Author: Luke Adams

As our two-way contract tracker shows, 70 of the 90 two-way slots available around the NBA are currently occupied, with 20 still open.

The NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement permits teams to carry three players on two-way deals instead of just two, increasing the league-wide total to a maximum of 90 instead of 60. In other words, that total of 70 active two-way players is a new record, and it only figures to continue rising as the regular season nears.

[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Two-Way Contract]

Here are a few details on this year’s two-way contracts and slots:

• A total of 64 two-way contracts have been signed during the 2023/24 league year. Two of those players who signed two-way deals – Knicks guards Trevor Keels and Duane Washington – were subsequently waived, but the other 62 are still under contract.
• A total of 13 two-way contracts carried over from last season, since they were for two years instead of one. Eight of those deals are still active. The other five? Nets forward RaiQuan Gray, Hornets forward Xavier Sneed, Lakers forward Cole Swider, and Wizards guard Quenton Jackson were waived, while Pelicans forward E.J. Liddell was converted to a standard deal, agreeing to a three-year contract with New Orleans.
• Three two-way qualifying offers remain on the table. Hawks guard Trent Forrest, Hornets guard Theo Maledon, and Timberwolves wing Matt Ryan still have the option of accepting those qualifying offers and returning to their respective teams on new two-way contracts. All three clubs have one two-way slot available, so no corresponding moves would be necessary to clear roster space.
• Of the 64 two-way contracts signed this year, seven have been for two years; the other 57 have been for just one year, putting those players on track for restricted free agency in 2024. The seven players who signed two-year deals are Hornets forward Leaky Black, Cavaliers guard Craig Porter Jr., Clippers forward Jordan Miller, Lakers forward Alex Fudge, Bucks guard Omari Moore, Timberwolves guard Jaylen Clark, and Knicks wing Jaylen Martin.
• The Warriors and the Pelicans are the only clubs with a pair of two-way openings. Every team is carrying at least one player on a two-way contract, and the other 28 besides Golden State and New Orleans are carrying at least two.
• In 2022, 14 players had their Exhibit 10 contracts converted to two-way contracts before opening night. If roughly the same number of Exhibit 10 conversions occur this fall, many of the 20 two-way slots that remain open may not be filled for a while. However, it’s worth noting that – since two-way deals feature such modest guarantees ($75K) and don’t count against the salary cap – teams typically don’t hesitate to shuffle players in and out of those slots. So there could still be plenty of turnover in the coming weeks beyond those 20 openings.

The most notable dates of the 2023 NBA offseason are behind us now that we’re well clear of the draft and the free agent period. However, there are still a number of dates and deadlines to keep an eye on in the coming weeks and months before teams take the court for the 2023/24 regular season.

Here’s the breakdown:

August 31

• Last day for teams to waive players and apply the stretch provision to their 2023/24 salaries.

September 5

• Last day for teams to issue required tenders to unsigned second-round picks; those players become free agents on September 6 if not tendered.

September 10

• 2023 FIBA World Cup ends.

October 2

• NBA media day. With teams and players reporting to training camp, many coaches and general managers will speak to reporters on this date for the first time in months.

October 3

• Training camps begin.
• Note: Teams playing exhibition games outside of North America are expected to hold their media days and open their training camps a few days earlier.

October 5

• Preseason begins.

October 20

• Preseason ends.

October 21

• Last day for players on fully non-guaranteed contracts to be waived and not count at all against a team’s 2023/24 cap. They must clear waivers before the first day of the regular season.

October 23

• Last day of the 2023 offseason.
• Roster limits decrease from 21 players to 18 (4:00 pm CT). Teams will be limited to carrying 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals as of this deadline.
• Last day for teams to sign a player to a rookie scale extension (5:00 pm CT).
  [RELATED: Players eligible for rookie scale extensions]
• Last day for teams to sign an extension-eligible veteran player with multiple seasons left on his contract (such as Donovan Mitchell) to an extension. An extension-eligible veteran player on an expiring deal (like Klay Thompson) can still be extended after October 23.
• Last day for teams to complete sign-and-trade deals.
• Last day for teams to convert an Exhibit 10 contract into a two-way contract.

October 24

• Regular season begins.
  [RELATED: 2023/24 schedules by team]

Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and NBA.com were used in the creation of this post.

Since we last checked in on the NBA’s longest-tenured players by team in August 2022, more than a third of the players on that list have either changed teams or – in the case of long-tenured Heat big man Udonis Haslem – retired.

Haslem, who made his Heat debut in 2003, was with the franchise for two decades. No players on the list below are close to reaching that benchmark yet, but Haslem’s retirement means that we have a new player atop our list of the longest-tenured players by team: Stephen Curry is about to enter his 15th season with the Warriors, having been drafted by the club in 2009. No active NBA player has been with his current team longer than that.

