With the All-Star break behind us, we’re entering the home stretch of the 2025/26 NBA season. Here are a few noteworthy dates and deadlines to keep an eye on before the playoffs begin in April.
February 28
- Last day for contract renegotiations.
A team with cap room can renegotiate a player’s current-year salary to give him a raise as part of a contract extension. There are no legitimate candidates for a renegotiation at this point in the season though, with 29 teams operating over the cap and no Nets players renegotiation-eligible.
March 1
- Last day a player can be waived by one team and remain eligible to appear in the postseason for another team.
As we outline in our glossary entry on buyouts, a player doesn’t need to be signed by March 1 in order to retain his playoff-eligible — he simply can’t be waived after that date. A player who is waived on March 1 and signs with another team on April 8 would be playoff-eligible for his new team, but a player who is waived on March 2 and signs on March 5 wouldn’t be.
This rule doesn’t apply to players on 10-day contracts, since they don’t pass through waivers when their deals expire. A player whose 10-day contract expires on March 3, for instance, could still sign a rest-of-season contract in March or April and be playoff-eligible.
March 4
- Last day for a team to sign a player to a two-way contract.
Under the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, the deadline to sign a player to a two-way contract was January 15, but it has been pushed back in the current CBA and teams are taking full advantage. In each of the past two years, at least 14 two-way deals were officially finalized during the first four days of March.
Since the February 5 trade deadline, 17 players have signed new two-way contracts. That number figures to continue growing until the end of the day on March 4, with six two-way spots still open around the NBA right now and several teams who don’t currently have openings still likely to make two-way moves.
March 10
- Last day to use a disabled player exception.
The Mavericks have a pair of disabled player exceptions available, with six other teams – including the Pacers ($14.1MM) and Rockets ($12.5MM) – also still holding DPEs. Those exceptions could be used to sign a player to a rest-of-season contract or to claim a player with an expiring contract off waivers.
However, disabled player exceptions are used more frequently at the trade deadline than after it, and most of the teams with DPEs still available are unlikely to be aggressive in bidding for any current free agents. The likeliest scenario is that most or all of these exceptions expire without being used.
April 9
- Last day to waive a player on an expiring contract or a player with an option for 2026/27 (4:00 pm CT).
Players with at least one year still left on their contracts can be waived during the postseason or offseason, but if a team wants to part ways with a player who has the ability to reach free agency this summer, he must be cut in time to clear waivers before the last day of the regular season.
April 12
- Last day of the NBA regular season.
- Last day players can sign contracts for 2025/26.
- Last day two-way contracts can be converted to standard NBA contracts.
- Luxury tax penalties calculated based on payroll as of this day.
Several teams around the NBA have at least one open spot on their 15-man rosters. We can probably assume that most – if not all – of those clubs will fill their openings by April 12.
Playoff teams will want to make sure they have as much veteran depth as possible, just to be safe, while lottery teams will look at signing younger players to multiyear deals that include little to no guaranteed money beyond this season in order to get a longer look at them in the summer.
April 13
- Playoff rosters set (2:00pm CT).
April 14-17
- NBA play-in tournament.
April 18
- NBA playoffs begin.
While they wait for the play-in tournament to conclude, the top six teams in each conference will get a few days off between the regular season and the postseason, giving them some time to recharge before the playoffs begin.