The 5 Biggest Stars Who Changed Teams in the 2025 NBA Season: Everything to Know
The NBA trade deadline has passed, so let's take a look at the league's biggest player moves.
The NBA trade deadline for the 2024-2025 basketball season passed on February 6, and the All-Star Game has come and gone, which means teams are steaming ahead at full tilt toward the playoffs, many of them with new stars on their roster.
This year's trade season was one of the most eventful in recent memory, with several huge moves coming right before the deadline in early February. Some of the league's biggest names are now wearing different jerseys, playing basketball alongside different teammates, and working hard to take a completely different club to the playoffs.
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The trade season is always a lot to take in, so for now, let's just focus on the biggest highlights. As we look forward to the return of the NBA to NBC in the 2025-2026 season, let's look back at the five biggest NBA stars who were traded or signed with a new team this season, along with details about where they landed.
The NBA's biggest trades and free agency signings of the 2024/25 season
Karl-Anthony Towns
In late September, Karl-Anthony Towns was traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he'd been for his entire career, to the New York Knicks, in exchange for Knicks stars Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle. The five-time All-Star and 2016 Rookie of the Year has long been a versatile center in search of the right squad to take him to the Finals, and New York might be the place he's found it.
Luka Doncic
In the 2023-2024 season, Luka Doncic led the Dallas Mavericks all the way to the NBA Finals, and seemingly had them poised for a possible return trip this season. Then, the most shocking trade of the year happened. Early in February, Doncic moved to the Los Angeles Lakers in what was quickly termed one of the most titanic trades in NBA history, setting the 2019 Rookie of the Year and five-time All-Star up alongside the legendary LeBron James for what could be a new Western Conference powerhouse. Time will tell if the trade works out for Doncic, but he's not the only player part of this huge move.
Anthony Davis
The trade that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles was actually a three-team deal that included draft picks and players to the Utah Jazz, but the other half of this blockbuster is, of course, what the Mavericks got in return. Ten-time NBA All-Star Anthony Davis, a member of the 2020 NBA Champion Lakers squad and a key partner on the court for James, went to Dallas as the other key player in the massive trade deal. He joins a Mavericks squad that already included stars like Kyrie Irving and the recently signed Klay Thompson, making the Mavericks a different kind of powerhouse than the one they were when Doncic was in town.
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Jimmy Butler
With Klay Thompson moving to Dallas before the season began, the Golden State Warriors were in search of another key scorer for their offensive attack, and just before the trade deadline, they found him. Jimmy Butler, the six-time All-Star who became a household name after incredible playoff performances with the Miami Heat, was traded to the Warriors as part of a five-team deal that also included the Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, and Utah Jazz. The trade came after Butler made his displeasure with Miami management clear, marking the fourth team move in his career. Now he's alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green as a Warrior, and that could mean fireworks for the rest of the league.
Klay Thompson
NBA teams basically started trading and moving players as soon as the previous season is over, and way back in July we got the news that one of the league's biggest veteran stars would be changing teams for the first time in his storied career. After 13 years and four NBA titles with the Golden State Warriors, Klay Thompson signed with the Dallas Mavericks over the summer in hopes that Dallas would put him in position for a fifth championship before retiring. Thompson, one of the league's best three-point shooters, was technically a free agent signing with a new team at the time, but his deal was part of a larger trade scheme between several teams to make it all work financially.
For more NBA news, head to NBC Sports, and get ready for the return of the NBA to NBC in the 2025-2026 season.
