Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis headline early trade discussions as the Feb. 11 trade deadline approaches for the 2026-27 NBA season.
After missing the entire 2025-26 season recovering from a torn ACL torn in early 2025, Irving returned to the floor for the Dallas Mavericks. In his first six games of the campaign, he averaged 22.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game while shooting a career-high 53.7% from the field and 39% from three.
Turning 35 in March, Irving does not match the current direction of a franchise centered around 19-year-old Cooper Flagg. While the guard has drawn interest from teams including the Miami Heat and Detroit Pistons, the Mavericks shut down trade inquiries in early November as the team opened the year with a 7-5 record.
I let the team know out of my own mouth that these trade rumors, anything that’s going on with me, do not let this infiltrate our locker room. Don’t let this get in the way of what we have building here.
Kyrie Irving, via The Athletic
In Washington, Anthony Davis is playing on the final guaranteed season of his contract with a player option worth $62 million for the 2027-28 campaign. The 33-year-old big man averaged a team-high 25.6 points and 10.6 rebounds through the early portion of the schedule.
Contract discussions between Davis and the Wizards stalled after the team signed Trae Young to a four-year, $212.9 million deal in June. With young standouts like Alex Sarr and Kyshawn George extension-eligible in the summer and No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa establishing himself as a primary building block, rival executives are monitoring whether a suitor will emerge before the deadline.
Financial thresholds and draft asset limitations continue to shape front office strategies. Under the new 3-2-1 lottery system giving the bottom three teams just a 5.4 percent chance of landing the top draft pick, one Eastern Conference strategist said that “there will be less sellers than ever before” at the trade deadline.
In Orlando, the Magic sit just $2.5 million below the second apron threshold. Team president Jeff Weltman faces roster choices with guard Anthony Black on track to be a restricted free agent next offseason after the sides failed to reach a contract extension during the summer.
With most teams playing around eight games, the NBA is already 10% through its 2026-27 season. Since he left the New Orleans Pelicans at the end of the 2018-19 season, Davis has played more than 60 games in a season twice, and less than 50 games three times.
In the second-to-last year of his three-year, $175 million deal, Davis is owed $58 million this season and has a $62 million player option for next season. That’s a tough development to reconcile with the structure of his deal, as it escalates from $27 million this season to $29 million next season and $31 million in the 2028-29 campaign.
The Magic remain big fans of the 22-year-old and don’t want to trade him, league sources say, but Orlando also knows that its payroll can’t withstand another pricey long-term deal with Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Desmond Bane all on long-term pacts and each of them making between $32.4 million (Suggs) and $41.8 million (Wagner) this season.
As The Stein Line first reported last Sunday, however, Orlando’s Anthony Black is not expected to join that group after scant discussion between the sides to this point.
