Author: Luke Adams

Players and teams have to meet certain criteria to earn Bird rights and Early Bird rights, but Non-Bird rights are practically a given.

They apply to a player who has spent a single season or less with his team, as long as he finishes the season on an NBA roster and is on a standard contract (rather than a hardship or 10-day deal). Even a player who signs a rest-of-season contract right before the regular season finale and spends just a single day with his club would have Non-Bird rights in the offseason.

Teams can also claim Non-Bird rights on Early Bird free agents if they renounce them. The primary motivator to do so would be to allow the team to sign the free agent to a one-year contract, a move that’s not permitted via Early Bird rights.

Teams are eligible to sign their own free agents using the Non-Bird exception for a salary starting at 120% of the player’s previous salary, 120% of the minimum salary, or the amount of a qualifying offer (if the player is a restricted free agent), whichever is greatest. Contracts can be for up to four years, with 5% annual raises.

The cap hold for a Non-Bird player is 120% of his previous salary, unless his previous salary was the minimum. In that case, the cap hold is equivalent to the two-year veteran’s minimum salary. If a Non-Bird free agent only has one year of NBA experience, his cap hold is equivalent to the one-year veteran’s minimum salary.

The salary limitations that apply to Non-Bird rights are more severe than those pertaining to Bird rights or Early Bird rights, so in many cases, the Non-Bird exception may not be enough to retain a well-regarded free agent. For instance, the Nuggets held Bruce Brown‘s Non-Bird rights last summer, but couldn’t have used them to match or exceed the offer the veteran wing received from the Pacers.

Because Brown had earned a relatively modest $6,479,000 salary in 2022/23, Denver’s ability to offer a raise using the Non-Bird exception was extremely limited — the Nuggets would have only been able to offer 120% of Brown’s previous salary using his Non-Bird rights, which worked out to $7,774,800. Indiana used its cap room to give Brown a $22MM starting salary, easily topping Denver’s maximum offer.

The Bucks may end up in a similar situation this offseason with Malik Beasley, who will only have Non-Bird rights after playing out a one-year, minimum-salary contract. Milwaukee almost certainly won’t have cap room, and the mid-level exception won’t be an option either as long as the team’s salary remains above the second tax apron. If they want to re-sign Beasley, the Bucks may have to hope he’ll accept an offer in the $3.6MM range via the Non-Bird exception.

Holding Non-Bird rights on a free agent didn’t help the Nuggets with Brown and may not be enough for the Bucks with Beasley, but there are cases in which the exception proves useful.

The Clippers, for instance, only had Non-Bird rights on Russell Westbrook last offseason, but that gave them the ability to offer a starting salary worth 20% more than the veteran’s minimum that another team might have offered. Since Westbrook wanted to remain in Los Angeles, the Non-Bird exception – which allowed for a starting salary of $3,835,738 – was enough to re-sign him. His minimum salary would have been $3,196,448.

After being traded from the Pacers to the Raptors earlier this season, Brown will have Non-Bird rights again this summer if Toronto opts to turn down his $23MM team option for 2024/25. However, in that scenario, the Raptors would have significantly more flexibility than Denver did to offer Brown a new contract, since he’ll be coming off a much higher salary this time around. Toronto could offer Brown a starting salary of up to $26.4MM (120% of $22MM) using the Non-Bird exception.

Finally, it’s worth noting that a player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year deal (or a two-year deal that includes a second-year option) and will have Early Bird or Bird rights at the end of that contract would surrender those rights if he consents to a trade. In that scenario, he’d only finish the season with Non-Bird rights.

No players in this position consented to a trade this year, but it was a factor in Miles Bridges‘ decision to tell the Hornets he wouldn’t approve a deal.

