Tim Bontemps

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Tim Bontemps

ESPN Senior Writer

Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.

Brian Windhorst

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Brian Windhorst

ESPN Senior Writer

• ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
• Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
• Author of two books

Nov 7, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

Even before Ja Morant’s postgame comments last week that led to a one-game suspension, followed by the star guard passing on the chance to defuse tension between himself and the Memphis Grizzlies coaching staff, plenty of eyes were watching how their season would play out.

Last spring, after a shocking late-season coaching upheaval and a first-round sweep by the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman was blunt in his assessment.

“I don’t think we can look back at this series and say ‘Oh, we’re close!’ he said. “No, we’re not.”

Then came this summer, when Memphis sent Desmond Bane – a pillar of the franchise alongside Morant and big man Jaren Jackson Jr. – to the Orlando Magic for a haul of draft picks, backing up Kleiman’s words with significant action. The Grizzlies handed Jackson a five-year, $240 million contract extension – and didn’t tack on any additional seasons to the three years and roughly $126 million owed to Morant.

Those moves left Morant and the Grizzlies in a version of NBA limbo entering this season, even before the team’s current situation. But Morant is just one of several franchise stars facing uncertain futures in the first few weeks of 2025-26.

Here is a look at each of them, what league insiders are saying about their individual futures and where their teams are headed – with, or potentially without, those standouts moving forward.

Jump to player intel: Ja Morant | Zion Williamson | Trae Young LaMelo Ball | Giannis Antetokounmpo

Ja Morant | Memphis Grizzlies

2025-26: 22.0 PPG (38.3 FG%), 7.3 APG, 30.0 MPG Contract: Year 3 of five-year, $197 million deal

Windhorst: Naturally sparking all kinds of trade speculation, Morant’s one-game suspension was the leading conversation piece when speaking with league executives. But any such talk is also low-hanging fruit. The Grizzlies are highly incentivized to make this situation work and that seems to be what they are still trying to accomplish amid a 3-6 start.

“I gotta say, that was a ballsy move by the coach,” a Western Conference general manager said about Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo’s willingness to confront Morant. “When you’re a rookie coach and you’re into it with a star, you don’t have many options. He chose a fight, and the organization backed him up [with the suspension].”

Iisalo, who is Finnish and spent his career playing and coaching overseas before last season, has a different viewpoint on game strategy than most of his NBA peers. One of the most obvious is his method of playing lineups in three- to four-minute shifts and then mass substituting to encourage continuous high-energy play.

Iisalo won championships in Germany and France playing this way, winning the attention of several NBA teams that wanted to hire him, and he believes strongly that it creates leveraging opportunities. The players on those teams didn’t always love the concept at first, Iisalo has admitted. But he repeatedly demonstrated an ability to win them over with the tactics. For example, playing with more defensive ball and screen pressure than the opponents combined with more overall pace on offense started working.

Morant, whose shooting percentages are at career-worst levels, seems to still be in the skeptical camp. That is believed to be a core issue in the player and coach’s locker room back-and-forth that preceded Sunday’s suspension.

“His system is based on having an elite guard who has the ability to get his feet into the paint, and then all his strategy evolves from that. Morant should be a very good fit for it, [Iisalo] was surely excited about that when he got that job,” a European executive, who knows Iisalo’s game plans well, told ESPN. “He is running his system there. But it is not creating the advantages that are expected yet.”

Bontemps: All the drama that’s played out over the past few years and the decline in Morant’s play from the showstopping heights of the first couple of seasons of his career, the easy thing to do is to say, “Well, just find the best trade you can make and move on.”

In talking with various sources around the league, Morant is still viewed as a borderline top-10 player at the position – and that’s before factoring in the previous off-court issues – but there aren’t many teams around the league in need of a starting point guard.

Morant also remains very popular in Memphis, a market players aren’t exactly flocking to, and one in which Morant has repeatedly said he wants to remain.

“He sells shoes, he sells tickets, and he wants to play in Memphis when no one wants to,” a Western Conference assistant coach said. “So it makes for a really, really difficult situation.”

**Windhorst: **This is not the first time a college or European coach has arrived with the belief they can disrupt the NBA game. And it’s not the first time the stars have been a hard sell.

“I’ve never seen drastic change like that work, going back to Paul Westhead trying to bring his Loyola Marymount system to Denver [in 1990],” a veteran executive said. “I don’t mean to oversimplify it, but the best teams play their best players the most minutes.”

