The Winners and Losers of the 2025 NBA Pre-Draft

Drafts are won and lost years, months, and weeks before the picks are even made

The Draft is the lifeblood of the NBA. The vast majority of minutes played, points scored, and rebounds secured come from players who entered the league through the draft, with a significant tilt towards players drafted in the lottery (top-14 picks). None of this is news, but for an event so vital, it is stunning how many draft picks in the 2025 Draft have been moved. Of the 59 picks in this year’s draft (the Knicks forfeited their second-rounder), 38 (64.4%) have been moved.

Interestingly, the first 12 picks in the draft remain with their original team, which means that 38 out of the final 47 picks (80.8%) were at one point or another traded. The distribution of which picks have been traded aligns very neatly with the historical value of each pick. Between 1980 and 2020, the expected career value over a replacement player (VORP) of the first overall pick, using an exponential forecast model, is 26.85, followed by a rapid but quickly leveling descent.

Note: The VORP value for each pick will climb due to players from between the 2003 and 2020 drafts still being in the league, but the proportionate dropoff in value will remain similar. These values aren’t gospel, but they are a good launching off point to understand the value of each pick.

Without further ado, let’s see what teams have added and lost the most projected career value through their draft pick trades.

The Brooklyn Nets, largely by virtue of volume, have added the most pick VORP (+27.52) and have the highest total pick VORP (48.12) in the 2025 Draft. Amazingly, the Nets are one of only four teams, along with the San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, and Charlotte Hornets, who own both of their original picks.

If you’re concerned that the Oklahoma City Thunder will rattle off an extended run of dominance, the 2025 Draft offers a pretty compelling road map for how that could happen. Fresh off a 68-win season and a title, the Thunder turned the 30th and 60th picks (the lowest value pick combination possible, 5.25 VORP) into the 15th, 24th, and 44th picks. Their net gain of +14.58 pick VORP is second only to the Nets, and gives them the ammunition to move up in the draft, swing a draft day trade, or continue to fill their roster with talented cost-controlled players.

Somehow, the Sacramento Kings have traded away the most pick value in the 2025 NBA draft. They turned the 13th and 45th picks into the 42nd pick, which nets out at -12.48 VORP. For a franchise that feels destined for the play-in every year, surrendering this much pick value is untenable, and if it were any other franchise, a serious overhaul would be in the works. But since this is the Kings, they’ll probably continue to meander in the middle, pretending they play in the Eastern Conference.

There are only two teams that don’t have picks in the 2025 draft– the Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets. Fortunately for the Rockets and Nuggets, when you’re giving up the 25th and 57th picks (Houston) and the 25th and 52nd picks (Denver), you’re not actually giving up all that much. The Rockets lose out on 6.3 pick VORP, while the Nuggets are surrendering 7.32. While the Nuggets could certainly use more depth, there’s a high likelihood that those picks wouldn’t result in players capable of contributing to their rotation, and the Rockets gave the tenth overall pick back to the Phoenix Suns as part of the Kevin Durant trade.

In the general discourse of basketball, Cooper Flagg’s career will define the 2025 NBA Draft. However, the transactional nature of this draft, for me, is its defining characteristic. Over three-fourths of non-lottery picks have been traded, and teams like the Nets, Jazz, Spurs, and Hornets have the opportunity to revitalize their roster in one night. There will likely be more trades as the draft trudges forward, rendering some of this analysis irrelevant, but these handy-dandy charts will remain just as valuable.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.