With the NBA’s league-wide salary guarantee date for 2023/24 behind us, it’s worth checking in once again on which teams have open spots on their 18-man rosters.
As our roster count tracker shows, these are the teams that don’t currently have full rosters consisting of 15 players on standard rest-of-season contracts and three on two-way deals:
Teams with standard roster openings:
- Boston Celtics
- Chicago Bulls
- Cleveland Cavaliers (2)
- Golden State Warriors
- Los Angeles Lakers
- Miami Heat
- Minnesota Timberwolves
- New Orleans Pelicans
- New York Knicks
- Portland Trail Blazers (2)
- Sacramento Kings *
- Toronto Raptors
- Washington Wizards *
The Cavaliers and Trail Blazers each face a deadline to add a 14th man, since NBA teams aren’t permitted to carry fewer than 14 players on standard contracts for more than two weeks at a time. Cleveland has to make a move by January 18, while Portland has until January 20.
The Kings and Wizards, meanwhile, technically have full 15-man standard rosters at the moment, but they’re each only carrying 14 players on full-season contracts, with one player on a 10-day deal. Those 10-day deals run through next Thursday, at which time each club could open up a roster spot.
Most teams in this group likely won’t sign a player to a rest-of-season or multiyear contract until sometime after the trade deadline, when they know they won’t need to use that 15th roster spot to accommodate a trade in which they acquire more players than they send out. In between now and the trade deadline, however, some of these clubs could join Sacramento and Washington in signing free agents to 10-day contracts.
Teams with two-way openings:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Milwaukee Bucks (2)
The deadline to sign a player to a two-way contract won’t arrive until March 4, so there’s no urgency for these clubs to fill their openings right away. But the prorated portion of a two-way salary is such a minor financial commitment for an NBA franchise that we may see these teams bring in a new two-way player sooner rather than later, even if they’re not certain he’ll hold that spot for the rest of the season.
Por smart leaving room for trades
They gotta clear up that payroll before next year in the next 3 weeks
If Mia cant go deeper sea fishing Por could have some options Brogdon/Grant for discount prices that are appealing if that relationship isn’t too frayed already
Cant see Mia sitting idle
They have been shopping Grant, Simons and Thybulle all season. The only one who should stay is Brogdon who can be a valuable 6th man mentor for the youth in Portland. They definitely need to trade the last remaining remnants of ISO ball hog, offense that Lillard lived off of. Most in Portland can’t wait to watch “TEAMWORK” over the ISO crap offense, that they’ve been force fed since Lillard was given the green light for selfishness.