Friday, August 29 is the last day that an NBA team will be able to waive a player who has a fully or partially guaranteed salary for 2025/26 and stretch that player’s ’25/26 salary across multiple seasons.
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The stretch provision deadline has historically been August 31, and while that’s technically still the case, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement tweaked the wording of the rule. In order to apply the stretch provision to a player’s current-season salary, a team must now ensure the player clears waivers on or before August 31 rather than simply requesting waivers on him by August 31.
The adjusted wording is similar to the CBA language related to the league-wide salary guarantee date in January. In that case, a team must place a player on waivers on or before January 7 in order to have him clear waivers ahead of the league-wide Jan. 10 guarantee date. In the case of the stretch provision rule, a player whose salary is being stretched now must be waived by August 29 at 4:00 pm Central time to ensure he has cleared waivers prior to September 1.
A player who clears waivers between September 1 and the end of the 2025/26 season can still have his cap hit(s) for 2026/27 and subsequent seasons stretched across multiple years, assuming he’s owed guaranteed money beyond this season. But his ’25/26 cap charge would remain unchanged in that scenario, unless he reaches a buyout agreement with his team.
The stretch provision allows teams to gain some short-term relief at the cost of reduced long-term flexibility. It’s used most frequently by teams in the luxury tax who want to lower their projected tax bill (or duck out of tax territory entirely) or by teams who want to create extra cap room to accommodate a specific roster move.
While the stretch provision typically isn’t used all this frequently, it has been deployed this offseason in two very noteworthy instances. The Bucks stretched the two years and $112,583,016 remaining on Damian Lillard‘s contract, while the Suns stretched the two years and $96,915,050 left on Bradley Beal‘s deal after he agreed to a buyout.
Like Beal, Cole Anthony (Grizzlies) and Vasilije Micic (Bucks) agreed to buyouts with their respective clubs and then had the stretch provision applied to their leftover salaries — $11.1MM for Anthony and $2MM for Micic. Both players had just one season of guaranteed salary remaining.
Since the stretch provision allows a team to spread the player’s remaining salary across twice the remaining years on his contract, plus one additional year, the new cap hits for those four players are as follows:
- Lillard (Bucks): $22,516,603 for five seasons (through 2029/30)
- Beal (Suns): $19,383,010 for five seasons (through 2029/30)
- Anthony (Grizzlies): $3,700,000 for three seasons (through 2027/28)
- Micic (Bucks): $666,667 for three seasons (through 2027/28)
The Suns’ moves significantly reduced their projected luxury tax payment and moved them well below the second tax apron, while the Bucks’ and Grizzlies’ moves helped create the cap room necessary for other transactions.
We likely won’t see a flurry of cuts today and tomorrow in order to take advantage of this rule, but the deadline is still worth keeping in mind for the possibilities it will take off the table. Any player on a guaranteed expiring contract who is waived after August 29 without a buyout agreement or a waiver claim will have his remaining salary count entirely against his team’s ’25/26 books.