We’re getting very close to several things as we reach the middle of the NBA season. In a week, All-Star fan voting will close, which means the starters will be announced shortly after. We’re also just over three weeks away from the trade deadline. Wednesday is a big day with trade season here (as we’ll explain below). The NBA Stock Report is going wild right now, so it’s time to start wondering if the Cleveland Cavaliers should be the favorites to win this season’s title:

Here’s your latest NBA Rewind!

Stock Report extended

First and foremost, despite their recent 12-game win streak, we’re not including the Cavaliers in this edition of the NBA Stock Report. Why? Because we dedicated an entirely different section to them below, so it felt too redundant to have them for both! Obviously, their stock is still on the way up, but we’re going to highlight them in a different way. With that said, we’ve got a team shoving it in everybody’s face right now and a squad that almost immediately starts trending downward every time I start believing in it. This is the extended version of the NBA Stock Report!

📈 Sacramento Kings (20-19): I don’t agree with the process of getting here, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The Kings under interim coach Doug Christie look vastly more motivated and focused than what we saw before Mike Brown’s firing. I looked at some of the changes on Thursday before they faced a big test in Boston on Friday night. They obliterated the Celtics in that game. The Kings’ offense is very good. Their defense under Christie has been spectacular. They’re riding a seven-game win streak under Christie and charging toward the top six in the West.

📉 Atlanta Hawks (19-19): Every season, there is one team that I simply can’t get a handle on. When my doubt sets in, that team thrives. When I decide to buy in, it crashes. We’re nearly halfway through this season, and it feels like the Hawks are that team for me. I resisted seeing some improvement for weeks before finally buying into what they’re doing. Maybe coach Quin Snyder finally got through to them? Guess again! The Hawks have lost four of their last five games and are 5-7 in their last 12. They don’t have bad losses in this stretch, but they’re mostly just beating bad teams. At some point of the season, maybe I’ll ride with them when as they win or denounce them when they lose.

📈 Denver Nuggets (23-15): The Nuggets have won seven of their last nine games, with their only two losses in that span coming against San Antonio and Boston. During this stretch, we’re seeing great play from Michael Porter Jr., as they’re possibly showcasing him for a big trade. Jamal Murray has shot the ball pretty well. And Russell Westbrook has been incredible by really finding his groove within his role lately. Oh yeah, and Nikola Jokić is averaging a 34-point, 15-rebound, 11-assist triple-double because of course he is.

📉 Brooklyn Nets (13-26): There was a brief time when this Nets team looked scrappy beyond belief. They weren’t good but hung around .500 like they had alligator blood. I’ll remind you that the Nets’ over/under for wins this season was 19.5 going into the campaign. They were 9-10 in late November. Since then, they’ve traded away Dennis Schröder and Dorian Finney-Smith and lost 16 of their last 20 games. They’re 1-6 in the last two weeks and are getting blown out every night. Their last six losses are by a combined 95 points, which gives them a minus-13.4 net rating in their last six games. At this rate, not getting to 20 wins is still very much in play. Did you see Cooper Flagg’s last game? I don’t blame them.

📈 Indiana Pacers (22-18): The Pacers continue to impress lately, as they’ve won six straight games with great offense and really good defense. They also just snapped the Cavs’ 12-game win streak by dominating them 108-93. It’s the first time all season the Cavs have been held under 100 points. Roughly five weeks ago, the Pacers were five games under .500 with a 9-14 record. Now, they’re battling with Miami for top-six positioning in the East. Tyrese Haliburton looks like the player we saw pre-hamstring injury last season, averaging 21 points, 9.8 assists, fewer than two turnovers and 52.5-46.3-88.5 shooting splits during this six-game span. Maybe last season’s Pacers weren’t such a fluke after all.

📉 Washington Wizards (6-31): Is it cruel to remind everybody the Wizards are bad? Maybe! But they could always change that by playing better basketball and winning some games. I also didn’t want to just throw the Raptors back into this space yet. Washington is currently on a six-game losing streak, which is only its second extended losing streak of the season. The problem is the first one was 16 games long. Since Jan. 1, the Wizards have a minus-15.3 net rating, and their defense has the resistance of saloon doors with well-oiled hinges.

