Hoops Rumors Originals

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 Bucks held Malik Beasley‘s Non-Bird rights last summer, but couldn’t have used them to match or exceed the offer the veteran wing received from the Pistons.

Because Beasley was on a minimum-salary contract in 2023/24, Milwaukee’s ability to offer a raise using the Non-Bird exception was extremely limited — the Bucks would have only been able to offer 120% of Beasley’s minimum salary using his Non-Bird rights, which worked out to $3,586,260. Detroit used its cap room to give Beasley a one-year, $6MM contract, easily topping Milwaukee’s maximum offer.

The Sixers may end up in a similar situation this offseason with Guerschon Yabusele, who will only have Non-Bird rights after playing out a one-year, minimum-salary contract. Philadelphia will only be able to offer him up to 120% of his 2025/26 minimum salary using the Non-Bird exception. That would work out to a projected $2.85MM.

Given how well Yabusele has performed this season, that likely won’t be enough to retain them, meaning the cap-strapped Sixers could have trouble making a competitive offer for the big man unless they can free up some mid-level exception money.

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

The Celtics, for instance, only had Non-Bird rights on Neemias Queta last offseason, but that gave them the ability to offer him a three-year contract, exceeding the one- or two-year minimum-salary offer they could have made if he were an outside free agent. Non-Bird rights also came in handy for a series of players involved in sign-and-trades, including Cody Zeller (Pelicans to Hawks), Charlie Brown Jr. (Knicks to Hornets), and Shake Milton (Knicks to Nets).

The higher a player’s previous salary is, the less restrictive his Non-Bird rights are. For example, after signing with the Spurs last summer, Chris Paul will only have Non-Bird rights this summer, but San Antonio would have significantly more flexibility than Denver will with Westbrook, since Paul is earning a $10.46MM base salary this season. The Spurs could offer Paul a starting salary of up to $12.55MM (120% of $10.46MM) 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 that position this year consented to a 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, if the Lakers were to re-sign Christian Wood this week, he would have Early Bird rights this offseason because – even though he was waived in February – he would be on track to finish a second consecutive season with Los Angeles and didn’t join another team in the interim.

Conversely, Lamar Stevens is an example of a player who won’t have Early Bird rights this offseason even though he’s finishing a second consecutive season with the Grizzlies. Stevens signed a contract with the Pistons between his stints in Memphis, resetting his Bird clock.

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, whereas 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.

Ty Jerome (Cavaliers) and Bruce Brown (Pelicans) are among the notable free agents who will have Early Bird rights during the 2025 offseason. Fred VanVleet (team option; Rockets) and Kelly Oubre (player option; Sixers) would join that group if their options are declined.

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 Isaiah Hartenstein reached free agency in 2024, his Early Bird rights limited the Knicks to a maximum four-year offer of $64.2MM ($72.5MM after incentives), a figure the Thunder had no problem topping when they signed Hartenstein to a three-year, $87MM deal.

In order to match or exceed Oklahoma City’s offer, New York would have had to use cap room, which the team didn’t have available — having Hartenstein’s full Bird rights would’ve allowed the Knicks to give him a far more substantial contract 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 Knicks found themselves in with Hartenstein, allowing them to match offer sheets on their restricted free agents without necessarily using Bird rights or cap room to do so.

During the 2023 offseason, Lakers guard Austin Reaves and Pelicans forward Herbert Jones were both Arenas free agents. Another Laker, Max Christie, and Pistons forward Simone Fontecchio were among the RFAs who fit the bill a year ago. There are no notable restricted free agents in 2025 on track to be subject to the Arenas provision, though there might be a small handful who fall into that category if they receive qualifying offers after having team options declined.

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 full 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.

The Bird exception, named after Larry Bird, is a rule included in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that allows teams to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own players. A player who qualifies for the Bird exception, formally referred to as a Qualifying Veteran Free Agent, is said to have “Bird rights.”

The most basic way for a player to earn Bird rights is to play for the same team for at least three seasons, either on a long-term deal or on separate one- or two-year contracts. Still, there are other criteria. A player retains his Bird rights in the following scenarios:

1. He changes teams via trade.

For instance, the Hawks will hold Caris LeVert‘s Bird rights when he reaches free agency this offseason, despite just acquiring him in February. His Bird clock didn’t reset when he was traded from Cleveland to Atlanta.