Iisalo fundamentally rejects traditional thinking such as this.

“Basketball, just like every team sport, is evolving. The demands on intensity are higher and higher. We are looking to also adapt to the times,” Iisalo said this week. “The only goal of the sub pattern is to find a competitive advantage from it.”

He doesn’t have to sell other teams on it – he has to sell Morant on it. If he doesn’t, working together will likely remain tough.

**Bontemps: **The other question sources around the league are asking is whether the Grizzlies, at some point this season, would entertain moving on from Jackson, as well, if they choose to end their partnership with Morant.

While there’s a clear consensus that there wouldn’t be much of a market for Morant, Jackson – a floor-spacing, rim-protecting big – would certainly appeal to plenty of clubs, especially given he’s now under contract through 2030, and thus even small-market teams could pursue him and know he would be sticking around.

That is the same formula that led the Cleveland Cavaliers to swing on Donovan Mitchell and the Minnesota Timberwolves to acquire Rudy Gobert. The two All-Stars had plenty of time left on their deals at the time of their respective trades from the Utah Jazz.

“He’s a perfect complementary guy,” an Eastern Conference scout said of Jackson’s game, “and he can play just about anywhere.”

But the 6-foot-10 Jackson has averaged more than six rebounds just once in his career, making it difficult to play him full-time at center and blunting his value. He also has always been a foul-prone player, averaging 4.4 this season.

That said, as a legitimate 3-point shooter who has averaged just under 2 blocks for his career, Jackson has the skill set every team is hoping to find in a big.

“He fills a rare archetype,” the scout said.

We have seen several recent high-level players who fit a certain sweet spot as a complimentary star – Bane, Gobert and Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks, for example – be traded for a haul of draft picks. And, if Memphis were able to make such a move, it would walk into a loaded 2026 NBA draft with what currently would be two lottery picks. (And potentially more, depending on the outcome of these trades).

Kleiman has already accumulated an interesting crop of young talent on this roster, including Cedric Coward, the No. 11 pick in this year’s draft; Zach Edey, the No. 9 selection last year; and Jaylen Wells, a second-rounder last year who finished third in Rookie of the Year voting.

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Zion Williamson | New Orleans Pelicans

2025-26: 22.8 PPG (48.7 FG%), 6.8 RPG, 31.4 MPG Contract: Year 3 of five-year, $197 million deal

Bontemps: Before the New Orleans Pelicans picked up wins on back-to-back nights against a pair of banged-up teams (Charlotte Hornets and Dallas Mavericks) earlier this week, there wasn’t a more depressing situation in the league in the early going.

Every loss would set off another series of reminders around the league that the Pelicans had not only traded their pick in next year’s draft in June to the Atlanta Hawks – a selection that could easily wind up near the top of the lottery – but that the Pelicans also dealt the Indiana Pacers back their 2026 top-four protected first-round pick a few days before Tyrese Haliburton tore an Achilles in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. (The Pacers are 1-7 and are in a three-way tie with the Brooklyn Nets and the Washington Wizards for the worst record in the NBA).

Williamson, meanwhile, is again sidelined with a hamstring injury, further complicating the situation facing new president of basketball operations Joe Dumars.

“I’m glad he’s in shape,” a Western Conference scout said of Williamson, “but I think he needs to go. I think a change of scenery would make sense for everybody.”

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Zion out at least a week for Pelicans

Pelicans lose Zion Williamson with a hamstring injury for seven to 10 days.

Windhorst: The intel that exists on Williamson within the league, fairly or not, is not great. There have been numerous coaches, support staff and teammates that have cycled through New Orleans over the past seven years, which includes all the injuries and a one-game suspension in January for being late to a team flight.

Stated simply, even with his unusual non-guaranteed contract over the next two years that offers the franchise protection, Williamson’s trade value isn’t super high.

“To be honest, their move might be a win-now trade, not a Zion trade,” a rival executive said. “His trade value isn’t there and they are facing some pressure to win.”

The first order of business for Dumars when he got the job over the summer was to commit to Williamson, closing any speculation about the Pelicans changing direction. Dumars followed that up in the fall with praise about Williamson’s offseason work as the Hall of Famer bought into the belief that the former No. 1 pick had turned a corner.

It wasn’t the first October where this concept emanated from New Orleans, but Williamson backed it up by saying he felt the best physically since his jaw-dropping lone season at Duke in 2018-19. Now, less than three weeks into the season, he is missing time with the fifth significant hamstring injury of his career.

“Joe is smart, he knew the only rational move was to motivate Zion,” another executive said. “He’s still only 25. With a player like that, you have to exhaust all options to try to make it work.”

**Bontemps: **Williamson remains a talent. However, he’s also a ball-dominant player who doesn’t shoot from the perimeter and is a below average defender at best.

That’s not exactly a desirable trade asset, even factoring in all the injuries that have limited Williamson to playing just 219 out of a possible 480 games in his career. Williamson has played in only 45.6% of all of New Orleans’ games since the start of the 2019 season and has never played in a playoff game.

“There’s no reason for New Orleans to sell low on him,” an Eastern Conference scout said. “So, they might as well wait to see if they can get his value to go up.”

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Trae Young | Atlanta Hawks

2025-26: 17.8 PPG (37.1 FG%), 7.8 APG, 27.8 MPG Contract: Year 4 of five-year, $215 million deal

**Windhorst: **Young is on the final guaranteed year of his contract ($46 million) but has a player option next season for $49 million. He is the Hawks’ franchise player. They can sign him to an extension at any time, sources told ESPN that those talks haven’t progressed.

That is likely because it’s hard to determine a market value for Young. He’s a four-time All-Star and led the league in assists per game (11.6) last season. Over the past four years being built primarily around Young, the Hawks have averaged a modest 40 wins and haven’t been over .500 since 2021-22.

With that data, the $55 million combined owed to young cornerstones Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels starting next year and the impending free agency of center Kristaps Porzingis, the Hawks are being cautious. Young makes the max, and another such deal would mean about $230 million over four years, an average of $58 million. The Hawks currently have no other max players on their books.

“The Hawks have been making smart decisions as a front office and they have done a nice job judging value on their players,” a Western Conference executive said. “Trae’s agent will spend the next few months working to figure out what his market is, and the Hawks will do their due diligence too, determining what the competition is. And in the end, we’ll see who has the best information.”

Young, unfortunately, is out for a month with a sprained knee suffered last week. This is bad news for the Hawks, though there was relief that he avoided a worse injury, but the rest of the league is watching. If the Hawks offense suffers badly without their longtime playmaking engine, it could create some leverage for Young and his potential next deal. If the younger Hawks keep their heads above water, it might inform decision-making in the other direction.

Bontemps: Atlanta is in perhaps the most interesting situation of these teams. Because of the Pelicans’ pick that is headed their way, and the amount of young talent – from Johnson to Daniels to last year’s No. 1 pick, Zaccharie Risacher – already on the roster, the Hawks can afford to sit back and see how this plays out and then determine what direction they want to go.

Atlanta has gone 3-1 since Young went down (though two of those wins came against bottom-feeding Brooklyn and Indiana), and more reps for Johnson as an on-ball creator will speed up his development.

“Atlanta is good enough to keep Trae and be good and make the playoffs,” an East executive said. “But with the pick and Jalen, Dyson and Zach, they’ll at least pick up the phone and listen when called.”

But, as another executive laid out, Atlanta doesn’t have another high-level proven shot creator on its roster. And the Hawks have surrounded Young with long athletes to offset his defensive deficiencies.

“It’s an interesting situation,” a Western Conference executive said. “That team is entirely built around him, and his skill set, and I don’t see another team that’s going to pay $50 million to bring him in [on a max deal next summer].

“He’s the engine that makes that ship go. It will be interesting to see what it looks like there without him.”

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LaMelo Ball | Charlotte Hornets

2025-26: 23.3 PPG (43.0 FG%), 9.8 APG, 33.3 MPG Contract: Year 2 of five-year, $204 million deal

Bontemps: Entering this season, the Hornets had one main goal: See what their team looks like, for an extended period, with a core of Ball, Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel, the No. 4 pick in June’s NBA draft. But two weeks into the season, Miller is out for an indefinite period with a shoulder injury – after missing most of last year with a wrist injury – and Ball has missed a couple games with an ankle injury. While Knueppel has impressed, the combination of Miller and Ball being hurt and the No. 6 pick in the 2023 NBA draft, forward Tidjane Salaun, remaining a work in progress, has put a damper on Charlotte’s ability to move this franchise in a positive direction.

All of it, though, begins with Ball, an extraordinary talent who has people around the league questioning whether the sum will ever equal the many intriguing parts: a 6-7 frame, deep shooting range and incredible playmaking vision and open floor ability.

“He still doesn’t know who he is,” a Western Conference scout said. “But I think you can justify buying into the talent.”

That is why trying to come up with a proper gauge of Ball’s trade value is nearly impossible. He has played in just 58.1% of Charlotte’s games since being drafted No. 3 in 2020, and outside of one blowout loss in a play-in game, the Hornets haven’t sniffed the playoffs.

“Yes, he’s talented, but he doesn’t take basketball seriously enough,” another West scout said. “It’s hard to build a winner with him because of how he plays, and the liberties he takes for himself when he plays.

“Would someone take a flier on him? For sure. But Charlotte isn’t taking a flier price for him.”

Windhorst: In a good early story for the Hornets, second-round pick Ryan Kalkbrenner has been a nice surprise and appears to have instantly stabilized their suspect center position. He’s averaging 9.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, 1.3 steals plus 2.4 blocks and shooting a whopping 83% with 17 dunks through eight games, best in the league among starters.

Little else has been learned about this team early. It has started 3-5 for the fourth straight season. That Salaun is only playing fringe rotation minutes isn’t exactly a great sign. Because of the injuries, there’s still a ton of unanswered questions. Check back in a month or two to see if any have been answered.

As for Ball...

“If you’re asking me if Trae, Ja and LaMelo all came onto the trade market tomorrow, I think LaMelo would have the best market,” one executive said. “But that’s all hypothetical right now.”

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Giannis Antetokounmpo | Milwaukee Bucks

2025-26: 32.3 PPG (67.7 FG%), 12.6 RPG, 31.1 MPG Contract: Year 1 of three-year, $175 million deal

Bontemps: Unlike all these other situations, it’s been an encouraging opening stretch for the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo is putting up staggering numbers – 32.3 points per game on 67.7% shooting through seven games played – the Bucks are off to a strong 5-3 start and have a surprising breakout player in fourth-year guard Ryan Rollins.

Now, after a summer full of intrigue as to whether Antetokounmpo’s future might lay elsewhere than Milwaukee, the only place he’s played in his 13 NBA seasons, the question surrounding the Bucks in an extraordinarily wide-open East is whether they are good enough to make a Finals run that few believed possible before the season.

“I think the East is bad enough where the Bucks can definitely do real things,” an East scout said.

The emergence of Rollins has certainly helped in that regard, as has Antetokounmpo blossoming as the team’s full-time offensive initiator and engine after Damian Lillard’s torn Achilles last season and waiving this summer to create the room necessary to sign center Myles Turner away from Indiana.

And with conference favorites in New York and Cleveland off to uneven starts and trendy pick Orlando off to a truly rough one, a consensus around the league is this:

Why shouldn’t Milwaukee believe it is a factor?

“Their supporting cast has been better than expected,” a West scout said. “They’ve had some early success I didn’t foresee, for sure. “Is it sustainable? I don’t know. But for the time being, they’ve certainly jumped out to a start I didn’t see happening.”

Windhorst: For weeks, ESPN’s Shams Charania has pointed to the 20- to 25-game mark for when Antetokounmpo might form a decision about how to proceed for the rest of this season. Regardless of anything Antetokounmpo, coach Doc Rivers, GM Jon Horst or anyone from the Knicks has said or pretended not to remember, no one denied that trade talks went down in August. They happened and it wasn’t the Bucks idea.

With that out of the way: Bucks fans must be very pleased with the start and hopeful Antetokounmpo is as well. Rivers and Horst, meanwhile, have to be cautiously optimistic because they sold ownership and Antetokounmpo that this team could compete to win the East despite all their challenges.

The Bucks have a top-10 offense thus far and, in an early eye opener, are making more 3-pointers per game (15.5) and shooting a higher percentage (40%) than last season, when they led the league in that category. This despite losing Lillard and Brook Lopez and with Turner’s shooting numbers down from last year in Indiana. This is largely thanks to ultra hot shooting from fourth-year guard AJ Green, who is tossing his 3s in at 53%.

“Point Giannis is a pretty good plan,” one East scout said. “He’s also taking about three quarters of his shots [actually, it’s 65%] at the rim and he’s dunking like 10 times a game [actually, it’s 4.5, but that would be a career best] so that makes everyone look better.”