The Downside of Trading Far Out Future Draft Picks

We could see as many as six valuable first-round picks in the 2025 draft change hands. What do these selections have in common? They were all traded at least two years ago.

CapSheets Update

Hey everyone, I’m back after taking most of the month off.

March is typically a slow month for me when putting out content. The post-trade deadline-pre playoffs time has always been one of my “deader” periods, so apologies for the pace. But I still have been at work researching the cap and looking ahead into the offseason.

This is usually the time of the year when I build out my salary cap sheets for the season after the next. So when the 2024-25 regular season ends, the 2025-26 cap sheets will be rolled over as the present season on CapSheets.com. Then the future season will be 2026-27, which I’m currently working on.

One of the unique features of my projections is that I include estimates for future draft picks, even if they’re over a year away. For example, you’ll see estimates for both 2025 and 2026 future first-round picks on a team’s 2026-27 cap sheet. The estimates account for where they may fall in the standings and various protections and swaps.

I recently made an update with relevant estimates for the 2025 first-round picks on the 2025-26 cap sheets. And as I went through these selections, it dawned on me — there are a lot of valuable selections at risk of conveying. After several years of teams trading multiple far-out first-round picks, we are starting to see the worst-case scenario pan out.