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Trades are a part of NBA reality for players, who sign their contracts knowing that their teams can send them elsewhere just about any time, usually without their consent. Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are the only four players with no-trade clauses written into their contracts, though the Celtics received Garnett’s OK to send him to the Nets this summer. Players who re-sign with a team on a one-year contract also have veto power over trades, through a quirk in the collective bargaining agreement, though sometimes those guys consent to trades, too, as Marreese Speights did last season.

Still, few if any players would be on board with getting traded for a second time in a year, as Luc Mbah a Moute was today. He’s the ninth player to endure more than one trade since the start of the 2012/13 season. Malcolm Lee has gone through three trades, though he wasn’t with the Warriors long, since Golden State acquired him and shipped him out on the same night. Those trades happened at the draft, and unless a veteran like Lee was involved, draft-night trades aren’t accounted for on this list, since they happen before any of the incoming rookies have signed their contracts. I also didn’t count J.J. Redick, because the second swap he was involved in was a sign-and-trade transaction that facilitated his new deal with the Clippers, and the trade wouldn’t have happened without his approval.

Here are the well-traveled nine:

• Luc Mbah a Moute (Bucks trade him to Kings on July 12th; Kings trade him to Timberwolves on November 26th)
• Malcolm Lee (Timberwolves trade him to Warriors on June 27th; Warriors trade him to Suns on June 27th; Suns trade him to Wizards on October 25th)
• Caron Butler (Clippers trade him to Suns on July 10th; Suns trade him to Bucks on August 29th)
• Viacheslav Kravtsov (Pistons trade him to Bucks on July 31st; Bucks trade him to Suns on August 29th)
• Ish Smith (Magic trade him to Bucks on February 21st; Bucks trade him to Suns on August 29th
• Thomas Robinson (Kings trade him to Rockets on February 20th; Rockets trade him to Trail Blazers on July 10th)
• Hamed Haddadi (Grizzlies trade him to Raptors on January 30th; Raptors trade him to Suns on February 21st)
• Hakim Warrick (Pelicans trade him to Bobcats on November 13th, 2012; Bobcats trade him to Magic on February 21st)

Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren’t the only updates you’ll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you’ll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here’s a rundown of a few of them:

• You can follow all our updates about your favorite teams or players on your iPhone or iPad using the Hoops Rumors app.
• We’re still keeping a close eye on free agency with the help of our list of 2013 free agents. If you want to look ahead to the summer of 2014 or 2015, we’ve rounded up those free agents as well. All of these FA lists will continue to be modified as needed.
• Our NBA Free Agent Tracker and our International Player Movement Tracker are no longer being updated, but they include offseason moves through the end of October.
• Not all the players currently on NBA rosters have guaranteed deals. We’ve provided a schedule of contract guarantee dates so you can keep track of when teams will have to make decisions on those non-guaranteed players. We also have them broken down by team.
• Our list of 2013/14 roster counts is a convenient tool for keeping tabs on how many players your favorite NBA team is carrying, and how many guaranteed contracts are on each club’s books.
• If your favorite team has a better chance at Andrew Wiggins than at a playoff berth, be sure to follow our reverse standings, which are updated daily to reflect the projected 2014 draft order.
• We’re keeping tabs on this season’s D-League assignments right here.
• Our agency database is a handy reference point for determining the representation for virtually every NBA player.
• Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed since 2007, sorting by player, team, year, and other variables.
• On Mondays at 4:00pm CT, I answer readers’ questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of our past live discussions here.
• Our list of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is created, is used, or expires.
• We’re tracking teams’ amnesty provisions — using our complete list, you can check to see which clubs have used the amnesty clause and which will have it available next summer.
• The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere every Sunday in his weekly Hoops Links feature.
• If you’re looking to catch up on a few days worth of content, our Week in Review posts round up the week’s news and rumors, while our Hoops Rumors Originals posts recap the site’s original content for the week. Both round-ups are published every Sunday.
• Be sure to check out the Featured Posts section on the right sidebar for more original pieces from the Hoops Rumors writing team. Recently, we explored the cost of traded 2014 first-round picks, recapped the players who signed rookie scale extensions this year, and submitted our predictions for the 2013/14 season.

The number of teams paying the luxury tax has been six the past two seasons, and again half a dozen teams are lined up for the penalty this year. The bill only comes due for clubs that cross the $71.748MM team salary threshold at the end of the season, so that means trades and other roster moves could either spare a front office from the tax or force another into shelling out extra cash.

Three of the franchises with team salaries that currently exceed the tax line wouldn’t make the playoffs if they started today, including the Nets and Knicks, who have the two highest payrolls in the league. The Bulls are in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, but their record is just 6-5 and they just lost Derrick Rose to another injury. The New York teams would have to pull off drastic salary dumps to avoid the tax, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bulls try to shed some salary via trade if Rose is to miss the season. The same goes for the Lakers if Kobe Bryant can’t return to right the ship. Both Chicago and the Lakers are about $7.5MM above tax line.

There are several teams below the tax line but close enough to it that it’s likely to come into play as they plan their in-season moves. The Celtics and Raptors are within a million dollars of tax territory, which might make it hard for them to add any intriguing free agents who come available or take on even the slightest salary bump in a trade.

Team salary figures may also change if players achieve unlikely bonuses, which would be added to the books, or fall short of likely bonuses, which would be subtracted. Some of the totals listed below for the projected tax teams include non-guaranteed contracts, though in each case, the team wouldn’t escape the tax merely by waiving those players.

Here are all six teams in line for the tax, with their team salaries in parentheses.

• Nets ($102,211,009)
• Knicks ($88,249,065)
• Heat ($83,528,143)
• Bulls ($79,288,428)
• Lakers ($79,186,502)
• Clippers ($73,325,353)

HoopsWorld was used in the creation of this post.

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With trade rumors already swirling around players like Iman Shumpert and Omer Asik, there will be plenty of notable stories to follow on Hoops Rumors throughout the regular season. There are a handful of different ways you can follow us to keep tabs on the latest NBA news and rumors through 2013 and into the new year.

You can Like us on Facebook, and receive headlines and links for all our posts via your Facebook account. You can also follow us on Twitter to have all our posts and updates sent directly to your Twitter feed. And our RSS feed is located here, if you’d like to follow us using your RSS reader of choice.

If you prefer to receive updates only on roster moves such as signings, cuts, and trades, you can follow our transactions-only feeds via RSS and Twitter.

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