Hoops Rumors Originals News & Rumors

The NBA’s 2019 offseason is now in the books, with the regular season getting underway on Tuesday night. In case you didn’t keep up with this summer’s signings, Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players are on which teams this fall.

To this end, we present our Free Agent Tracker, a feature we’ve had each year since our inception in 2012. Using our tracker, you can quickly look up deals, sorting by team, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.

Now that the regular season is underway, our tracker will no longer be updated with the latest signings, since it’s meant to provide a snapshot of the offseason.

Our 2019 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar of our desktop site under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the site. On our mobile site, it can be found in our menu under “Free Agent Lists.” If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

The tracker includes every team’s non-guaranteed contract agreements for the offseason, so a number of the players listed have since been waived. When viewing the tracker, you can eliminate non-guaranteed deals by using the filter option to turn off “summer contracts,” though a small handful of players who signed summer contracts did eventually made regular season rosters.

Our list of current free agents identifies the players who have yet to reach contract agreements.

Note: If you’re viewing the tracker on our mobile site, be sure to turn your phone sideways to see more details.

The NBA’s annual deadline for rookie scale contract extensions passed on Monday, with a flurry of deals completed just before time ran out. In total, nine players eligible for rookie scale extensions signed new contracts, which represented a significant increase over the last two years and put 2019 more in line with some earlier extension periods.

From 2012 to 2016, for instance, a total of 38 players signed rookie scale extensions before the October deadline, an average of nearly eight per year. By comparison, only four players signed early deals in 2017 and five did so in 2018. This year was the first time since 2014 that as many as nine rookie scale extensions had been signed in a single year.

Here’s a breakdown of the nine rookie scale extensions signed before this year’s deadline, sorted by total value. In cases where we haven’t yet seen the official contract terms for the extension, we’re basing our figures on the latest reports. These deals will go into effect beginning in 2020/21:

• Ben Simmons (Sixers): Five years, 25% maximum salary (story). Projected value of $168.2MM. Starting salary can be worth up to 30% of the cap if Simmons earns All-NBA honors in 2020 (full details). Includes 15% trade kicker.
• Jamal Murray (Nuggets): Five years, 25% maximum salary (story). Projected value of $168.2MM. Starting salary can be worth up to 30% of the cap if Murray earns All-NBA honors in 2020 (full details).
• Pascal Siakam (Raptors): Four years, 25% maximum salary (story). Projected value of $129.92MM. Starting salary can be worth between 28-30% of the cap if Siakam earns All-NBA or MVP honors in 2020 (full details).
• Jaylen Brown (Celtics): Four years, $103MM (story). Includes $12MM in incentives.
• Buddy Hield (Kings): Four years, $86MM (story). Includes $20MM in incentives.
• Domantas Sabonis (Pacers): Four years, $74.9MM (story). Includes $10.4MM in incentives.
• Dejounte Murray (Spurs): Four years, $64MM (story). Includes $6MM in incentives.
• Caris LeVert (Nets): Three years, $52.5MM (story).
• Taurean Prince (Nets): Two years, $25.3MM (story). Includes $3.7MM in incentives.

There are a couple factors that could go a long way toward explaining the jump in rookie scale extensions in 2019.

One of those factors, as John Hollinger of The Athletic explains, is a weak 2020 free agent class. This seems counter-intuitive, since not signing a rookie scale extension now would have positioned some of the players listed above to be among the very best players in next year’s class. There’s just one problem with that plan though — hardly any teams will have the cap room available to bid on them.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks observed over the weekend (via Twitter), there are only four teams that currently project to have the cap room necessary to sign a restricted free agent to a big offer sheet next summer. Those four clubs are the Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Grizzlies, all of whom are expected to be among the league’s worst teams in 2019/20.