Big Story: The Cavaliers should be the title favorites

Even though their second double-digit win streak of the season got snapped on Sunday against Indiana, the Cavaliers have still been the best team in the NBA all season long. They’ve beaten the very best there is to offer, and sometimes done it emphatically. The Cavs are off to a historic start, winning 33 of their first 38 games. They’re just the 10th team in NBA history to start 33-5 or better. Of the nine previous teams to do so, seven of them made the NBA Finals, six won the championship and the other two lost in the conference finals. This kind of start all but guarantees a team will win the championship.

The six teams who won the title after starting at least 33-5 aren’t just from the era of nine total teams in the league and wondering how anybody can ever take down George Mikan. The 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers, 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, 1982-83 Sixers and Chicago Bulls in 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1996-97 all enjoyed a historically hot start before winning the title. The most recent team to start this hot was the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, who went 73-9 before losing in seven games in the NBA Finals. People in Cleveland remember that team all too well, considering it took the most impressive comeback in finals history to take down those Warriors.

These Cavs have been unreal. They easily have the best offense in the league and are on pace for the second-most efficient offense in NBA history. They’re shooting better than 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from 3 on the season. Not to mention, they have a top-10 defense, currently tied for ninth in defensive rating. This Cavs team is for real and playing historic basketball. With everything we’re seeing on the court, the Cavs should be the title favorites for 2025. And yet, they are currently sitting third on BetMGM’s championship odds.

The Boston Celtics still have the best odds (+240), and the Oklahoma City Thunder sit second (+250). The Cavs (+700) are significantly behind those two. The Celtics don’t look like themselves, but they were so dominant in their title run last season that they’re still living off that success. And it wouldn’t shock anybody if the Celtics were the first team since the Warriors in 2017 and 2018 to win consecutive titles, but they’ve slipped quite a bit over the last month while the Cavs have been surging.

Cleveland is perfect against sub-.500 teams this season, winning all 18 games it’s played against such squads. If we extrapolated their record (15-5) against non-losing teams over the first 38 games, the Cavs would still have a half-game lead over Boston for the No. 1 seed in the East. The Cavs destroy bad teams, and they mostly dominate good teams. They have 23 of their 33 wins by double digits. They’re also on pace to have the sixth-highest margin of victory in NBA history, step-for-step with last season’s Celtics. So, why aren’t they the favorites? Yes, OKC and Boston are awesome, but the recency of the NBA doesn’t even give title defenders the benefit of the doubt. Adam Silver’s preferred parity has worked with, at least, the last six champions. Maybe OKC will be the team to continue that trend of a new champion every year instead of Cleveland, and the Thunder don’t have a Boston-like opponent to get through to win their conference.

The Cavs are worthy of the best odds, though. They continue to show it now in a way that makes it newsworthy when they actually lose a game.

The Week Ahead: Next step in trade season

Trades can mostly happen at any time on the NBA calendar (except post-trade deadline until the offseason begins for teams), but there are three significant dates on the calendar for trade season:

• Dec. 15: Most free agents signed in the offseason are now trade eligible.
• Jan. 15: Most players re-signed by their teams in the offseason can be used in deals.
• Trade deadline day (this season’s is Feb. 6): The last day to make trades during the season.

We’ve already crossed off one of those dates from our 2024-25 checklist. On Wednesday, we’ll have the Jan. 15 deadline crossed off too. Some pretty significant players, who re-signed with their teams in the summer, can now be moved in a trade. Here’s a list of 17 players who will gain trade eligibility. Just for funsies and content digestion, let’s put the players into tiers ranging from least to most likely to get moved before the trade buzzer sounds on Feb. 6.

Not getting moved

• Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers: He’s been the best and most reliable 76er so far this season, and he’s also the youngest of the team’s big three. There’s not a chance Daryl Morey would even think of talking trades involving Maxey unless it netted him a top-five guard in the NBA. Maxey is safe.

• OG Anunoby, New York Knicks: He’s the fourth-leading scorer on the Knicks, but he might be their most important role player this season. Anunoby is arguably their best and most versatile defender. As long as he’s hitting 3-pointers decently, he’ll stay put. Not to mention, his agency has ties to the Knicks’ front office.

• Goga Bitadze, Orlando Magic: He might be on the best non-rookie-scale deal in the league. Bitadze has become integral to the Magic’s success and anchoring one of the best defenses in the league. He’s on a declining salary scale, and each season is valued at less than eight figures — no way he’d be on his way out.

• Immanuel Quickley, Toronto Raptors: I feel confident that Quickley isn’t going to get moved … yet. The Raptors’ season hasn’t gone as they hoped, so now they might be rethinking what their future core looks like. However, the 25-year-old Quickley has barely played because of injury. I’m also not sure his value would be high enough to make a worthwhile deal until maybe the summer, at the earliest.

