Hoops Rumors Glossary

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Cap Holds

The Pacers have about $89MM in guaranteed money committed to player salaries for 2024/25 — or about $96MM if Tyrese Haliburton makes an All-NBA team. However, even though next season’s salary cap is expected to come in at $141MM, Indiana won’t begin the 2024 offseason with $45MM in cap room to spend.

In fact, the Pacers technically won’t open the new league year with any cap space at all. Each of Indiana’s own free agents will be assigned a free agent amount – or “cap hold” – until the player signs a new contract or the Pacers renounce his rights.

The general purpose of a cap hold is to prevent teams from using room under the cap to sign free agents before using Bird rights to re-sign their own free agents. If a team wants to take advantage of its cap space, it can renounce the rights to its own free agents, eliminating those cap holds. However, doing so means the team will no longer hold any form of Bird rights for those players — if the team wants to re-sign those free agents, it would have to use its cap room or another kind of cap exception.

The following criteria are used for determining the amount of a free agent’s cap hold:

  • First-round pick coming off rookie contract: 300% of the player’s previous salary if prior salary was below league average; 250% of previous salary if prior salary was above league average.
  • Bird player: 190% of previous salary (if below league average) or 150% (if above average).
  • Early Bird player: 130% of previous salary.
  • Non-Bird player: 120% of previous salary.
  • Minimum-salary player: Two-year veteran’s minimum salary, unless the free agent only has one year of experience, in which case it’s the one-year veteran’s minimum.
  • Two-way player: One-year veteran’s minimum salary.

A cap hold for a restricted free agent can vary based on his contract status. A restricted free agent’s cap hold is either his free agent amount as determined by the criteria mentioned above or the amount of his qualifying offer, whichever is greater.

No cap hold can exceed the maximum salary for which a player can sign. For example, the cap hold for a Bird player with a salary above the league average is generally 150% of his previous salary, as noted above. But for someone like Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, whose cap charge is $37,893,408 this season, 150% of his previous salary would be nearly $57MM, well beyond his projected maximum salary.

Instead, Siakam’s cap hold will be equivalent to the maximum salary for a player with between seven and nine years of NBA experience. If we assume a cap of $141MM, that figure works out to $42.3MM.

One unusual case involves players on rookie contracts whose third- or fourth-year options are declined. The amount of their declined option becomes their cap hold, and if the player’s team wants to re-sign him, his starting salary can’t exceed that amount.

For instance, the Hornets declined James Bouknight‘s 2024/25 fourth-year option last fall, then waived him in February. If Bouknight had remained on Charlotte’s roster, the team wouldn’t have been able to offer him a starting salary this offseason worth more than $6,064,496, the amount of that option. That figure would also have been his cap hold.

That rule is in place so a team can’t circumvent the rookie scale and decline its option in an effort to give the player a higher salary. It applies even if the player is traded after his option is declined, but only to the club the player is part of at season’s end. For instance, if Bouknight had been traded from the Hornets to the Pistons, Detroit would have been prohibited from offering him a starting salary greater than $6,064,496 as a free agent, but any other team could have exceeded that figure.

If a team holds the rights to fewer than 12 players, cap holds worth the rookie minimum salary are assigned to fill out the roster. So, even if a front office chooses to renounce its rights to all of its free agents and doesn’t have any players under contract, the team wouldn’t be able to fully clear its cap.

An incomplete roster charge in 2024/25 projects to be worth $1,160,544, meaning a team without any guaranteed salary or any other cap holds would have closer to $127MM in cap room than $141MM due to its 12 rookie minimum holds.

A player who has been selected in the draft but has not yet officially signed his rookie contract only has a cap hold if he was a first-round selection. A cap hold for a first-round pick is equivalent to 120% of his rookie scale amount, based on his draft position. An unsigned second-round pick doesn’t have a cap hold.

Cap holds aren’t removed from a team’s books until the player signs a new contract or has his rights renounced by the club. For example, the Warriors are still carrying cap holds on their books for retired players like David West and Matt Barnes, who never signed new contracts since playing for Golden State.

Keeping those cap holds allows teams some degree of cushion to help them remain above the cap and take advantage of the mid-level exception and trade exceptions, among other advantages afforded capped-out teams. If and when the Warriors want to maximize their cap room, they’ll renounce West and Barnes, but they’ve remained over the cap – and haven’t needed to remove those holds – since those players became free agents in 2017.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and the Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: 65-Game Rule

The NBA made it a priority in its latest Collective Bargaining Agreement to do all it could to reduce load management and to ensure that the game’s biggest stars suited up more often. That resulted in the league beefing up its existing Player Participation Policy and introducing a new requirement for players to qualify for end-of-season awards.

In order to be eligible for all of the NBA’s end-of-season awards, a player must appear in at least 65 games (out of 82) during the regular season. That means they can’t miss more than 17 regular season contests.

Sixers center Joel Embiid and Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell are among the players who were on track to be All-NBA locks but who won’t play in 65 games this season due to injuries and therefore won’t be eligible.

