2025/26 NBA Waiver Claims
As of the 2024/25 league year, the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, room exception, and bi-annual exception can all be used to acquire players via waiver claims, giving teams new ways to land other clubs’ roster casualties whose salaries don’t exceed the MLE (approximately $14.1MM in ’25/26)
[RELATED: Values Of 2025/26 Mid-Level, Bi-Annual Exceptions]
In the past, in order to claim a player off waivers, a team generally had to be able to fit the player’s entire salary into cap room, a traded player exception, or a disabled player exception.
Despite the new options available to teams eyeing a player who has recently been cut, waiver claims will likely continue to be infrequent going forward. Once the draft and the early part of the free agent period have passed, many teams around the NBA aren’t in position to take on additional salary or don’t have excess roster spots available for newcomers. Plus, most of the players who end up on waivers are being cut because their current contracts aren’t considered great values.
With all that in mind, it’s perhaps no surprise that the players most frequently claimed on waivers are those on minimum-salary deals, since any club is eligible to place a claim on those players using the minimum salary exception.
Even for minimum-salary claims, there are some caveats — the minimum salary exception can only be used to sign players for up to two years, so the same rules apply to waiver claims. If a player signed a three-year, minimum salary contract, he can’t be claimed using the minimum salary exception, even if he’s in the final year of his deal. And if a player received more than the minimum salary in an earlier season, he can’t be claimed using the minimum salary exception.
Essentially, the minimum salary exception can only be used to claim a player whose current contract could have been signed using the minimum salary exception.
Taking into account all the factors that reduce the odds of a waiver claim, it makes sense that nearly all of the players who get released ultimately clear waivers. The 2021/22 and ’22/23 league years each featured just six waiver claims each, for instance, while there were only three in ’23/24. Last season’s seven waiver claims were the most in a single league year since 2019/20.
Despite how infrequent they are, we still want to track all the waiver claims that take place during the 2025/26 league year, since you never know which claim may end up being crucial. Last season, for example, the Pelicans claimed Brandon Boston Jr. off waivers from San Antonio in October and he became a regular – and reasonably effective – rotation player for the banged-up team.
We’ll track this year’s waiver claims in the space below, updating the list throughout the season to include the latest moves. Here’s the current list:
- Suns claim Jordan Goodwin from Lakers (July 23) (story)
- Goodwin was a valuable role player for the Lakers during the second half of the 2024/25 season, but when Los Angeles needed to create room below its first-apron hard cap to sign Marcus Smart, he was the odd man out due to the fact that his minimum-salary contract ($2.35MM) was only partially guaranteed for $25K. As it turns out, the Lakers won’t even be on the hook for that $25K after the Suns took on Goodwin’s contract via waivers. The veteran guard is expected to compete for a spot on Phoenix’s roster with Jared Butler, who is also coming to camp on a non-guaranteed deal.
- Pistons claim Isaac Jones from Kings (November 6) (story)
- In search of reliable veteran frontcourt depth to help make up for an early-season Keegan Murray injury, the Kings waived second-year forward Isaac Jones in order to sign Precious Achiuwa. Jones, who gave Sacramento pretty solid minutes in a limited role as a rookie in 2024/25, didn’t make it through waivers. The Pistons, who had an open spot on their 15-man roster, placed a claim and made him their 15th man, at least for now — Jones’ minimum salary is non-guaranteed until January 7, so Detroit has a couple months to decide whether or not he’s a keeper.
Atlantic Notes: Simons, Queta, Nets, Sixers
The Celtics are still “very much willing” to discuss Anfernee Simons trade scenarios, one general manager tells Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com. However, another veteran personnel executive suggested that Boston might be better off hanging onto Simons through the start of the regular season.
“Other than Jaylen Brown, there’s not a better scorer than Simons on that roster,” the exec told Bulpett. “I mean, they obviously aren’t going to play the same way they played when they had (Kristaps) Porzingis and (Al) Horford and (Jrue) Holiday. (Head coach) Joe Mazzulla‘s going to have to completely change the style of play.
