NBA’s July Moratorium Ends Today

The NBA’s July moratorium will end on Thursday at 11:00 am central time, allowing teams to conduct official business beginning today. The July moratorium is the period from July 1 to July 6 when teams are permitted to agree to trades and free agent contracts, but can’t yet formally finalize them.

[RELATED: 2017 NBA Free Agent Tracker]

There are a number of types of deals that can be finalized during the moratorium, as we’ve seen this week. Teams can sign first-round picks to their rookie contracts, two-way contracts can be made official, and players signing minimum salary contracts can also finalize those deals. Restricted free agents are also permitted to sign offer sheets during the moratorium, though only one player – Otto Porter – has agreed to an offer sheet this week, and he hasn’t yet made it official with the Nets.

Although the end of the moratorium signals the beginning of official business for many teams, those teams aren’t obligated to immediately finalize deals reached during the moratorium. For instance, if the Celtics still haven’t found a taker for Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley, or Marcus Smart by 11:00 am CT today, it’s not as if their deal with Gordon Hayward will fall apart — Boston can take as much time as it needs to get its cap in order before making Hayward’s deal official, though I’m sure the team won’t want to drag out the process too long.

In some cases, trades that were agreed to in June before the new league year began still need to be officially finalized too. The Thunder‘s acquisition of Paul George from the Pacers is the most notable outstanding trade. However, a pair of draft-day deals involving the Sixers still need to be made official as well.

Philadelphia sold the 39th and 46th overall selections, but the team had reached its limit for cash received during the 2016/17 league year, so the Clippers and Bucks, respectively, agreed to postpone those deals until 2017/18, when the Sixers’ cash-received limit for the year will reset to $5.1MM.

[RELATED: 2017 NBA Offseason Trades]

Once the moratorium lifts, we’ll be updating our stories of contract and trade agreements to reflect when they become official. For top headlines from the last week, like the deals for Hayward, Paul Millsap, Blake Griffin, and other big-name free agents, we’ll bump those stories to the top of the site so you don’t miss news of them becoming official. However, since we don’t want to bury new news amidst confirmation of old news, our stories on smaller deals won’t be moved to the top of our feed unless there are new developments or details.

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