However, it’s not quite as simple as looking at a player’s games played total at the end of the season and seeing whether or not it’s at 65+. There are scenarios in which a player could still qualify for award consideration if he appears in fewer than 65 games and scenarios in which a player would not qualify for consideration even if he technically appears in more than 65 games.


The technicalities:

First, it’s important to clarify that for the purposes of this rule, a player is considered to have played in a game only if he logged at least 20 minutes in that game. That requirement was implemented so that a player couldn’t, say, start a game, check out after 30 seconds, and have it count toward his total.

A player is permitted to fall short of the 20-minute threshold twice and still have the game count toward his minimum as long as he logs at least 15 minutes in those games. So a player who plays 20 minutes in 63 games and 15 minutes in two more contests would reach the 65-game minimum. However, any outing of less than 15 minutes would not count toward the minimum.

Jamal Murray provides an excellent case study of how this rule operates in practice. If Murray plays in every Nuggets game for the rest of the 2023/24 regular season, he’ll technically have appeared in 66 contests. However, due to various injuries, Murray fell short of the 20-minute mark in three of those games, including two outings in which he logged fewer than 15 minutes.

As a result, Murray’s end-of-season game count may look like this:

  • Games of 20+ minutes: 63
  • Games of 15+ minutes: 1
  • Games of fewer than 15 minutes: 2
  • Total games: 66

In that scenario, he’d fall short of the minimum-game criteria despite appearing in 66 total games, since only 64 of them would qualify toward the required minimum.


The season-ending injury exception:

Rockets center Alperen Sengun, conversely, is an example of a player who may still qualify for end-of-season awards despite not reaching the 65-game benchmark.

A player retains his award eligibility if he logged 20+ minutes in at least 62 games (including 85% of his team’s games to that point), then suffers a season-ending injury.

The NBA defines a season-ending injury in this case as one that an independent physician (jointly selected by the league and players’ union) deems more likely than not to sideline the player through at least May 31.

Sengun played in 63 games for the Rockets, logging 20+ minutes in all of them, before suffering a severely sprained ankle and a bone bruise in his knee, an injury that could very well end his season. If an independent doctor determines the injury would likely keep him on the shelf through May 31, he’d be eligible for end-of-season awards, including Most Improved Player.


Grievances and challenges:

A player whose eligibility for awards could affect their next contract is permitted to file an “Award Eligibility Grievance” if he falls shy of the 65-game requirement. Such a grievance would be heard by a league arbitrator.

Murray would be eligible for a Designated Veteran (super-max) extension if he makes an All-NBA team this season, while Sengun could become eligible for a Rose Rule rookie scale extension if he’s named Most Valuable Player this season (this obviously won’t happen, but could in theory). As a result, both players would be eligible to file an Award Eligibility Grievance, if necessary.

However, the threshold for prevailing in a grievance of this sort is high. According to the CBA, the player must provide “clear and convincing evidence” that his team “willfully limited the player’s number of minutes played or games played during the regular season with the intention of depriving the player of (award) eligibility.” If Murray and Sengun fall shy of the requirements, it will be because of injuries, not because of any sort of underhanded tactics by Denver or Houston.

An Award Eligibility Grievance must be filed by 11:59 pm Eastern time on the day after the final day of the regular season, or within two days of the date on which it becomes mathematically impossible for the player to reach the 65-game minimum, whichever comes first. So Murray would have already had to file this grievance if he intended to do so.

A player who falls short of the 65-game minimum can also file an “Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge” in an effort to regain his award eligibility. In this case, the player must prove that if not for extraordinary circumstances, he would have met the 65-game requirement and that it would be “unjust” to exclude him from award consideration.

An Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge must be filed between 12:00 pm Eastern time on the final day of the regular season and 11:59 pm ET on the day after the last day of the regular season. The challenge would be heard by an “independent expert” jointly selected by the NBA and NBPA.

The CBA doesn’t define what sort of extraordinary circumstances would fall under this umbrella. Any sort of injury seems unlikely to qualify, but given that Murray may end up falling shy of award eligibility because he played 14:07 in one game instead of 15 minutes, perhaps his case will merit consideration.

Since we don’t yet have any precedents to refer to, we may have to see how situations like Murray’s play out to get a better sense of how this sort of challenge might – or might not – succeed.


The awards the 65-game rule does and doesn’t apply to:

Failing to meet the 65-game requirement doesn’t necessarily mean that a player is ineligible for every end-of-season award. The 65-game rule only applies to the following awards:

  • Most Valuable Player
  • Defensive Player of the Year
  • Most Improved Player
  • All-NBA teams
  • All-Defensive teams

That means the following awards don’t require 65 games played:

  • Rookie of the Year
  • All-Rookie teams
  • Sixth Man of the Year

Although the NBA offered no explanation for why 65+ games aren’t required for these specific awards, we can probably assume the league didn’t feel the need to impose extra requirements on awards that already only apply to a smaller group of players.

A player who made his NBA debut prior to 2023/24 won’t be eligible for Rookie of the Year or All-Rookie, and a player who starts more than half his games isn’t eligible for Sixth Man of the Year.