2. He finishes a third season with a team after having only signed for a partial season with the club in the first year.

The Cavaliers signed Sam Merrill during the second half of the 2022/23 season, adding him to their roster in March 2023. When his contract expires this offseason, Merrill will have Bird rights despite not spending three full seasons with Cleveland, because that partial season in ’22/23 started his Bird clock.

3. He signs a full-season contract (ie. not a 10-day deal), his team waives him, and he cleared waivers. He subsequently re-signs with the club (without joining another team in the interim) and ultimately remains under contract through a third season.

This one’s a little confusing, but let’s use former Lakers big man Christian Wood as an example. After spending the 2023/24 season with Los Angeles and opening the ’24/25 season on the roster, Wood was waived by the team in February.

If the Lakers were to re-sign Wood in July without him joining a new team in the interim, his Bird clock would pick up where it left off. He’d have full Bird rights in the summer of 2026, since he would’ve spent part or all of each of the previous three seasons with the Lakers without changing teams in between.

Although the Lakers could restart Wood’s Bird clock by re-signing him, they wouldn’t be able to use any form of Bird rights to add him to their roster this offseason — they would have to use cap room or another exception to do so. His Bird clock would only resume once he’s back under contract.

This rule also applies to players who are waived after they already have Bird rights. For example, let’s say the Heat were to waive Duncan Robinson this offseason before his $19.9MM salary for 2025/6 becomes guaranteed.

Miami, which doesn’t project to have cap room this summer, would have no means to re-sign Robinson except via the minimum salary exception or perhaps the mid-level exception, since waiving him would mean losing his Bird rights. But if they did find a way to re-add him on a one-year contract after waiving him, the Heat would regain Robinson’s full Bird rights in 2026.

A player sees the clock on his Bird rights reset to zero in the following scenarios:

1. He changes teams via free agency.
2. He is waived and is not claimed on waivers (except as in scenario No. 3 above).
3. His rights are renounced by his team. However, as in scenario No. 3 above, a player’s Bird clock picks up where it left off if he re-signs with the club that renounced them without having signed with another NBA team. For example, Kelly Oubre had Non-Bird rights last offseason, then had those rights renounced by the Sixers as they freed up extra cap room. Since Oubre eventually signed a new deal with Philadelphia, his Bird clock picked up where it left off — if he picks up his 2025/26 player option, he would have full Bird rights during the 2026 offseason.
4. He is selected in an expansion draft.

Players on two-way contracts accumulate Bird rights in the same way that players on standard contracts do. Jazz center Micah Potter has been under contract with Orlando on two-way deals in each of the past three seasons, so if he remains on his current two-way deal through the end of 2024/25, he’ll have full Bird rights this summer.

If a player who would have been in line for Bird rights at the end of the season is waived and claimed off waivers, he would retain only Early Bird rights.

It’s also worth noting that there’s one specific scenario in which a player with Bird rights can lose them in a trade. A player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year contract (or a one-year deal with a second-year option) would have his Bird clock reset if he’s traded later that season. As such, he receives the ability to veto trades so he can avoid that scenario.

[RELATED: Players who had the ability to veto trades in 2024/25]

The Bird exception was designed to allow teams to keep their best players, even when those teams don’t have the cap room necessary to do so.

When a player earns Bird rights, he’s eligible to re-sign with his team for up to five years and for any price up to his maximum salary (with 8% annual raises) when he becomes a free agent, no matter how much cap space the team has — or doesn’t have.

The maximum salary varies from player to player depending on how long he has been in the league, but regardless of the precise amount, a team can exceed the salary cap to re-sign a player with Bird rights.

A team with a Bird free agent is assigned a “free agent amount” – also called a cap hold – worth either 190% of his previous salary (for a player with a salary below the league average) or 150% of his previous salary (for an above-average salary), up to the maximum salary amount.

For players coming off rookie scale contracts, the amounts of those cap holds are 300% and 250%, respectively. The Bulls, for instance, will have a cap hold worth $25,057,101 for Josh Giddey on their books this offseason — 300% of his $8,352,367 salary for 2024/25.

Chicago could renounce Giddey and generate an extra $25MM+ in cap flexibility, but doing so would cost the Bulls the ability to re-sign him using Bird rights, which would force them to use either cap room or a different cap exception to re-sign him. As such, we can probably count on Chicago keeping Giddey’s cap hold on the books until his free agency is resolved.

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.