“Simons… nobody can score like him on that team other than Brown. He’s the second-best scorer, and it’s not even close. … I bet you he’s their leading scorer. Even with Jaylen. He’s going to have the ball a lot, and that dude can really score. That offense is going to have to change to accommodate him, and, on the last year of his contract, he’s going to let it fly.”
Simons is on an expiring $27.7MM contract and likely won’t factor into the Celtics’ plans beyond 2025/26. Having already ducked below the second tax apron, Boston reportedly has interest in shedding additional salary to perhaps move below the first apron or get out of tax territory altogether. But the club may have to exercise some patience to find the sort of deal it wants, another front office source told Bulpett.
“Anfernee Simons makes $27-plus million,” he said. “Who’s got room to put that in their cap? And he’s up after this year, so the Celtics aren’t going to want to take back anything that would load in more salary of less flexibility. I think, unless they are presented with some sweetheart situation, the most likely time for Simons to get moved — again, if he even does — would be at the trade deadline.
“I could see Boston being out of it and another team thinking they need a scorer like Simons to put them over the top. I could see another team that’s close wanting to add that kind of firepower down the stretch and into the playoffs. Even if it’s a rental, a team might go for him, because what we’re seeing now with the second apron and all that, if you win, it’s hard to keep a team with high-priced guys together. An expiring deal is so valuable.”
We have more notes from around the Atlantic:
- Celtics big man Neemias Queta came up big in Portugal’s first game of EuroBasket, piling up 23 points and 18 rebounds en route to a 62-50 victory over Czechia, as Semih Tuna of Eurohoops details. Queta, who may get a chance to compete for a starting role in Boston this fall, has a tougher matchup ahead of him on Friday when the Portuguese team takes on Nikola Jokic and the Serbians.
- C.J. Holmes of The New York Daily News (subscription required) considers the ways in which the Nets might use their remaining cap room, suggesting a deal with the Mavericks – who are looking to move off some salary to make room to sign Dante Exum – could be a logical fit for Brooklyn.
- The Delaware Blue Coats, the Sixers‘ G League affiliate, completed a three-team trade with the South Bay Lakers and Birmingham Squadron (Pelicans) that saw them acquire the returning rights to Malcolm Hill and South Bay’s 2026 first-round pick, the team announced (Twitter link). One of the outgoing pieces in the deal was the rights to Jared Brownridge, the former Santa Clara shooting guard who has played for Delaware since going undrafted in 2017. He ranks third all-time with 663 three-pointers made in G League regular season games.
Five Teams Without The Ability To Sign A 15th Man
While exceptions are permitted for up to two weeks at a time and up to 28 total days in a given season, an NBA team is generally required to carry at least 14 players on standard contracts.
The maximum standard roster size is 15 players, and many clubs will carry a full 15-man squad into the regular season -- the Thunder, Grizzlies, Trail Blazers, Hornets, Jazz, and Wizards all already have at least 15 players on guaranteed contracts, for example.
But a number of teams will leave their 15th roster spot open at the start of the season to maximize their roster and financial flexibility. And a handful of clubs are expected to leave that 15th spot unfilled because they literally don't have the ability to fill it -- currently, five teams are operating so closer to their respective hard caps that they're unable to legally sign a 15th man to their rosters.
We're taking a closer look at those five clubs in the space below, exploring how much wiggle room they have below their hard caps, how they got to this point, and when they'll be able to add a 15th player if their cap situations remain unchanged.
Jose Alvarado Exits AmeriCup Game On Stretcher
Competing for Puerto Rico on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the 2025 AmeriCup, Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado took a hard fall to the court in overtime and had to be taken off the court on a stretcher (Twitter video links).
As Rod Walker of NOLA.com writes, Alvarado lost his balance while battling for a rebound and appeared to land on his tailbone when he hit the floor. He stayed on the court for a few minutes after the play in obvious pain before being carted off on a stretcher.
Prior to his injury, Alvarado was helping to keep the Puerto Rican team in Thursday’s quarterfinal, pouring in 25 points in 36 minutes of action and making 7-of-15 three-pointers. Puerto Rico ultimately fell short in overtime, losing 82-77 to Argentina, who will face Canada in a semifinal on Saturday.
“Appreciate the love, y’all. But your boy good,” Alvarado wrote in his Instagram story after the game (hat tip to Walker). “God got me.”