If a few players who signed extensions had waited for next summer, it’s possible they could have secured a more lucrative offer sheet from one of those teams. But there wouldn’t have been enough money to go around for all of them to land big paydays, especially if some of those rebuilding clubs use cap room to take on contracts in trades. Plus, even if those teams retained their cap room, there’s no guarantee they’d even appeal to 2020’s potential RFAs.

The second factor for the rookie scale extension rush is related to China. Multiple reporters, including Sam Amick of The Athletic (Twitter link), have pointed out that players and agents are a little concerned about how the NBA’s ongoing standoff with its Chinese partners will impact the salary cap in 2020 and beyond.

Before the NBA’s issues in China began, the league projected a $116MM cap for 2020/21. If that number dips before next June, it would further limit teams’ abilities to spend. Additionally, the difference between, say, Jaylen Brown‘s new $103MM+ extension with the Celtics and a maximum-salary offer sheet in free agency wouldn’t be in substantial as current projections suggest.

While nine players signed rookie scale extensions, that leaves 11 players who were eligible for a new deal and didn’t get one. Here’s the list of those players, who are now eligible to become restricted free agents during the 2020 offseason, assuming they finish their current contracts:

• Malik Beasley (Nuggets)
• DeAndre’ Bembry (Hawks)
• Kris Dunn (Bulls)
• Juan Hernangomez (Nuggets)
• Brandon Ingram (Pelicans)
• Damian Jones (Hawks)
• Skal Labissiere (Trail Blazers)
• Thon Maker (Pistons)
• Jakob Poeltl (Spurs)
• Dario Saric (Suns)
• Denzel Valentine (Bulls)

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Every week, the Hoops Rumors writing team creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our original segments and features from the past seven days:

• Our look back at teams’ roster moves this summer continued with the following installments in our Offseason in Review series:
  • Oklahoma City Thunder
  • Orlando Magic
  • San Antonio Spurs
  • Detroit Pistons
  • Sacramento Kings
• Our Over/Under polls continued this week with the Southwest, Southeast and Pacific divisions.
• Luke Adams checked on the status of all 60 players selected in this year’s draft.

Monday, October 21 is the last day of the 2019 NBA offseason and serves as the deadline for a number of roster- and contract-related decisions. Here are the deadlines that teams around the NBA are facing on Monday:

• Roster limits decrease from 20 players to 15, plus two two-way players (4:00pm CT)
• Last day for teams to sign a player to a rookie scale extension (5:00pm 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 to an extension. An extension-eligible veteran player on an expiring deal can still be extended after October 21.
• 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.
  [RELATED: 2019/20 Two-Way Contract Tracker]

While Monday is technically the roster cutdown deadline, most clubs will make their final moves today. That’s because players on non-guaranteed contracts must clear waivers before the first day of the regular season to avoid having their salaries begin to count against a team’s cap.

For instance, if the Timberwolves were to keep non-guaranteed vet Tyrone Wallace on their roster until Monday, then cut him, the team would be on the hook for a couple days’ worth of his salary, since he wouldn’t clear waivers until Wednesday. That’s not a huge chunk of money, but if clubs have already made their roster decisions, they’re more likely to just make their cuts today.

Teams who plan on releasing players with full or partial guarantees are more likely to wait until Sunday or Monday, since those salaries will count against their cap either way. The Raptors could be one team in this boat, since many of their players without fully guaranteed contracts have partial guarantees worth at least $50K. Those players will receive those guarantees whether they’re waived today or Monday.

Outside of roster cuts, it will be interesting to see how many more teams reach rookie scale extension agreements with their fourth-year players by Monday night at 5:00pm CT. Jamal Murray, Ben Simmons, and Caris LeVert have signed new deals already, but 17 players remain eligible. Pascal Siakam (Raptors), Jaylen Brown (Celtics), and Buddy Hield (Kings) are among the strongest candidates for rookie scale extensions in the coming days.

We’ll have updates on moves for all 30 NBA teams as they prepare their rosters for opening night, so be sure to check back often.