After a couple relatively quiet months around the NBA, October is full of important deadlines for roster and contract decisions. Here’s our round-up of the dates to keep an eye on this month:
Regular season roster decisions
The 2025/26 regular season tips off on Tuesday, October 21, which means teams must set their rosters for the season by 4:00 pm Central time on Monday, October 20. To be in accordance with regular season roster limits, a team must be carrying no more than 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals.
While teams have until Oct. 20 to set their regular season rosters, many clubs will make their final cuts on or before Saturday, October 18. That’s the final day that a team can waive a player on a non-guaranteed contract and avoid paying any of his salary.
[RELATED: 2025/26 Non-Guaranteed Contracts By Team]
Because a player gets paid for the time he spends on waivers, a player who is cut on Monday, Oct. 20 wouldn’t clear waivers until Wednesday, Oct. 22, the second day of the regular season. That means that even if his contract is non-guaranteed, he’d earn two days’ worth of his salary.
Teams who intend to waive players with partially or fully guaranteed salaries are in better position to wait until the Monday before the regular season begins. For instance, if the Nets decide to cut Jalen Wilson, who has an $88,075 partial guarantee, it wouldn’t matter if they do so on October 20 or 22 — he’d receive his $88,075 either way.
However, if the Nets want to waive Tyrese Martin, whose salary is entirely non-guaranteed, they’d likely do so on the Saturday. Waiting until the Monday would mean paying him $25,194 (2/174ths of his $2,191,897 salary).
Two-way contract conversions
A player on an Exhibit 10 contract can have his deal converted into a two-way contract, but only up until Monday, October 20, the day before the regular season begins.
If a player on an Exhibit 10 contract remains on his team’s roster through that Monday without being converted to a two-way, his Exhibit 10 deal would become a standard non-guaranteed contract.
Since most players on Exhibit 10 contracts will be waived on or before October 18, it’s worth keeping tabs on which of them hang onto their roster spots through that Saturday — those players will be good bets to have their deals converted into two-ways or perhaps even to claim a 15-man roster spot.
Contract extensions
The deadline for a player to sign a rookie scale extension is Monday, October 20 at 5:00 pm Central time.
As of Friday, five of the 22 players who were eligible for a rookie scale extension entering the offseason have signed or agreed to one, while a sixth was waived, leaving 16 players who still may be seeking new deals that would keep them off the 2026 free agent market.
Hawks guard Dyson Daniels, Nuggets guard Christian Braun, Pistons teammates Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey, and Kings forward Keegan Murray are among the notable rookie scale extension candidates to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.
It seems like a safe bet that a few more players eligible for rookie scale extensions will sign them — in each of the past four offseasons (2021 through 2024), at least 11 players have done so.
As for veteran extension candidates, a player who is extension-eligible and who is in the final year of his current contract can sign an extension at any time before or after the regular season begins, all the way up until June 30, 2026.
However, a player who is eligible for a veteran extension but who is not in a contract year will only be eligible to sign a new deal up until Monday, October 20.
For instance, Rockets forward Kevin Durant would remain eligible to sign a veteran extension even after the regular season begins, since he’s in the last year of his current contract. But Heat guard Tyler Herro, who has two guaranteed years left, can only sign an extension up until Oct. 20. After that, he’ll become ineligible to sign a new deal until next summer.
An extension-eligible veteran who holds an option for 2026/27 will remain extension-eligible after the season begins as long as his option is declined as part of any extension agreement, with his new contract replacing the option. A player like Hawks guard Trae Young would fall under this umbrella, since his current deal includes a player option for ’26/27.
Salary guarantee dates
The league-wide salary guarantee date to watch is January 7, 2026. A player on a non-guaranteed contract who isn’t waived by that date and doesn’t clear waivers before January 10 will have his 2025/26 salary become fully guaranteed.
However, certain players have contracts that call for them to receive partial or full guarantees at the start of the regular season. Our list of early salary guarantee dates shows which players fall into that boat, with Sixers big man Adem Bona, Bucks guard Andre Jackson Jr., and Hornets center Moussa Diabate among the candidates to have their salaries for this season become fully guaranteed.
Rookie scale team option decisions
A team that wants to exercise its 2026/27 third- or fourth-year option on a player on a rookie contract must do so on or before Friday, October 31.
As our tracker shows, the Bulls, Heat, and Suns have already made their option decisions, while the Bucks don’t have any to make. But the NBA’s other 26 teams will have to pick up or turn down those rookie scale team options for ’26/27 within the next four weeks.
A team that retains a player without exercising his 2026/27 option would put that player on track for unrestricted free agency next offseason. At that point, his team wouldn’t be able to offer him a salary higher than what his option would have been worth, though rival suitors could offer him more than that.