To understand the state of the 2025 NBA trade deadline, with one week to go and one Jimmy Butler still in a standoff with his own team, you have to go back to 2022. With the 3 p.m. ET deadline on Feb.

This presupposes that the trade for Beal is the original roster construction problem in Phoenix that must be solved -- that under the new collective bargaining agreement, building a team around three max salary players, one of whom is performing far below a max level, is untenable.

Despite a consistent reluctance to push the red button for a superstar or superstar-adjacent player, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr.'s ears may have perked up after the news of the Phoenix Suns ' backup scoring guard emerged.