• Malik Monk, Sacramento Kings: The Kings are finally rolling, and Monk is their second-most important role player behind Keegan Murray. This franchise loves Monk and made re-signing him a priority last summer. I just don’t envision a scenario at this deadline where it makes sense to move him.

It’s a stretch, but I can see it

• Miles Bridges, Charlotte Hornets: There are always rumors about Bridges being moved, but considering what he was suspended for in the past, I’m not sure how many teams want to go down that PR road. That isn’t because teams won’t justify it if a player is good enough, but he’s simply not good enough to currently battle the backlash. Although, there has always been an affinity with Suns owner Mat Ishbia and his fellow Michigan State alum.

• Haywood Highsmith, Miami Heat: The only way I see it is if he has to be included to make some salaries work in a Jimmy Butler trade. He’s making less than $6 million this season and again next season. The Heat like him, and the value play here is just too good.

• KJ Martin, Philadelphia 76ers: I’m not sure the Sixers have a big deal in them, but including Martin might be needed if they have to complete a trade not involving their big three. Martin makes just under $8 million now, and the $8 million he’s slotted for next season is non-guaranteed. He’s a good role player, so it wouldn’t make sense to move him in anything small.

• Johnny Juzang, Utah Jazz: He’s a nice player they’re developing. He’s also in the first season of a four-year, $11.3 million deal with none of the final three seasons guaranteed. Much like Highsmith, a trade is only happening if he is thrown into a deal with a teammate because we need to make salaries work.

• Patrick Williams, Chicago Bulls: Williams has not really worked out for the Bulls, so maybe you can see a scenario with the franchise wanting to move on from the No. 4 pick in the 2020 draft. He’s battled injuries and just subpar play in general. The Bulls recently signed him to a five-year, $90 million deal. Justifying $18 million per season with his play isn’t absurd, even still.

• Precious Achiuwa, New York Knicks: Maybe a healthy Mitchell Robinson would make them feel better about including Achiuwa in a deal before the deadline? That’s not a thing, though. Achiuwa has been fine on the court — not good, but fine. At least he’s a good rebounder. The 25-year-old is on an expiring deal worth $6 million, so it would be another situation with him being part of a deal with another teammate. It just doesn’t seem likely.

• Obi Toppin, Indiana Pacers: Toppin is on the books for $45 million over the next three seasons after this one. I think the Pacers like him as a part of the rotation, but they’d be willing to move him for an upgrade at the four. If they are in the Cameron Johnson mix, maybe Toppin is part of that deal. Otherwise, he’s staying.

Expect these guys to be in heavy trade rumors

• Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins, Oklahoma City Thunder: I’m combining both of these guys for two reasons: 1) They’re good role players on very attractive deals. After this season, Joe is getting $35 million over three years, and Wiggins is primed for roughly $26.7 million over three years. For what they bring to the table, that’s good money. 2) These are the types of contracts and role players that can be packaged with the Thunder’s cornucopia of draft picks if they chase another initiator to balance out Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s responsibilities or pursue a shooting forward like Cam Johnson.

• Nicolas Claxton, Brooklyn Nets: This could end up being the most intriguing one, but I’m not certain he’s going to get moved. The Nets will be receiving a lot of calls about him, though. Claxton is an excellent defensive big man and a very good vertical threat at the rim on offense. The 25-year-old is owed just under $70 million over the next three years after this season. He could end up being a bargain much like what the Cavs got with Jarrett Allen. I just don’t think it makes sense to move him now, unless Brooklyn is getting a bounty for him.

• Josh Okogie, Phoenix Suns: If the Suns make a move outside of Butler, I’d expect Okogie to be in the trade rumors. His $7.7 million for next season is non-guaranteed, so he’s the perfect contract filler to throw into any deal by the Suns. He can play a little defense, and his shooting has been improved in small volumes, but he’s not a main part of what they do in Phoenix.

• Max Christie, Los Angeles Lakers: The third-year wing for the Lakers has been a nice role player for much of this season. His shooting is pretty reliable, so he can still very much develop into a valuable rotation guy. He’s still not even 22 years old and has a good salary number to throw into a bigger deal. If the Lakers decide to make another roster swing outside of the Finney-Smith acquisition, I’d expect Christie and his friendly deal (three more years at $24.8 million total) to be included.

(Top photo: David Liam Kyle / Getty Images)