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No-trade clauses are rare in the NBA. Only four of the most decorated players have them — Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki. Garnett retains his no-trade power even though he waived it this summer to facilitate his move to the Nets. It’s much more common that a player will gain a de-facto no-trade clause through a quirk in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

Bird rights, Early Bird rights and Non-Bird rights are all mechanisms that allow teams to go above the salary cap to retain their own players. Trades usually have no effect on those rights, but that’s not the case with players on one-year contracts. A team that acquires a player on a one-year deal via trade can’t use any form of Bird rights to re-sign that player the following offseason. The player often stands to lose financially in such a case, so the NBA allows players on one-year contracts to block trades. Despite this, some players allow trades to go through anyway, as Marreese Speights did last year when the Grizzlies sent him to the Cavaliers.

The no-trade rule includes players signed to two-year deals that include a team or player option on the final year. For the purposes of the no-trade rule, option seasons don’t count until they’re exercised, and options on non-rookie scale contracts generally aren’t exercised until the end of the season, well past the trade deadline.

Clubs retain Bird rights on players they re-sign even if they had renounced their rights before re-signing them. In other words, a player’s “Bird clock” doesn’t reset if a team renounces his rights, as long as he re-signs with that team. For instance, Jannero Pargo spent last season with the Bobcats, who renounced his rights this past summer before signing him to a new one-year contract. Pargo will be eligible for Early Bird rights next offseason, even though the Bobcats renounced his non-Bird rights this summer. So, the ‘Cats would need his consent to trade him this year.

Similarly, the Mavericks waived Bernard James this summer and re-signed him, but, just as with Pargo, his “Bird clock” did not reset, so the Mavs can’t trade James and his new one-year contract without consent.

This rule is also one reason why teams will often tack a non-guaranteed season onto the contract of an end-of-the-bench player they sign at midseason. Partial seasons count toward Bird eligibility just as much as full seasons do. Also, non-guaranteed seasons don’t function like option seasons, so their existence doesn’t invoke the trade-consent rule.

There’s one other situation that would require a team to have a player’s consent before trading him. A restricted free agent who signs with a new team only to have his original team match the offer sheet has the power to veto trades during the first year of his deal. Jeff Teague of the Hawks, who signed an offer sheet with the Bucks in the offseason, is the lone player who falls under the rule this year.

One additional note: No player signed this offseason can be traded until December 15th, at the earliest.

Here’s a team-by-team breakdown of players who can block trades this season. All these players gained their veto power based on the Bird rights stipulation unless otherwise noted:

Atlanta Hawks

• Jeff Teague (matched offer sheet)

Boston Celtics

• None

Brooklyn Nets

• Kevin Garnett (no-trade clause)
• Andray Blatche

Charlotte Bobcats

• Josh McRoberts
• Jannero Pargo

Chicago Bulls

• Nazr Mohammed

Cleveland Cavaliers

• None

Dallas Mavericks

• Dirk Nowitzki (no-trade clause)
• Bernard James

Denver Nuggets

• None

Detroit Pistons

• None

Golden State Warriors

• None

Houston Rockets

• Aaron Brooks
• Francisco Garcia

Indiana Pacers

• None

Los Angeles Clippers

• Ryan Hollins

Los Angeles Lakers

• Kobe Bryant (no-trade clause)

Memphis Grizzlies

• None

Miami Heat

• Chris Andersen

Milwaukee Bucks

• None

Minnesota Timberwolves

• None

New Orleans Pelicans

• Al-Farouq Aminu

New York Knicks

• Kenyon Martin

Oklahoma City Thunder

• Derek Fisher

Orlando Magic

• None

Philadelphia 76ers

• None

Phoenix Suns

• None

Portland Trail Blazers

• None

Sacramento Kings

• None

San Antonio Spurs

• Tim Duncan (no-trade clause)

Toronto Raptors

• None

Utah Jazz

• Jamaal Tinsley

Washington Wizards

• Garrett Temple

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

Success has bred stability for the San Antonio Spurs. They have the league’s longest-tenured head coach, its fourth-longest-tenured GM, three players leftover from their championship squad from more than 10 years ago, and a Western Conference-leading dozen players back from last year’s Finals. That’s more than any other team in the league except the Heat, who also bring back 12 of the guys who edged the Spurs for the championship in June.