Being able to qualify for these awards despite not meeting the 65-game minimum does nothing for Murray, for example, since he’s not eligible for any of them anyway. However, the lack of a 65-game rule could come in handy for certain All-Rookie hopefuls who won’t reach that total this season, such as Mavericks center Dereck Lively II.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Non-Bird Rights

Players and teams have to meet certain criteria to earn Bird rights and Early Bird rights, but Non-Bird rights are practically a given.

They apply to a player who has spent a single season or less with his team, as long as he finishes the season on an NBA roster and is on a standard contract (rather than a hardship or 10-day deal). Even a player who signs a rest-of-season contract right before the regular season finale and spends just a single day with his club would have Non-Bird rights in the offseason.

Teams can also claim Non-Bird rights on Early Bird free agents if they renounce them. The primary motivator to do so would be to allow the team to sign the free agent to a one-year contract, a move that’s not permitted via Early Bird rights.

Teams are eligible to sign their own free agents using the Non-Bird exception for a salary starting at 120% of the player’s previous salary, 120% of the minimum salary, or the amount of a qualifying offer (if the player is a restricted free agent), whichever is greatest. Contracts can be for up to four years, with 5% annual raises.

The cap hold for a Non-Bird player is 120% of his previous salary, unless his previous salary was the minimum. In that case, the cap hold is equivalent to the two-year veteran’s minimum salary. If a Non-Bird free agent only has one year of NBA experience, his cap hold is equivalent to the one-year veteran’s minimum salary.

The salary limitations that apply to Non-Bird rights are more severe than those pertaining to Bird rights or Early Bird rights, so in many cases, the Non-Bird exception may not be enough to retain a well-regarded free agent. For instance, the Nuggets held Bruce Brown‘s Non-Bird rights last summer, but couldn’t have used them to match or exceed the offer the veteran wing received from the Pacers.

Because Brown had earned a relatively modest $6,479,000 salary in 2022/23, Denver’s ability to offer a raise using the Non-Bird exception was extremely limited — the Nuggets would have only been able to offer 120% of Brown’s previous salary using his Non-Bird rights, which worked out to $7,774,800. Indiana used its cap room to give Brown a $22MM starting salary, easily topping Denver’s maximum offer.

The Bucks may end up in a similar situation this offseason with Malik Beasley, who will only have Non-Bird rights after playing out a one-year, minimum-salary contract. Milwaukee almost certainly won’t have cap room, and the mid-level exception won’t be an option either as long as the team’s salary remains above the second tax apron. If they want to re-sign Beasley, the Bucks may have to hope he’ll accept an offer in the $3.6MM range via the Non-Bird exception.

Holding Non-Bird rights on a free agent didn’t help the Nuggets with Brown and may not be enough for the Bucks with Beasley, but there are cases in which the exception proves useful.

The Clippers, for instance, only had Non-Bird rights on Russell Westbrook last offseason, but that gave them the ability to offer a starting salary worth 20% more than the veteran’s minimum that another team might have offered. Since Westbrook wanted to remain in Los Angeles, the Non-Bird exception – which allowed for a starting salary of $3,835,738 – was enough to re-sign him. His minimum salary would have been $3,196,448.

After being traded from the Pacers to the Raptors earlier this season, Brown will have Non-Bird rights again this summer if Toronto opts to turn down his $23MM team option for 2024/25. However, in that scenario, the Raptors would have significantly more flexibility than Denver did to offer Brown a new contract, since he’ll be coming off a much higher salary this time around. Toronto could offer Brown a starting salary of up to $26.4MM (120% of $22MM) using the Non-Bird exception.

Finally, it’s worth noting that a player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year deal (or a two-year deal that includes a second-year option) and will have Early Bird or Bird rights at the end of that contract would surrender those rights if he consents to a trade. In that scenario, he’d only finish the season with Non-Bird rights.

No players in this position consented to a trade this year, but it was a factor in Miles Bridges‘ decision to tell the Hornets he wouldn’t approve a deal.

If Charlotte had traded him to a new team, Bridges would have only had Non-Bird rights, meaning his new team wouldn’t have been able to offer him a starting salary higher than $9,505,560 (120% of his $7,921,300 salary for 2023/24) without using cap room or another exception. By remaining with the Hornets, Bridges hung onto his Bird rights, giving him more pathways to a significant payday, either by re-signing in Charlotte or via a sign-and-trade.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Early Bird Rights

Bird rights offer teams the chance to sign their own free agents without regard to the salary cap, but they don’t apply to every player. Other salary cap exceptions are available for teams to keep players who don’t qualify for Bird rights. One such exception is the Early Bird, which applies to players formally known as Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agents.

While the Bird exception is for players who have spent three seasons with one club without changing teams as a free agent, Early Bird rights are earned after just two such seasons. Virtually all of the same rules that apply to Bird rights apply to Early Bird rights, with the requirements condensed to two years rather than three.

Players still see their Bird clocks restart by changing teams via free agency, being claimed in an expansion draft, or having their rights renounced. A player who is traded can also have his Bird clock reset if he approves a move after having re-signed with his previous team on a one-year contract (or a one-year contract with a second-year option) earlier in the league year.