If Charlotte had traded him to a new team, Bridges would have only had Non-Bird rights, meaning his new team wouldn’t have been able to offer him a starting salary higher than $9,505,560 (120% of his $7,921,300 salary for 2023/24) without using cap room or another exception. By remaining with the Hornets, Bridges hung onto his Bird rights, giving him more pathways to a significant payday, either by re-signing in Charlotte or via a sign-and-trade.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

Bird rights offer teams the chance to sign their own free agents without regard to the salary cap, but they don’t apply to every player. Other salary cap exceptions are available for teams to keep players who don’t qualify for Bird rights. One such exception is the Early Bird, which applies to players formally known as Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agents.

While the Bird exception is for players who have spent three seasons with one club without changing teams as a free agent, Early Bird rights are earned after just two such seasons. Virtually all of the same rules that apply to Bird rights apply to Early Bird rights, with the requirements condensed to two years rather than three.

Players still see their Bird clocks restart by changing teams via free agency, being claimed in an expansion draft, or having their rights renounced. A player who is traded can also have his Bird clock reset if he approves a move after having re-signed with his previous team on a one-year contract (or a one-year contract with a second-year option) earlier in the league year.

As is the case with Bird rights, a player’s clock stops when he’s released by a team and clears waivers, but it would pick up where it left off if he re-signs with that same team down the road without joining another club in the interim. For instance, James Johnson will have Early Bird rights this offseason because – even though he was waived in January – he’s on track to finish a second consecutive season with the Pacers and didn’t join another team between his stints in Indiana.

The crucial difference between Bird rights and Early Bird rights involves the limitations on contract offers. Bird players can receive maximum-salary deals for up to five years, while the most a team can offer an Early Bird free agent without using cap space is 175% of his previous salary (up to the max) or 105% of the league-average salary in the previous season, whichever is greater.

These offers are also capped at four years rather than five, and the new contracts must run for at least two years — the second season can be non-guaranteed, but can’t be a team or player option. Raises are maxed out at 8% per season.

Besides Johnson, some of the more notable free agents who will have Early Bird rights during the 2024 offseason include Malik Monk (Kings), Isaiah Hartenstein (Knicks), Kyle Anderson (Timberwolves), and Andre Drummond (Bulls).

In some instances, teams can benefit from having Early Bird rights instead of full Bird rights if they’re trying to preserve cap space. The cap hold for an Early Bird player is 130% of his previous salary, significantly less than most Bird players, whose cap holds range from 150-300% of their previous salaries.

However, having a player’s Early Bird rights instead of his full Bird rights puts a team at a disadvantage in other cases. For example, when Christian Wood reached free agency in 2020, his Early Bird rights only allowed the Pistons to offer a starting salary of up to about $10.05MM, a figure the Rockets topped in their three-year, $41MM offer.

In order to match or exceed that number, Detroit would have had to use cap room — having Wood’s full Bird rights would’ve allowed the Pistons to make a far more substantial offer without requiring cap space.

Meanwhile, some players with limited NBA experience are subject to a special wrinkle involving Early Bird rights, called the Gilbert Arenas Provision, which applies to players who have only been in the league for one or two years. We cover the Arenas Provision in a separate glossary entry, so you can read up on the details there.

Essentially, the Arenas Provision protects teams from a situation like the ones the Pistons found themselves in with Wood, allowing them to match offer sheets on their restricted free agents without necessarily using Bird rights or cap room to do so. Last offseason, Lakers guard Austin Reaves and Pelicans forward Herbert Jones were both Arenas free agents. The provision would apply this coming offseason to a player like Pistons wing Simone Fontecchio.

Finally, one more distinction between Bird rights and Early Bird rights applies to waivers. Players who are claimed off waivers retain their Early Bird rights, just as they would if they were traded. Those who had Bird rights instead see those reduced to Early Bird rights if they’re claimed off waivers.

This rule stems from a 2012 settlement between the league and the union in which J.J. Hickson was given a special exception and retained his full Bird rights for the summer of 2012 even though he had been claimed off waivers that March.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.