The Nuggets have 11 returnees from the end of last season, just one fewer than the Spurs, but nearly every other part of Denver’s basketball operations is new, including GM Tim Connelly and coach Brian Shaw. The Thunder hemorrhaged more talent this summer, losing Kevin Martin just months after trading away James Harden, but they, too, kept 11 of the players from last year’s disappointing playoff exit.

The Rockets made the offseason’s most noteworthy addition in Dwight Howard, but they’ve otherwise remained relatively stable, keeping 10 players. All four Western Conference teams with 10 or more holdovers made the playoffs last season, in contrast to the Eastern Conference, where three of the four teams who returned at least 10 players were in the lottery.

A pair of Western teams that didn’t make the playoffs were particularly active in turning over their rosters. The Mavericks bring back just six guys from the team that made a late-season run at a playoff berth last year, while the Suns have only five players left from their worst season in 44 years. Five is also the number of trades new Phoenix GM Ryan McDonough has pulled off since he assumed his post in May.

Here are each Western Conference team’s holdovers from the end of last season. We also ran down the Eastern Conference returnees earlier this week.

Spurs (12): Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, Matt Bonner, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Nando De Colo, Patty Mills, Cory Joseph, Aron Baynes

Nuggets (11): JaVale McGee, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Andre Miller, Timofey Mozgov, Ty Lawson, Anthony Randolph, Evan Fournier, Kenneth Faried, Jordan Hamilton, Quincy Miller

Thunder (11): Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Kendrick Perkins, Thabo Sefolosha, Nick Collison, Serge Ibaka, Jeremy Lamb, Reggie Jackson, Hasheem Thabeet, Perry Jones III, Derek Fisher

Rockets (10): Omer Asik, Jeremy Lin, Francisco Garcia, James Harden, Aaron Brooks, Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Chandler Parsons, Greg Smith, Patrick Beverley

Grizzlies (9): Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Tayshaun Prince, Tony Allen, Jerryd Bayless, Ed Davis, Quincy Pondexter, Jon Leuer

Kings (9): John Salmons, Marcus Thornton, Chuck Hayes, Jason Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins, Travis Outlaw, Jimmer Fredette, Patrick Patterson, Isaiah Thomas

Pelicans (9): Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Anthony Davis, Al-Farouq Aminu, Jason Smith, Austin Rivers, Lance Thomas, Darius Miller, Brian Roberts

Clippers (8): Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, Blake Griffin, Jamal Crawford, Willie Green, Matt Barnes, Ryan Hollins, Maalik Wayns

Timberwolves (8): Kevin Love, Derrick Williams, Nikola Pekovic, Jose Barea, Ricky Rubio, Alexey Shved, Dante Cunningham, Chase Budinger

Trail Blazers (8): LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews, Damian Lillard, Joel Freeland, Meyers Leonard, Victor Claver, Will Barton

Warriors (8): Andrew Bogut, David Lee, Stephen Curry, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson, Festus Ezeli, Draymond Green, Kent Bazemore

Jazz (7): Marvin Williams, Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, Jeremy Evans, Jamaal Tinsley

Lakers (7): Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, Steve Blake, Jordan Hill, Jodie Meeks, Robert Sacre

Mavericks (6): Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Brandan Wright, Jae Crowder, Bernard James

Suns (5): Goran Dragic, Channing Frye, Markieff Morris, Marcus Morris, P.J. Tucker

As we’ve outlined before, there are a number of different ways to follow Hoops Rumors via Facebook, Twitter, and RSS. If you don’t want to follow all the site’s updates, you can subscribe to team-specific or transaction-only Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds. Although we don’t have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds for specific players, you can also easily follow all our updates on your favorite player.

If, for instance, you want to keep track of all the latest news and rumors on LeBron James as he plays a potential contract year, you can visit this page. If you’re interested in keeping tabs on the latest trade rumors involving Evan Turner, you can find Turner’s page right here.