As is the case with Bird rights, a player’s clock stops when he’s released by a team and clears waivers, but it would pick up where it left off if he re-signs with that same team down the road without joining another club in the interim. For instance, James Johnson will have Early Bird rights this offseason because – even though he was waived in January – he’s on track to finish a second consecutive season with the Pacers and didn’t join another team between his stints in Indiana.

The crucial difference between Bird rights and Early Bird rights involves the limitations on contract offers. Bird players can receive maximum-salary deals for up to five years, while the most a team can offer an Early Bird free agent without using cap space is 175% of his previous salary (up to the max) or 105% of the league-average salary in the previous season, whichever is greater.

These offers are also capped at four years rather than five, and the new contracts must run for at least two years — the second season can be non-guaranteed, but can’t be a team or player option.

Besides Johnson, some of the more notable free agents who will have Early Bird rights during the 2024 offseason include Malik Monk (Kings), Isaiah Hartenstein (Knicks), Kyle Anderson (Timberwolves), and Andre Drummond (Bulls).

In some instances, teams can benefit from having Early Bird rights instead of full Bird rights if they’re trying to preserve cap space. The cap hold for an Early Bird player is 130% of his previous salary, significantly less than most Bird players, whose cap holds range from 150-300% of their previous salaries.

However, having a player’s Early Bird rights instead of his full Bird rights puts a team at a disadvantage in other cases. For example, when Christian Wood reached free agency in 2020, his Early Bird rights only allowed the Pistons to offer a starting salary of up to about $10.05MM, a figure the Rockets topped in their three-year, $41MM offer.

In order to match or exceed that number, Detroit would have had to use cap room — having Wood’s full Bird rights would’ve allowed the Pistons to make a far more substantial offer without requiring cap space.

Meanwhile, some players with limited NBA experience are subject to a special wrinkle involving Early Bird rights, called the Gilbert Arenas Provision, which applies to players who have only been in the league for one or two years. We cover the Arenas Provision in a separate glossary entry, so you can read up on the details there.

Essentially, the Arenas Provision protects teams from a situation like the ones the Pistons found themselves in with Wood, allowing them to match offer sheets on their restricted free agents without necessarily using Bird rights or cap room to do so. Last offseason, Lakers guard Austin Reaves and Pelicans forward Herbert Jones were both Arenas free agents. The provision would apply this coming offseason to a player like Pistons wing Simone Fontecchio.

Finally, one more distinction between Bird rights and Early Bird rights applies to waivers. Players who are claimed off waivers retain their Early Bird rights, just as they would if they were traded. Those who had Bird rights instead see those reduced to Early Bird rights if they’re claimed off waivers.

This rule stems from a 2012 settlement between the league and the union in which J.J. Hickson was given a special exception and retained his full Bird rights for the summer of 2012 even though he had been claimed off waivers that March.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Bird Rights

The Bird exception, named after Larry Bird, is a rule included in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that allows teams to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own players. A player who qualifies for the Bird exception, formally referred to as a Qualifying Veteran Free Agent, is said to have “Bird rights.”

The most basic way for a player to earn Bird rights is to play for the same team for at least three seasons, either on a long-term deal or on separate one- or two-year contracts. Still, there are other criteria. A player retains his Bird rights in the following scenarios:

1. He changes teams via trade.

For instance, the Thunder will hold Gordon Hayward‘s Bird rights when he reaches free agency this offseason, despite just acquiring him in February. His Bird clock didn’t reset when he was traded from Charlotte to Oklahoma City.

2. He finishes a third season with a team after having only signed for a partial season with the club in the first year.

The Heat signed Haywood Highsmith during the second half of the 2021/22 season, adding him to their roster in March 2022. When his contract expires this offseason, Highsmith will have Bird rights despite not spending three full seasons with Miami, because that partial season in ’21/22 started his Bird clock.

3. He signed a full-season contract (ie. not a 10-day deal) in year one or two but the team waived him; he cleared waivers and didn’t sign with another team before re-signing with the club and ultimately remaining under contract through a third season.

This one’s a little confusing, but let’s use former Raptors big man Christian Koloko as an example. After spending the 2022/23 season with Toronto and opening the ’23/24 season on the roster, Koloko was waived by the team in January. If the Raptors were to re-sign him in July without him joining a new team in the interim, his Bird clock would pick up where it left off. He’d have full Bird rights in the summer of 2025, since he would’ve spent part or all of each of the previous three seasons with Toronto, without changing teams in between.

It’s worth noting that while the Raptors could restart Koloko’s Bird clock by re-signing him, they wouldn’t be able to use any form of Bird rights to add him to their roster this offseason — they would have to use cap room or another exception to do so. His Bird clock would only resume once he’s back under contract.

This rule also applies to players who are waived after they already have Bird rights. For example, let’s say the Warriors were to waive Chris Paul this offseason before his $30MM salary for 2024/25 becomes guaranteed.

Golden State, which doesn’t project to have cap room this summer, would have no means to re-sign Paul except via the minimum salary exception or perhaps the mid-level exception, since waiving him would mean losing his Bird rights. But if they did find a way to re-add him on a one-year contract after waiving him, the Warriors would regain Paul’s full Bird rights in 2025.


