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During the 2026/27 league year, only one NBA player will have a formal no-trade clause in his contract. That player is Damian Lillard, who negotiated a no-trade clause into his deal with the Trail Blazers last summer. LeBron James and Bradley Beal had no-trade clauses in their respective contracts in recent years, but Beal gave his up when he agreed to a buyout with the Suns during the 2025 offseason, and James no longer has one after his contract with the Lakers expired this summer. LeBron would have been eligible for a no-trade clause if he had rejoined the Cavaliers or Heat in free agency, but since he hasn’t played for Philadelphia before, he couldn’t add one to his new contract with the Sixers.
And now, Yang Hansen is comfortable enough to reflect, in his second language, on all of it: the struggles of adjusting to the physicality of the NBA as a rookie, the pressure of living up to the expectations of hundreds of millions of Chinese fans who haven't had a player of their own to root for in years, and his excitement about playing with Damian Lillard next season. "I'm more used to the situation now," he said as he squeezed his 7-foot-1 frame into a small couch in a side room of the lobby of the hotel.
NBA Courtside: Grant Hill on Jaylen Brown not being on the USA team: “When I announced then team, there were certain guys that I called before Woj and Shams broke it. And I called like Lillard, I called Jimmy Butler, I tried to call everybody because you never know when they’re going to break it. And you want to give guys the respect to hear it from me. I called Jaylen. We had a great conversation. Unbelievable conversation. And so something got lost there. And the implication that like a shoe company like to me that, look you guys can criticize my leadership. You can criticize the ability to put together a roster. When you’re in a role that I’m in, you open yourself up to criticism and I accept that. But to imply that like a shoe company told me what to do. Now you questioning my character, and that was the things that was weird.” (Via @RoadTrippinShow)
Herro was involved in plenty of trade speculation throughout his seven seasons with the Heat. Whether it was for Damian Lillard, Kevin Durant, James Harden or Antetokounmpo, Herro was essentially part of trade rumors during every offseason of his Heat tenure. “That’s part of it,” Herro said. “I think, I’m sure there will still be rumors in Miami somewhere for someone. I’ve said it though, Miami is an organization that wants to win championships and they want to compete. We’ve obviously almost got there, and we’ve had years where we’ve lost in the first round, we’ve had years where we didn’t make the playoffs. So it’s like, I’ve been through every ending of the season. And it makes sense for them to want to get a fresh start, get someone like Giannis and build from there. So, it’s understandable.”
Chris Haynes: Longtime NBA offensive guru Jay Triano has agreed to join the coaching staff of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Micah Nori and reunite with franchise star Damian Lillard, league sources say
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“He’s excited to be on a team with vets like Dame and Jrue, and he loves the young talent of Deni (Avdija), Scoot, (Donovan) Clingan, (Toumani) Camara … I mean, he mentioned them all by name,” Nori said. As they left the restaurant, Nori asked Morant what he needed from him. How could he help? “He just said, ‘Make sure I get some Trail Blazers gear as soon as possible so I can start wearing it,’” Nori said.
That leads to the unspoken part of this trade: more deals are on the way. Have to be. The Blazers now have four point guards — Morant, Lillard, Jrue Holiday and Henderson — so unloading one or two seems likely. If I was to guess, I would imagine Holiday, because of his contract and because of his skill set, is the more likely candidate to be traded next.
The Blazers are still in the market to make another deal. They want more big-man depth and realize they have a logjam of four point guards with Morant, Lillard, Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson, but the team does not feel it is essential to unload one of its guards. The Blazers believe the four guards can co-exist, in large part because the team believes Holiday can alleviate the redundancy by playing him off the ball as a shooting guard or small forward.
ESPN's Shams Charania reported Portland acquired Ja Morant via trade from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray. According to NBA insider Chris Haynes, Portland plans on starting Morant and Damian Lillard in the backcourt alongside Deni Avdija on the wing following "a very unconventional move that the franchise believes has upside."
The Ja Morant trade caught many around the NBA by surprise, as the oft-injured Memphis Grizzlies guard was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray. One executive from another team I talked to called the deal “confusing," citing the Blazers' glut of guards with Damian Lillard returning from Achilles surgery and Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson under contract. He wondered whether there was a corresponding deal the Blazers were working on to clear up the position.
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Nikola Jovic: ‘Ever since I arrived in Miami, I have been in trade rumors for Kevin Durant twice. Yes, twice for KD. For Kyrie Irving twice. For Damian Lillard, it was already a done deal because Lillard publicly stated that he wanted to come to Miami. It was like, 'I want Miami,' and that was it. For Lillard! And now most recently, I was in there for Giannis. I have been in seven or eight trade rumors already. Me and my brother Tyler Herro. I mean, my brother Tyler Herro, what he has endured, it is nowhere else! In the end, he didn’t survive, but I mean, he survived a long time. He truly was in every single trade rumor, every single one, which surely is not easy. You play for a club and you read this, and you are one of the main players. You are a young player on the rise, truly an incredible, great guy and an incredible player, but you read every summer: 'He is not good enough. We need someone new and a bigger star.' It surely was not easy for him.’
There is one team leaguewide, sources say, most frequently described as actively pursuing Boston's Jaylen Brown. The Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers have been known to covet Brown dating back to Damian Lillard's first tenure with the franchise. And they still do.
The second was the inclusion of Holiday in the trade that brought superstar Lillard from Portland. "Looking back on it, the one thing we did that changed everything was put Jrue in that trade," a Bucks source said. "Jrue was such a leader on and off the floor. He would do things like if Giannis was holding the ball too much, Jrue would just bring it up and play with everybody else without making it a thing. He was a pro at it. "But Jrue was in the deal [for Lillard] because we thought we needed offense over defense. But once he was gone, we lost our whole defensive identity. It's not so much that getting Dame was a mistake. He would've been perfect if we still had Jrue."
However, Khris Middleton was considered the “Giannis whisperer,” a player who had the star’s utmost respect and could deliver hard criticism or honest thoughts about his game. And while Middleton (and the coaching staff) struggled to create cohesion alongside Antetokounmpo and Lillard, Middleton had inherently understood the on-court hierarchy. He may not have liked it, but he long ago decided he would not be the problem. Following his trade, Middleton, bitter, rented a car to drive silently from Charlotte, North Carolina, to his home in South Carolina. Antetokounmpo was not asked to sign off on the deal. He was perplexed, but ultimately understanding.