Every player we’ve written about has his own rumors page. You can find your player of choice by using our search box (located in the right sidebar); by clicking his tag at the bottom of a post where he’s discussed; or, by simply typing his name in your address bar after hoopsrumors.com, substituting dashes for spaces. For example, LeBron’s page is located at hoopsrumors.com/lebron-james.

In addition to players and teams, there are a number of other subjects you can track by clicking on the tags we use at the bottom of posts. Items related to the NBA D-League, for instance, can be found on this rumors page. If you want to follow early updates on the 2014 NBA draft, those are all available here.

The Heat finished with the league’s best record and won their second straight title last season, while the Bobcats and Magic were the two worst teams in the league. Yet somehow, those three clubs and the Wizards are the only ones in the Eastern Conference to bring back 10 or more players from last season.

Miami kept 12 of the 15 players it carried at the end of the regular season and in the postseason as it made its run to the championship. There was no reason to mess with a winning formula, and aside from the amnesty waiving of Mike Miller, Juwan Howard‘s transition from player to assistant coach, and the team’s decision to cut Jarvis Varnado last week, everyone’s back to try for a three-peat.

The Bobcats made a splash in free agency, signing Al Jefferson, but they elected to bring back 11 players from the roster that went 21-61 last season, re-signing Josh McRoberts, Gerald Henderson and Jannero Pargo while failing to make any offseason trades. The Magic largely stood pat, too, though one of the 10 players they kept from the end of last season isn’t really around anymore. The team has told Turkoglu to stay home while they attempt to trade him, and it’s clear he won’t put on a Magic uniform again, even though he remains on the roster.

The Bucks were the Eastern Conference’s least-stable team, gutting the squad that finished with a losing record but slipped into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed. Every other Eastern team had about the same level of stability, keeping between seven and nine players.

Here’s the complete list of players who remain on the Eastern Conference teams with which they finished last season. We’ll follow with the Western Conference soon:

• Heat (12): LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem, Mario Chalmers, Joel Anthony, Shane Battier, Ray Allen, James Jones, Rashard Lewis, Norris Cole, Chris Andersen
• Bobcats (11): Ben Gordon, Ramon Sessions, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Josh McRoberts, Gerald Henderson, Bismack Biyombo, Kemba Walker, Brendan Haywood, Jeff Adrien, Jeff Taylor, Jannero Pargo
• Magic (10): Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Arron Afflalo, Glen Davis, Maurice Harkless, Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Kyle O’Quinn, E’Twaun Moore, Doron Lamb
• Wizards (10): Nene, Trevor Ariza, John Wall, Bradley Beal, Jan Vesely, Kevin Seraphin, Martell Webster, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple
• Bulls (9): Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich, Taj Gibson, Jimmy Butler, Marquis Teague, Nazr Mohammed
• Raptors (9): Rudy Gay, Landry Fields, Amir Johnson, Kyle Lowry, Jonas Valanciunas, DeMar DeRozan, Aaron Gray, Terrence Ross, Quincy Acy
• Knicks (8): Amar’e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Raymond Felton, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Pablo Prigioni, Kenyon Martin
• Nets (8): Joe Johnson, Deron Williams, Brook Lopez, Mirza Teletovic, Reggie Evans, Andray Blatche, Tornike Shengelia, Tyshawn Taylor
• Pacers (8): Roy Hibbert, Danny Granger, David West, George Hill, Ian Mahinmi, Paul George, Lance Stephenson, Orlando Johnson
• 76ers (7): Thaddeus Young, Spencer Hawes, Jason Richardson, Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen, Kwame Brown, Arnett Moultrie
• Hawks (7): Al Horford, Kyle Korver, Lou Williams, Jeff Teague, John Jenkins, Mike Scott, Shelvin Mack
• Celtics (7): Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green, Brandon Bass, Courtney Lee, Avery Bradley, Jared Sullinger, Jordan Crawford
• Cavaliers (7): Anderson Varejao, Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters, Alonzo Gee, C.J. Miles, Tyler Zeller
• Pistons (7): Rodney Stuckey, Charlie Villanueva, Jonas Jerebko, Will Bynum, