense has taken a dive from its previous heights in San Antonio, when he was an All-Defense-level performer. He still gets steals occasionally but hasn’t been quite as engaged off the ball this season. Any team acquiring Murray is doing so in large part because it believes his play on that end rebounds.
Murray signed a four-year, $114 million extension this summer with a player option in 2027, meaning he’s locked in for the long term. If he gets back to his prior defensive heights upon leaving his current messy situation in Atlanta, his average annual value of about $28 million is a reasonable price tag. But any team acquiring him should probably do so with an eye toward returning him to the lead guard spot.
Zach LaVine
Regardless of what you may hear, LaVine is a good player who has averaged 25.5 points per game on strong shooting splits over the last four years. He’s not the best decision-maker or defender, but even with those flaws, he was worth nearly 11 wins last season by Taylor Snarr’s Estimated Plus-Minus wins model, third-most among NBA shooting guards. He wasn’t playing at that level this season before his foot injury, but the Bulls’ situation hasn’t exactly been ideal either. He’s not a No. 1 option on a playoff team despite being paid like one, but as the salary cap rises over the next three years, his deal should become more commensurate of a solid No. 2.
When LaVine emerged as a trade target earlier in the season, my early theory was that the Bulls wouldn’t give him away for cheap. It’s worth noting that circumstances have changed since then, as the Bulls played well in his absence by giving the ball more to Coby White. LaVine is back in the lineup now, but I don’t know that a high-value deal is out there for him. My bet is that he either ends up yielding some sort of positive value back for the Bulls by February or ends up remaining with the franchise for now as it waits until the summer to see if a better deal comes along.
DeMar DeRozan
DeRozan is the more traditional trade candidate of the Chicago scoring duo. He’s on an expiring contract. In a normal world, with the Bulls being a clear candidate to reshape the roster, DeRozan would be the most obvious name on the trade market. However, we can never be too sure with the Bulls, who have climbed into the Play-In race and currently sit in ninth in the Eastern Conference entering Monday.
DeRozan is still an excellent player, a dynamic midrange scorer who, like clockwork, tends to make around 47 percent of his midrange pull-up jumpers while being able to create them at will. His passing and playmaking for teammates has been quite strong, and he seems to have taken on a strong leadership role for some of the younger Bulls players. It’s hard to overemphasize DeRozan’s consistent value to Chicago over the last two seasons before this one. Estimated Plus-Minus rates him as adding 22.2 wins over that span, and he’s one of just 15 players to post double-figure totals in that metric in each campaign.
Any resolution to DeRozan’s status on the trade market will come down to what DeRozan wants. Is he aiming to leave to try to win a title, or does he want to stick with the Bulls and potentially sign an extension? If he tells the Bulls he isn’t interested in sticking around past this season, moving him makes sense, with his hometown Lakers as an obvious, intriguing destination.
Malcolm Brogdon
Brogdon’s situation has materially changed in recent weeks with him moving into a bench role as the Trail Blazers let Scoot Henderson sink or swim as the starting point guard. Since the calendar turned to 2024, Brogdon is only playing about 17 minutes per night.
That doesn’t seem to be a significant statement on his play, though. In the previous 16 games, Brogdon had been averaging 16 points and six assists in 29 minutes per contest, shooting 46.3 percent from the field and 46.5 percent from 3. There is every indication last season’s Sixth Man of the Year can go out and help teams that need backcourt help — especially those seeking real offensive punch.
Brogdon’s contract isn’t for an overly aggressive amount if he continues to produce as a bigger lead guard. Teams like the Lakers and Magic who could use a bit of shooting and backcourt punch make a ton of sense for Brogdon if they don’t want to shell out premium assets for other players.
Brogdon’s injury history is worth considering, as he hasn’t played more than 67 games since his rookie season in 2016-17. That’ll probably keep his price point to something in the ballpark of a late first-round pick.
Clint Capaela
Capela is another effective Hawks player on the trade market. You may be asking how the Hawks are so bad if all of these guys are good. Honestly, I’m surprised the Quin Snyder coaching hire hasn’t worked out better.
Nevertheless, the Hawks’ defensive structure has been a mess, and that includes Capela’s interior presence. His guards haven’t helped him a ton, but he’s looked a step slower this season defending in space and in drop coverage on pick-and-rolls. That could be the effect of multiple Achilles injuries that have nagged Capela for a few seasons now; he’s missed a couple of games in January dealing with right Achilles soreness.