A player sees the clock on his Bird rights reset to zero in the following scenarios:

  1. He changes teams via free agency.
  2. He is waived and is not claimed on waivers (except as in scenario No. 3 above).
  3. His rights are renounced by his team. However, as in scenario No. 3 above, a player’s Bird clock picks up where it left off if he re-signs with that team renounced without having signed with another NBA team. For example, Boban Marjanovic had Bird rights last offseason, then had those rights renounced by the Rockets as they freed up extra cap room. Since Marjanovic eventually signed a new deal with Houston, he’ll retain his full Bird rights this summer — that wouldn’t have been the case if he had signed with a new team.
  4. He is selected in an expansion draft.

Players on two-way contracts accumulate Bird rights in the same way that players on standard contracts do. Magic forward Admiral Schofield has been under contract with Orlando on various two-way and standard deals in each of the past three seasons, so if he remains on his current two-way deal through the end of 2023/24, he’ll have full Bird rights this summer.

If a player who would have been in line for Bird rights at the end of the season is waived and claimed off waivers, he would retain only Early Bird rights.

It’s also worth noting that there’s one specific scenario in which a player with Bird rights can lose them in a trade. A player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year contract (or a one-year deal with a second-year option) would have his Bird clock reset if he’s traded later that season. As such, he receives the ability to veto trades so he can avoid that scenario.

[RELATED: Players who had the ability to veto trades in 2023/24]

The Bird exception was designed to allow teams to keep their best players, even when those teams don’t have the cap room necessary to do so.

When a player earns Bird rights, he’s eligible to re-sign with his team for up to five years and for any price up to his maximum salary (with 8% annual raises) when he becomes a free agent, no matter how much cap space the team has — or doesn’t have.

The maximum salary varies from player to player depending on how long he has been in the league, but regardless of the precise amount, a team can exceed the salary cap to re-sign a player with Bird rights.

A team with a Bird free agent is assigned a “free agent amount” – also called a cap hold – worth either 190% of his previous salary (for a player with a below-average salary) or 150% of his previous salary (for an above-average salary), up to the maximum salary amount. For players coming off rookie scale contracts, the amounts of those cap holds are 300% and 250%, respectively.

The Sixers, for instance, will have a cap hold worth $13,031,760 for Tyrese Maxey on their books this offseason — 300% of his $4,343,920 salary for 2023/24. Philadelphia could renounce Maxey and generate an extra $13MM+ in cap flexibility, but doing so would cost the Sixers the ability to re-sign him using Bird rights, which would force them to use either cap room or a different cap exception to re-sign him. As such, we can count on Philadelphia keeping Maxey’s cap hold on the books until his free agency is resolved.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Bi-Annual Exception

The mid-level exception is the most common tool used by over-the-cap teams to sign free agents from other teams to contracts worth more than the veteran’s minimum. But that’s not the only exception those clubs have to squeeze an extra player onto the payroll. The bi-annual exception is a way for a team to sign a player who may command more than the minimum salary, but less than the mid-level.

As its name suggests, the bi-annual exception can only be used every other season. Even if a team uses only a portion of the exception, it’s off-limits during the following league year.

During the 2023/24 league year, two teams – the Heat and Sixers – were ineligible to use the bi-annual exception at all, since they used it in 2022/23.

Three teams have used the BAE in ’23/24, with the Lakers signing Taurean Prince, the Cavaliers signing Ty Jerome, and the Raptors signing Jalen McDaniels. Those three clubs won’t have the exception at their disposal during the 2024/25 league year.

The bi-annual exception is available only to a limited number of clubs, even among those that didn’t use the exception during the previous season. Teams that create and use cap space forfeit their bi-annual exception. Additionally, teams lose access to the bi-annual exception when they operate over the first “tax apron,” a figure approximately $7MM above the tax line this season. So, only teams over the cap and under the first apron can use the BAE.

If a team uses all or part of the bi-annual exception, the first tax apron becomes the club’s hard cap for that season. Teams that sign a player using the BAE can later go under the cap, but can’t go over the first apron at any time during the season once the contract is signed.

[RELATED: NBA Teams With Hard Caps In 2023/24]

Although a team with a salary exceeding the first tax apron isn’t permitted to use the bi-annual exception, that team could gain access to the BAE by shedding salary. As long as the team’s salary would be below the first tax apron after completing the bi-annual signing – and remains below that threshold for the rest of the season – that club is permitted to use the BAE, no matter how high its salary might have been earlier in the league year.

Under the NBA’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement, the value of the bi-annual exception in future league years is tied to the value of the salary cap. The BAE comes in at 3.32% of that season’s cap and is rounded to the nearest thousand.

For instance, this season’s cap is $136,021,000; 3.32% of that amount is $4,515,897.20. Rounding to the nearest thousand gets us to $4,516,000, which is the maximum starting salary for a bi-annual signing in 2023/24. The starting salary for the BAE in 2024/25 currently projects to be worth $4,681,000, based on a $141MM cap projection.