While there has been no official update yet on his status, Alvarado projected confidence in that social media post that he avoided a serious injury, which would be a relief for the Pelicans. The team is coming off a season that was essentially a write-off due to a series of health issues affecting key players, with Dejounte Murray (Achilles), Trey Murphy III (shoulder), and Herbert Jones (shoulder) among those recovering this summer from various surgeries.
Alvarado was one of the Pelicans regulars afflicted by the injury bug in 2024/25, having missed over a month-and-a-half from mid-November to early January due to a hamstring strain. However, he was healthy and available for most of the rest of the season, appearing in 56 games and posting 10.3 points, 4.6 assists, 2.4 rebounds, and 1.3 steals in 24.4 minutes per night. All of those averages were career highs.
Alvarado is entering the first season of the two-year, $9MM extension he signed last September. He’ll make $4.5MM in 2025/26 before making a decision on a $4.5MM player option next June.
Western Notes: Connelly, Washington, Jerome, Beal
Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly had the ability to opt out of his contract with the team this offseason but chose not to do so, as Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic tweets.
When Connelly was hired by the Wolves in 2022, he received a five-year deal that included an opt-out clause after the second season. He and the team agreed in 2024 to push that opt-out back by a year with the ownership situation still up in the air, but now that Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have assumed majority control, Connelly decided not to take advantage of the clause this summer.
Since he’s still on his initial five-year deal, Connelly is under contract with the Wolves for two more seasons, Krawczynski notes. Assuming Lore and Rodriguez are satisfied with the job he has done, the veteran executive figures to be an extension candidate in 2026.
Here’s more from around the Western Conference:
- With P.J. Washington set to become extension-eligible on Friday, Mike Curtis of The Dallas Morning News weighs the pros and cons of a new deal for Washington from the Mavericks‘ perspective. Like NBA insider Marc Stein, Curtis has heard that an extension for Washington is likely, though he cautions that the exact terms of the deal remain unclear. Washington would be eligible to receive up to nearly $89MM over four years.
- The Grizzlies need elite shooting, two-way play-making, and swagger from newcomer Ty Jerome, according to Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal, who takes a closer look at the veteran guard to whom the team devoted its full room exception.
- Appearing on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue pointed out that Bradley Beal put up “unbelievable stats” for the Suns over the past two seasons but was “overshadowed” as the third option behind stars Kevin Durant and Devin Booker (hat tip to Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic). “I think by coming here, I think it’s a fresh start and I think he’s going to be great for us,” Lue said of Beal, who signed with the Clippers after being bought out by Phoenix.
And-Ones: Fall, F. Jackson, Z. Simpson, ESPN
The Ningbo Rockets of the Chinese Basketball Association have added a trio of former NBA players for the 2025/26 season, according to Alberto De Roa of HoopsHype. Center Tacko Fall and guards Frank Jackson and Zavier Simpson have reportedly joined the CBA team.
Fall, a 7’6″ big man who appeared in 37 NBA games for the Celtics and Cavaliers from 2019-22, is no stranger to China’s basketball league, having spent time with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers and Nanjing Monkey Kings since he last played in the NBA. He also had a stint with the New Zealand Breakers last season.
Jackson has also played in the CBA with the Shanxi Loongs and Jiangsu Dragons, while Simpson will be playing in the country for the first time after spending last season in Romania. Jackson, a 2017 second-round pick, has appeared in 214 NBA regular season games, but has been out of the league since March 2023. Simpson made seven appearances for the Grizzlies on a pair of 10-day contracts near the end of the 2023/24 season after playing four times for Oklahoma City in ’21/22.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- ESPN is making a change to its top broadcasting team for the 2025/26 NBA season and 2026 NBA Finals, according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, who reports that Tim Legler will replace Doris Burke alongside Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson. However, Burke has signed a multiyear extension with ESPN and will be on ESPN’s No. 2 NBA broadcast team with play-by-play man Dave Pasch.