When he’s right, Capela is a terrific screen-and-roll player who can attack the glass on both ends, finish above the rim and contest shots in the paint. Capela, however, is shooting his worst percentage from the field since his third NBA season and hardly looks as bouncy as he’s been previously.
Still, with minimal center choices available on the market, this version of Capela could be useful for a contender that needs size. Even in a down year, he’s still averaging 12 points and 11 rebounds per game. He has only one season left on his deal, so he won’t add unreasonable money to a team’s long-term books.
Terry Rozier
Rozier is in the midst of one of the more fun offensive explosions in the league. The Hornets lost 18 of their 21 games without LaMelo Ball, but Rozier can’t really be faulted for that. During the stretch Ball missed with an ankle injury, Rozier averaged nearly 25 points and eight assists per game while shooting 46 percent from the field, nearly 40 percent on eight 3-point attempts per game and close to 90 percent from the free-throw line.
As the Hornets drift out of the Play-In picture, rival teams believe they’re open for business when it comes to their veteran players, league sources tell The Athletic. Rozier’s hot run could allow them to move his contract off their books and begin resetting around Ball, Brandon Miller and Mark Williams.
Honestly, Rozier’s contract — two years and $51.5 million remaining after this season — is reasonable even with the defensive limitations that come with his lack of size. He may be on fire this season, but he also averaged 20 points per game on league-average efficiency in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns. If that’s Rozier’s true level, he should be ranked higher on this list.
However, his 2022-23 season was nowhere near as good, and neither was his first season in Charlotte. Plus, he turns 30 in March and has exhibited a tendency to pick up injuries throughout his time in Charlotte.
With a new ownership group and a president of basketball operations in Mitch Kupchak who doesn’t exactly seem to be on safe ground, it’s unclear what the Hornets want to accomplish in a potential trade. Considering that complication and Rozier’s season-to-season inconsistency, I have no idea what constitutes equivalent value for him. But he could help someone, even if his contract presents risk on the back end for a potential suitor.
Alex Caruso
Every team in the postseason race would have a use for a player like Caruso. He proved he can be an integral rotation player on a title team with the Lakers and has only improved since then.
He is, for my money, the best defensive guard in the NBA. He flies around on that end, making wild anticipatory rotations with active hands that disrupt every exchange and bother every potential jumper. On the ball, he can handle just about anyone at the one through three positions and can even switch down onto the less powerful fours.
On offense, Caruso reads plays incredibly quickly while processing the game at an elite level. He has a pristine understanding of spacing, can make touch passes in transition or in the half court and always makes the extra pass to generate a great shot. There is no selfishness to his game. While he’s typically been a reluctant shooter, he’s upped his volume from distance substantially this season while converting at a career high rate.
To top it off, he’s also signed to an incredible contract that pays him less than $10 million in each of the next two seasons. If the Bulls decide to move him, as they should given their need to rebuild, there would be a genuine bidding war. Every contender should bend over backward to acquire a player like him who is low-usage yet elite without the ball in his hands. And because his contract is so small, nearly every team in the league has enough matching salary to get involved.
I debated leaving Caruso off this list entirely. The Bulls have been reluctant so far to engage in Caruso trade discussions, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, which lines up with the impression I’ve received from sources on other teams who have tried to reach out.
But Caruso is much more valuable to a contender than he is to this Bulls team. He’s 30 years old, with a history of injuries due to how hard he plays, and the Bulls are more than 18 months away from contending. Given the price Caruso is likely to fetch due to the wide market of teams interested in acquiring him, it’s hard for me (and other executives league-wide) to fathom why the Bulls wouldn’t move him.
Bogdan Bogdanovic
Bogdanović is in the midst of a strong season while the struggling Hawks are clearly looking to make a shift. As of Jan. 14, he’s averaging 17.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the full season, but he’s been even hotter since the mid-point of November.
Beyond that, Bogdanović also has a history of stepping up in big moments. He posted a 62.0 true shooting percentage while averaging 13.7 points in 26 minutes per game in the Hawks’ last two postseason appearances, made the All-FIBA World Cup Team in 2019 and 2023 and won multiple Finals MVP awards in Europe before coming to the NBA.
One downside with Bogdanović is his tendency to pick up injuries; he hasn’t played in more than 63 games in a season since 2019. The 31-year-old Bogdanović is in the first year of a four-year contract, so that injury history could loom large for other teams. The deal has three more years and $49.3 million left on it, but the final season is a team option.