A player who signs a contract using the bi-annual exception is eligible for a one- or two-year deal, with a 5% raise for the second season. For a player signed using the BAE in 2023/24, the maximum value of a two-year contract is $9,257,800.

Teams also have the option of splitting the bi-annual exception among multiple players, though that happens much less frequently than it does with the mid-level exception, since a split bi-annual deal may not even be worth more than a veteran’s minimum salary.

The bi-annual exception begins to prorate downward on January 10 each year, decreasing in value by 1/174th each day until the end of the regular season. However, a team that uses its BAE between Jan. 10 and the trade deadline wouldn’t be subject to that proration and could use the full amount it has left on the exception.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Buyouts

Once the NBA trade deadline passes, the league’s buyout season unofficially begins. What exactly are buyouts, and how do they work? Today’s Hoops Rumors glossary entry will answer those questions. Let’s dive in…


What is a buyout?

Although the term “buyout” is often applied colloquially when any veteran is released after the trade deadline, it applies specifically to a player who gives up a portion of his salary to accommodate his release.

Rather than waiving a player outright, a team will negotiate the terms of the player’s release. Then, once the player clears waivers, his guaranteed salary with his previous team will be reduced or eliminated altogether.

So far this season, we’ve seen three point guards – Ricky Rubio, Kyle Lowry, and Delon Wright – and big man Daniel Theis agree to buyouts, surrendering a portion of the guaranteed money left on their respective contracts.


What’s the motivation for a buyout?

The most common form of buyout involves a veteran player on a non-contending team being granted his release during the final year of his contract to join a playoff club down the stretch.

It typically happens after the trade deadline because by that point there’s no other way for a player to change teams. It’s even more frequent if the player was traded at the deadline for salary-matching purposes to a team that doesn’t view him as part of its plans.

Lowry and Wright each fit this bill. The Hornets and Wizards aren’t going to make the playoffs this season and are more focused on developing their young players. Buyouts for those two veterans gave them a chance to join teams with grander short-term aspirations in Philadelphia and Miami, respectively.

For Theis, the motivating factor for pursuing a buyout was playing time — he was buried on the depth chart with the Pacers, prompting him to agree to a buyout and join another playoff team with whom he’d have a larger role.

For the player, the motivating factor is generally the desire to play for a winning team rather than a chance to earn the most money possible. Many players who are bought out give up roughly the amount of money they’ll make on new prorated minimum-salary contracts, meaning they don’t necessarily come out ahead financially — they just get a chance to play in the postseason before returning to free agency in the summer.

As for the team, there’s little downside to letting a veteran go, since the player is usually in the final year of his contract and the club completing the buyout is rarely in contention for a playoff spot. Buying out that veteran can save the team some money, earn some goodwill with a player and an agent, and open up a roster spot and/or minutes for a younger player to take over.

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Hoops Rumors Glossary: 10-Day Contract

During the early part of an NBA season, a team that wants to sign a player to a short-term contract generally does so by agreeing to a non-guaranteed deal, giving the club the flexibility to waive him without paying his full-season salary. But non-guaranteed contracts are only an option until January 7 — any standard, rest-of-season deal signed after that date must be guaranteed for the season.

Around the same time the league-wide salary guarantee date arrives, the NBA gives teams the ability to sign players to 10-day contracts, which essentially replace non-guaranteed deals during the second half of the season.

Ten-day contracts can be signed each year beginning on January 5 and are exactly what they sound like — contracts that cover 10 days (including the day they’re signed). A player who signs a 10-day deal on January 5 would remain eligible to play for his team through January 14, but not on January 15, unless he signs a new contract.

A team can sign a player to as many as two 10-day contracts before committing to him for the rest of the season or, as in many cases, letting him go. A player can’t sign three standard 10-day contracts with the same team, but after signing two 10-day deals with one club, he’s allowed to sign another with a separate club.

The NBA tweaked this rule in recent years to allow three or more 10-day contracts with the same team for players who are signed via the hardship provision. In 2022, for instance, Drew Eubanks ended up signing five 10-day deals with the Trail Blazers. Eubanks was still limited to two standard 10-day contracts with Portland, but three of his deals came via a hardship exception, which the Blazers qualified for as a result of having four or more injured players.

However, that loophole was closed in the latest CBA as the NBA moved beyond its COVID era. Regardless of whether a player is signed to a standard or hardship 10-day contract, he’s no longer permitted to sign a third 10-day deal with the same club.

While a team signing a player to a standard 10-day contract must have an open spot on its 15-man roster to accommodate the signing, a player signed via a hardship exception doesn’t count against that 15-man limit.

Under the NBA’s newest Collective Bargaining Agreement, a 10-day deal must be worth a prorated portion of the player’s minimum salary. In the past, a player could technically earn more than the minimum on a 10-day contract, though that essentially never happened.

A 10-day contract for a rookie this season will be worth $64,343, which is 10/174ths of the full-season rookie minimum salary. A one-year veteran will earn $103,550, and a 10-day deal for any veteran with two or more years of NBA service would represent a cost of $116,075 to the team.