- An ESPN panel of NBA experts is forecasting the Cavaliers to win an Eastern Conference-high 59 games in 2025/26, with the Knicks (54-28), Magic (50-32), Hawks (47-35), and Pistons (47-35) rounding out the top five. ESPN’s projections have the Bucks, Celtics, Sixers, Heat, and Pacers battling for the final playoff spot and play-in seeding. Over in the West, ESPN’s forecast calls for the Thunder (64 wins) to repeat as the conference’s No. 1 seed, followed by the Rockets (54-28), Nuggets (53-29), Timberwolves (51-31), Clippers (50-32), and Lakers (50-32).
- Unsurprisingly, in a separate story predicting next season’s conference and NBA champions, ESPN’s panel picks the Cavaliers and Thunder as the favorites to meet in the NBA Finals, with Oklahoma City repeating as champions. For what it’s worth, the Nuggets received the second-most votes as potential champs, followed by Cleveland, the Rockets, and the Knicks.
Four 2025 NBA Draft Picks Remain Unsigned
As our tracker shows, 55 of the 59 players selected in June’s 2025 draft have either signed their first NBA contracts or are confirmed to be playing overseas for the upcoming season. John Tonje (Jazz) and Amari Williams (Celtics) recently became the latest 2025 draftees to sign with their respective teams, having finalized two-way deals.
That leaves four players – all second-round picks – who remain unsigned. Those players are as follows:
- Mohamed Diawara (Knicks)
- Alex Toohey (Warriors)
- Will Richard (Warriors)
- Jahmai Mashack (Grizzlies)
NBA insider Jake Fischer provided an update on Richard today, writing that the former Florida wing is expected to sign with Golden State once Jonathan Kuminga‘s restricted free agency is resolved. Fischer didn’t say whether Richard would be signing a standard contract or a two-way deal, but his wording suggested the former Florida guard is a candidate for a 15-man roster spot.
Signing Richard to a contract that begins at the rookie minimum could help the Warriors manage their cap/tax/apron situation, since he’d only count for about $1.27MM (compared to roughly $2.3MM for a veteran minimum deal).
Fischer didn’t mention Toohey, who was selected four picks ahead of Richard. That doesn’t necessarily mean Toohey isn’t a candidate for a 15-man roster spot — in certain hard-cap scenarios, it could make sense for the Warriors to carry two rookie-minimum players. But it might be a signal that Richard is the better bet for a standard deal, while Toohey could end up on a two-way contract or as a draft-and-stash prospect.
Diawara is in a similar boat to Richard and Toohey, seemingly stuck in limbo while the Knicks mull their options with their remaining roster spots. It looks like the Knicks will have to carry at least one draft-rights player on a rookie minimum contract in order to navigate their own hard cap, and Diawara is one of two leading candidates to fill that spot — 2023 second-rounder James Nnaji is the other.
If Nnaji signs a standard contract or if the Knicks find a way to create enough cap flexibility to fill out their roster with veteran minimum signings, Diawara is probably ticketed for a two-way deal. As a European-born player who was playing overseas prior to be drafted, the 20-year-old forward would typically be a strong draft-and-stash candidate, but his French team, Cholet Basket, announced last month that Diawara was headed to the NBA.
That leaves Mashack, whose next step remains unclear. It’s not uncommon for one or two players selected near the end of an NBA draft to end up as domestic draft-and-stash prospects, signing directly with their teams’ G League affiliates. But Mashack probably deserves better than that after a strong five-game Summer League showing in which he filled up the box score by averaging 9.0 points, 4.4 assists, 4.0 rebounds, 2.0 steals, and 1.2 blocks in 23.7 minutes per contest while making 41.7% of his three-point attempts.
The Grizzlies have a two-way contract slot open alongside PJ Hall and Javon Small, so signing Mashack to fill that opening would make the most sense to me — if that’s the plan, I’m not sure why it hasn’t happened yet.
Heat Notes: Jovic, Larsson, Fontecchio, Dragic
Heat forward Nikola Jovic got off to an excellent start at the EuroBasket tournament in Latvia on Wednesday, as Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel writes. Jovic was Serbia’s leading scorer – with 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting – and was an eye-popping plus-36 in just 16 minutes of action in a blowout victory over Estonia.
