Within the last month and a half, several of the most sizable traded player exceptions from around the NBA have expired. The Clippers‘ $7MM+ exception from last year’s Chris Paul deal expired in June, a pair of big Raptors TPEs went unused a couple weeks later, and the Trail Blazers saw their $13MM exception from last summer’s Allen Crabbe trade expire late in July.
None of these developments were particularly surprising. Traded player exceptions, even bigger ones, often go unused. That’s especially true for teams like Toronto and Portland, whose team salaries are over the tax line. For those clubs, taking on a salary using a traded player exception would cost exponentially more due to tax penalties.
Still, those bigger trade exceptions can occasionally come in handy and are worth keeping an eye on. For instance, the Cavaliers have a $5.8MM trade exception created in last August’s Kyrie Irving deal that would have expired if it hadn’t been used within the next few weeks. The Cavs are taking advantage of it by using it to finalize the acquisition of Sam Dekker without sending out any salary in return.
That Cleveland traded player exception had been the seventh-most valuable TPE around the NBA. Here are the top five, all of which could be used to acquire a player earning at least $7MM in 2018/19:
- Denver Nuggets: $13,764,045 (Expires 7/15/2019)
- Denver Nuggets: $12,800,562 (Expires 7/8/2019)
- Oklahoma City Thunder: $10,883,189 (Expires 7/25/2019)
- Charlotte Hornets: $7,819,725 (Expires 7/6/2019)
- Detroit Pistons: $7,000,000 (Expires 1/29/2019)
Check out our tracker for the full list of available traded player exceptions. For more information on exactly how trade exceptions work, be sure to check out our glossary entry on the subject.