Veterans with more than two years of NBA service would earn more than $116,075 on a 10-day contract, but the league would pay the extra freight. However, teams gain no financial advantage if they pass on 10-day agreements with more experienced players in favor of rookies or one-year veterans in an effort to limit their end-of-season luxury tax penalty — those deals count the same as the ones for two-year veterans when the league calculates a team’s salary for tax purposes.

Teams would be on the hook for a slightly higher salary if they sign a player to a 10-day contract and they have fewer than three games on their schedule over that 10-day period. In those cases, the length of the 10-day contract is extended so that it covers three games for the team.

It’s rare that any team would have such a light schedule, since most play at least three games a week, but the rule generally comes into play for contracts signed just before the All-Star break. If the Celtics were to sign a player to a 10-day contract on February 14, for instance, his contract would actually cover 11 days, since Boston plays games on Feb. 14, Feb. 22, and Feb. 24.

Here are a few more rules related to 10-day contracts:

  • A team may terminate a 10-day contract before it runs to term if it wants to use the roster spot to accommodate a waiver claim, signing, or trade acquisition. A team that terminates a 10-day contract early isn’t permitted to re-sign the player before the full 10-day term is over.
  • Players whose 10-day contracts are terminated early don’t go on waivers, so they become free agents immediately. Still, those players receive their entire 10-day salaries — the contracts are fully guaranteed for the 10 days.
  • A team is permitted to carry up to three players on standard 10-day contracts as long as the team has a full 15-man roster. A team with an open spot on its standard 15-man roster can only carry up to two players on 10-day deals. If a team has just 13 players on standard contracts, only one of them can be on a 10-day pact.
  • A 10-day deal must be a standard NBA contract. In other words, a team can’t sign a player to a two-way, 10-day contract.
  • A standard 10-day contract can’t be signed with fewer than 10 days left in the regular season. However, a hardship 10-day deal can be signed during that time and would simply be prorated to cover the remaining days in the regular season. At the conclusion of the regular season, a player on a hardship 10-day deal would immediately become a free agent, with his team holding no form of Bird rights on him.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: G League Assignments

NBA G League teams have no shortage of ways to stock their rosters. They can retain players’ returning rights, add players through the G League draft, acquire players via waivers, take on affiliate players from NBA training camps, sign players they find in preseason tryout camps, and carry players on two-way contracts. Yet perhaps the most noteworthy players to pass through the G League come via NBA assignment.

The players assigned to the G League by NBA teams aren’t quite like other G-Leaguers. NBA players receive their full NBA salaries while on G League assignment, whereas a G League player without an NBA contract receives far more modest annual earnings ($41K for most NBAGL players in 2023/24).

A G League assignment could technically come at a financial cost for an NBA player, since performance in the NBAGL doesn’t count toward any incentive clauses built into an NBA contract. So if a player heads down to the G League on a rehab assignment and plays in a couple games for his NBA club’s affiliate, none of the numbers he puts up during that assignment would count toward the performance incentives built into his contract.

Generally speaking though, only longer-tenured veteran NBA players have incentives in their contracts, and most of those players won’t be assigned to the G League. Virtually all of the NBA players assigned to the G League have fewer than three full years of experience, since players in their first, second or third NBA seasons are the only ones whom NBA teams can unilaterally send down to the G League.

A player with at least three years of NBA service under his belt can be assigned to the G League, but it requires the player’s consent and a sign-off from the players’ union. Most of the time, these assignments are for injury rehab purposes, like when the Cavaliers sent Jarrett Allen to the Cleveland Charge while he was working his way back from a left ankle bone bruise early in the season.

Occasionally, a healthy player with at least three years of experience will approve a G League assignment. For instance, Trail Blazers center Moses Brown, who hasn’t been part of Portland’s regular rotation at the NBA level this season, has accepted multiple assignments to the Rip City Remix, where he has gotten the opportunity to play a larger role.

Once a player has been assigned to the G League, he can remain there indefinitely, and lengthy stints aren’t uncommon. However, since there’s no limit to the number of times an NBA team can assign and recall a player, assignments can also be very brief, particularly now that many teams are in close geographical proximity to their G League affiliates. There have even been instances in which a player suits up for an NBAGL team earlier in the day, then is recalled to play for his NBA club later that night.

A total of 27 NBA teams own their G League affiliates outright, while two others (the Rockets and Nuggets) operate the basketball operations of their affiliates in “hybrid” partnerships with local ownership groups. Teams that have these arrangements can set up a unified system in which the G League club runs the same offensive and defensive schemes as its parent club, and coaches dole out playing time based on what’s best for the NBA franchise.

Only one NBA club – the Suns – doesn’t have a G League affiliate of its own in 2023/24. However, Phoenix can still assign players to the G League via the “flexible assignment” rule. If, for instance, the Suns want to send Jordan Goodwin to the G League, NBAGL teams can volunteer to accept him. Phoenix can choose from those clubs if there are multiple volunteers, but if no G League team raises its hand, the NBAGL will randomly choose one of its hybrid affiliate teams to accept Goodwin.

Goodwin isn’t a viable candidate for a G League assignment, since he plays regular minutes for the Suns, but he’s the only player on the roster who has fewer than three years of NBA service, making him the only Phoenix player who could be unilaterally assigned to the NBAGL.

