2025 NBA free agency -The winners and losers of this offseason so far - ESPN

Three days into the start of official free agent negotiations, and a week after the draft, the NBA has witnessed its typical, seasonal whirlwind of activity. Nine-figure surprises! Intriguing trades! A record-setting contract and drama swirling around multiseason MVPs!

To make sense of all the madness, let's identify the biggest winners and losers of the summer so far. As the offseason progresses, there's still time for some of these designations to change; in recent years, the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Damian Lillard and Karl-Anthony Towns weren't traded until September or October.

But for now, here are the teams, trends and transactions that matter most. We'll begin with the clearest winner of the 2025 offseason.

Winner: Houston Rockets

No matter its follow-up moves, Houston would have been an offseason winner on the virtue of the Kevin Durant trade alone. That's how deeply the Rockets won the Durant deal, acquiring a picture-perfect solution to their greatest weakness while not losing any of their best young players or draft picks in return.

But the Rockets didn't stop after adding Durant. They also signed Dorian Finney-Smith to a four-year, $53 million contract; signed Clint Capela to a three-year, $21.5 million pact; signed Fred VanVleet to a newly manageable contract; signed Jabari Smith Jr. to a reasonable extension; and re-signed Jae'Sean Tate, Aaron Holiday and Jeff Green to round out the roster.

The end result of all this activity is a deep, versatile roster that can beat opponents in all sorts of ways: with defense, rebounding, size, physicality, youth, experience, Durant's shotmaking genius. The Rockets will challenge the Oklahoma City Thunder for the unofficial title of deepest team.

The Rockets will also