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Players Eligible For Rookie Scale Extensions In 2026

By | at May 6, 2026 7:54 am

After the NBA’s 2026/27 league year begins this summer and the July moratorium ends, players eligible for free agency will be able to begin officially finalizing contract agreements with suitors. In addition to those free agents, another group of players will also become eligible to sign new deals.

For players who are entering the fourth and final year of their rookie scale contracts, the first day of the new league year (July 1) is the first day they can agree to rookie scale extensions. Those players, who were all 2023 first-round selections, will have until the day before the 2026/27 regular season starts to finalize long-term agreements with their current teams.

Players eligible for rookie scale extensions can sign new deals that run for up to five years, with those contracts taking effect beginning in 2027/28. If they don’t sign extensions during the coming offseason, those players will be eligible for restricted free agency in the summer of 2027.

Nine players who were eligible for rookie scale extensions during the 2025 offseason signed new deals, which represented a slight dip from recent years. From 2021-24, at least 11 players signed rookie scale extensions every year, including a record-setting 14 in 2023. Still, 2025 represented the seventh consecutive year in which there have been at least nine rookie scale recipients.

We should expect several more rookie scale extensions to be signed between July and October of this year.

Here are the players who will be eligible to sign rookie scale extensions during the 2026 offseason:

The following players were selected in the first round of the 2023 draft along with the players listed above. However, they aren’t eligible for rookie scale extensions this year for the reasons noted:

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