While Haslem is off the list because he has retired, most of the other long-tenured players who have been removed from our list changed teams via trade. Most notably, Bradley Beal – who had been with the Wizards since 2012 – and Marcus Smart – a Celtic since 2014 – were included in offseason deals.

In addition to the Wizards, Heat and Celtics, eight other teams have a new longest-tenured player since our last update. Those teams, with their former longest-tenured player listed in parentheses, are the Cavaliers (Kevin Love), Rockets (Eric Gordon), Nets (Joe Harris), Magic (Terrence Ross), Jazz (Donovan Mitchell), Hawks (John Collins), Grizzlies (Dillon Brooks), and Spurs (Jakob Poeltl).

Here are the NBA’s current longest-tenured players by team:

(Note: This is a snapshot as of August 2023 and won’t be updated throughout the season. This list features each team’s longest-tenured player, so only one player per team is listed.)

1. Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry (draft), June 2009
2. Portland Trail Blazers: Damian Lillard (draft), June 2012
3. Milwaukee Bucks: Giannis Antetokounmpo (draft), June 2013
4. Philadelphia 76ers: Joel Embiid (draft), June 2014
5. Denver Nuggets: Nikola Jokic (draft), June 2014
6. Dallas Mavericks: Dwight Powell (trade), December 2014
7. Minnesota Timberwolves: Karl-Anthony Towns (draft), June 2015
8. Indiana Pacers: Myles Turner (draft), June 2015
9. Phoenix Suns: Devin Booker (draft), June 2015
10. Boston Celtics: Jaylen Brown (draft), June 2016
11. Toronto Raptors: Pascal Siakam (draft), June 2016
12. Sacramento Kings: De’Aaron Fox (draft), June 2017
13. Orlando Magic: Jonathan Isaac (draft), June 2017
14. Miami Heat: Bam Adebayo (draft), June 2017
15. Chicago Bulls: Zach LaVine (draft trade), June 2017
16. Memphis Grizzlies: Jaren Jackson Jr. (draft), June 2018
17. Atlanta Hawks: Trae Young (draft trade), June 2018
18. Charlotte Hornets: Miles Bridges (draft trade), June 2018 (*)
    
19. New York Knicks: Mitchell Robinson (draft), June 2018
20. Los Angeles Lakers: LeBron James (free agent), July 2018
21. New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson (draft), June 2019
22. Cleveland Cavaliers: Darius Garland (draft), June 2019
23. Brooklyn Nets: Nic Claxton (draft), June 2019
24. Los Angeles Clippers: Ivica Zubac (trade), February 2019
25. San Antonio Spurs: Keldon Johnson (draft), June 2019
26. Oklahoma City Thunder: Luguentz Dort (free agent), July 2019
27. Utah Jazz: Jordan Clarkson (trade), December 2019
28. Detroit Pistons: Killian Hayes (draft), November 2020
29. Washington Wizards: Deni Avdija (draft), November 2020
30. Houston Rockets: Jae’Sean Tate (free agent), November 2020

* Note: Bridges was a free agent for the entire 2022/23 season, but the Hornets retained his RFA rights during that time and brought him back this offseason, extending his tenure with the team. If we don’t count Bridges, Charlotte’s’ longest-tenured players are Cody Martin and – if he re-signs – P.J. Washington, both of whom were selected in the 2019 draft.

Thursday, August 31 is the last day that an NBA team will be able to waive a player who has a guaranteed salary for 2023/24 and stretch that player’s ’23/24 salary across three seasons.

[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Stretch Provision]

A player who is waived between September 1 and the end of the 2023/24 season can still have his cap hit(s) for 2024/25 and future seasons stretched across multiple years, assuming he’s owed guaranteed money beyond this season. But his ’23/24 cap charge would remain unchanged in that scenario, unless he reaches a buyout agreement with his team.

The stretch provision allows teams to gain some short-term relief at the cost of reduced long-term flexibility. It’s used most frequently by teams in the luxury tax that want to either lower their tax bill (or duck out of tax territory entirely) or by teams that want to create a little extra cap room to accommodate a specific roster move.

Teams haven’t employed the stretch provision all that frequently in recent years. In fact, it hasn’t been used at all so far this offseason.

However, the Mavericks reportedly intend to utilize it when they waive center JaVale McGee, who is owed a $5,734,280 guaranteed salary for 2023/24 and holds a $6,007,341 player option for ’24/25.

Since the stretch provision allows a team to spread the player’s remaining salary across twice his remaining years, plus one additional year, Dallas would be able to stretch McGee’s $11,741,621 over five seasons. That would work out to annual dead-money cap hits of $2,348,324 through 2027/28.

There aren’t many other obvious candidates to have their 2023/24 salaries stretched, but the deadline is still worth keeping in mind for the possibilities it will take off the table. Any player on a guaranteed expiring contract who is waived after August 31 will have his remaining salary count entirely against his team’s ’23/24 books.