Only players on standard NBA contracts can be assigned to the G League and recalled to the NBA — while players on two-way contracts can also be shuttled back and forth between the two leagues, those moves are referred to as “transfers,” rather than assignments or recalls.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron, most recently in 2021.

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Hard Cap

The NBA’s salary cap is a “soft” cap, which is why most teams’ salaries have surpassed the $136,021,000 threshold for the 2023/24 season. Once a team uses up all of its cap room, it can use a series of “exceptions” – including the mid-level, bi-annual, and various forms of Bird rights – to exceed the cap.

Since the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement doesn’t feature a “hard” cap by default, teams can construct rosters that not only exceed the cap but also blow past the luxury tax line ($165,294,000 in ’23/24). While it would be nearly impossible in practical terms, there’s technically no rule restricting a club from having a team salary worth double or triple the salary cap.

However, there are certain scenarios in 2023/24 in which a team can become hard-capped at one of two thresholds, known as the “tax aprons.” Those scenarios are as follows:

A team becomes hard-capped at the first tax apron if:

  1. The team uses its bi-annual exception to sign a player.
  2. The team uses more than the taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception to sign a player (or multiple players).
    • Note: In 2023/24, the taxpayer MLE is worth $5,000,000, compared to $12,405,000 for the full non-taxpayer MLE. The taxpayer MLE can be used to complete deals up to two years, while the non-taxpayer MLE can be used to complete deals up to four years.
  3. The team acquires a player via sign-and-trade.
  4. The team signs a player who was waived during the current season, if his pre-waiver salary for 2023/24 exceeded the amount of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($12,405,000).
  5. The team takes back more than 110% of the salary it sends out in a trade (using salary-matching rather than cap room).

A team making any of those five roster moves must ensure that its team salary is below the first tax apron when it finalizes the transaction and remains below the apron for the rest of the league year.

For the 2023/24 league year, the first apron is set at $172,346,000, which is $7,052,000 above the tax line. A team that completes one of the five moves listed above can’t surpass that line under any circumstances.

A team becomes hard-capped at the second tax apron if:

  1. The team uses any portion of the mid-level exception.

Under the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, every team was permitted to use at least some portion of the mid-level exception, but it’s no longer available to teams above the second tax apron, so a club that uses any part of the MLE is hard-capped at that second apron.

As noted above, a team that uses more than the taxpayer portion ($5MM) is hard-capped at the first apron, which means teams between the first and second apron are allowed to spend up to $5MM in MLE money.

For the 2023/24 league year, the second apron is set at $182,794,000, which is $17.5MM above the tax line.

So far in ’23/24, a total of 11 teams have hard-capped themselves at the first tax apron by acquiring a player via sign-and-trade, using the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, using the bi-annual exception, or taking back more than 110% of the outgoing salary in a trade. Two more teams have hard-capped themselves at the second apron by using $5MM in mid-level money.

For many of those teams, the restriction is barely noticeable — they remain far below their hard cap and haven’t had to worry about whether a roster move might put them over it. However, a handful of clubs will have to be wary of that hard cap as they approach the trade deadline.

It’s worth noting that even if a team starts a new league year above the tax apron, that doesn’t mean they can’t become hard-capped at some point later in the season. For example, the Warriors are currently well above the second apron, but in the unlikely event that they dump a couple big contracts and then use $5MM of their mid-level exception to sign a free agent, a hard cap would be imposed and they’d be ineligible to surpass the $182.8MM second apron for the rest of the league year.

In other words, the hard cap applies from the moment a team completes one of the transactions listed above, but isn’t applied retroactively.

The list of roster moves that will impose a hard cap on a team will expand beginning in the 2024 offseason. After the last day of the 2023/24 regular season, the following restrictions will apply:

A team becomes hard-capped at the first tax apron if:

  1. The team takes back more than 100% of the salary it sends out in a trade (when over the cap).
    • Note: This will replace the fifth rule listed above, reducing the salary-matching limit from 110% to 100% for teams over the first apron.
  2. The team uses a traded player exception generated during the prior year (ie. between the end of the previous regular season and the end of the most recent regular season).

A team becomes hard-capped at the second tax apron if:

  1. The team aggregates two or more player salaries in a trade.
  2. The team sends out cash as part of a trade.
  3. The team acquires a player using a traded player exception if that TPE was created by sending out a player via sign-and-trade.

Typically, a team’s hard cap expires on June 30 when the current league year comes to an end, with the team getting a clean slate on July 1. However, beginning in the 2024 offseason, if a team engages in any of the trade-related transactions prohibited for first or second apron teams between the end of the regular season and June 30, the team will not be permitted to exceed that apron level during the following season.

If, for example, a team sends out cash in a trade in June of 2024, that team won’t be allowed to exceed the second tax apron during the 2024/25 league year. The inverse is also true — a team whose 2024/25 salary projects to be over the second apron won’t be able to trade cash in June.

This rule only applies to trade-related transactions because the ones related to free agency don’t come into effect between the end of the regular season and the start of the next league year.


Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Previous versions of this post was published in 2020 and 2021.