The NBA’s transaction wire hasn’t been as busy in the past week as it was leading up to to the regular season, but we can still expect one last flurry of moves in October. The deadline for teams to exercise their 2026/27 team options on rookie scale contracts arrives on Friday (October 31), and several of those decisions have yet to be reported or announced.
Unlike player or team options on veteran contracts, third- and fourth-year options on rookie scale contracts for former first-round picks must be exercised a year in advance. For instance, when the Spurs picked up Victor Wembanyama‘s fourth-year option earlier this month, they were locking in his salary for the 2026/27 season — his ’25/26 salary became guaranteed last October when the team exercised his third-year option.
As our tracker shows, 30 options have been picked up so far, but a number of teams still have decisions to make on players who were first-round picks in 2023 and 2024. Some of those remaining option decisions are no-brainers — the Sixers haven’t yet exercised Jared McCain‘s $4,422,600 option for 2026/27, for instance, but there’s no doubt they’ll do so.
Other decisions are less cut-and-dried. For example, the Knicks must decide whether they want to pick up Pacome Dadiet‘s $2,983,680 fourth-year option for ’26/27. Given New York’s position relative to the tax aprons and the fact that Dadiet has yet to show much at the NBA level, there’s no guarantee the Knicks will lock in that cap hit.
Here’s the list of the 24 option decisions that have yet to be officially finalized:
Atlanta Hawks
- Zaccharie Risacher (third year, $13,826,040)
Boston Celtics
- Baylor Scheierman (third year, $2,744,040)
Charlotte Hornets
- Brandon Miller (fourth year, $15,104,626)
- Tidjane Salaun (third year, $8,237,880)
Golden State Warriors
- Brandin Podziemski (fourth year, $5,679,458)
Houston Rockets
- Amen Thompson (fourth year, $12,258,609)
- Reed Sheppard (third year, $11,108,880)
Los Angeles Clippers
- Kobe Brown (fourth year, $4,792,058)
New York Knicks
- Pacome Dadiet (third year, $2,983,680)
Orlando Magic
- Anthony Black (fourth year, $10,106,315)
- Jett Howard (fourth year, $7,337,938)
- Tristan Da Silva (third year, $3,991,200)
Philadelphia 76ers
- Jared McCain (third year, $4,422,600)
Utah Jazz
Taylor Hendricks (fourth year, $7,805,900)- Keyonte George (fourth year, $6,563,925)
- Cody Williams (third year, $6,015,600)
- Brice Sensabaugh (fourth year, $4,862,237)
- Isaiah Collier (third year, $2,763,960)
Washington Wizards
- Alex Sarr (third year, $12,370,680)
- Bilal Coulibaly (fourth year, $9,240,012)
- Cam Whitmore (fourth year, $5,458,310)
- Bub Carrington (third year, $4,900,560)
- AJ Johnson (third year, $3,237,120)
- Kyshawn George (third year, $3,108,000)