As impressive as Jovic was a scorer and shooter (3-of-4 on three-pointers), his passing was perhaps even more noteworthy — he racked up six assists while committing just one turnover. The 22-year-old has averaged 2.2 assists per game in 107 regular season outings through three NBA seasons.
A pair of Jovic’s Heat teammates who are also competing at EuroBasket weren’t as productive in their respective 2025 debuts. Pelle Larsson battled foul trouble and scored just 10 points while missing all four of his three-point tries in Sweden’s loss to Finland on Wednesday. On Thursday, Simone Fontecchio made just 1-of-11 shots from the field and was a minus-11 across 34 minutes in Italy’s nine-point loss to Greece.
We have more on the Heat:
- In a mailbag for The Sun Sentinel, Winderman explores the Heat’s expectations and projected roles for Jovic and Larsson in 2025/26, suggesting that Jovic will likely be a top frontcourt reserve while Larsson would be doing well to show he can be a “quality ninth man.”
- Although former Heat point guard Goran Dragic may one day take on a more formal role with the club, there’s no indication that he’s joining Erik Spoelstra‘s coaching staff at this point, despite social media posts that showed him in attendance at practice, Winderman writes for The Sun Sentinel. For now, it appears Dragic is just informally “looking to pass on knowledge to the next generation,” including rookie point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, Winderman explains.
- With the deadline for teams to use the stretch provision on 2025/26 salaries now less than 24 hours away, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald hears from a league source that the Heat are “leaning against” stretching anyone’s salary on Thursday or Friday. A waive-and-stretch move likely would’ve received more serious consideration if Miami hadn’t moved under the luxury tax line by trading Haywood Highsmith to Brooklyn earlier this month.
Veteran Nuggets Executive Martynas Pocius Joining Real Madrid
Veteran Nuggets executive Martynas Pocius is leaving the NBA to become a deputy general manager for Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid, reports Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com.
Pocius has spent the past eight years working in Denver’s front office, most recently holding the title of assistant director of pro personnel, Urbonas writes. The 39-year-old has also served as a Nuggets scout both in the NBA and around the globe.
Pocius played college basketball for — and graduated from — Duke and competed in the EuroLeague for several years prior to retiring in 2017, as Kendra Andrews wrote for The Athletic in 2020. Pocius, who was a guard, played for Zalgiris Kaunas in his native Lithuania as well as Real Madrid and Galatasaray (Turkey).
“Since I played at Duke, I had seven surgeries,” Pocius told Andrews. “It took a toll on my body and I was in this cycle of getting injured, having surgery, trying rehab, all to come back and then have it happen all over again … I was reaching a point where I wasn’t enjoying basketball as much as I used to. I was a gym rat and I loved the gym, and it wasn’t fun being there anymore.”
Pocius also won a pair of medals — a bronze at the 2010 World Cup and a silver at EuroBasket 2013 — with the Lithuanian national team, Urbonas notes.
Pocius will be working alongside former Real Madrid backcourt mate Sergio Rodriguez in running the team’s front office. Rodriguez, a former NBA first-round pick, retired as a player last year.
It’s worth noting that Pocius got his start with the Nuggets due to his connection to childhood friend Tommy Balcetis. According to Andrews, while they were both attending Balcetis’ wedding, former head of basketball operations Tim Connelly offered Pocius a job if he decided to retire, something he wound up doing a year later.
The Nuggets decided not to retain Balcetis in June after the team’s former assistant GM had spent 12 years with the organization.
Thunder Make Changes To Coaching Staff
Thunder assistant coach Daniel Dixon has been named head coach of the Oklahoma City Blue, the G League team announced today (Twitter link via Clemente Almanza of Thunder Wire).
As Almanza writes in a full story, Dixon has been with the Thunder organization for the past three years and was previously a video coordinator in Charlotte.
Dixon was initially hired as a Blue assistant before being promoted to a Thunder assistant in 2024/25. He has spent time as head coach of the Summer League squads in both Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.
In a related move, the Thunder are promoting former Blue head coach Kameron Woods to be an assistant on Mark Daigneault‘s staff.
Woods has been the Blue’s head coach for the past three seasons, including winning an NBAGL title in 2024. He has been with the Thunder for seven years. Woods has also served as the lead coach during Summer League action, Almanza notes.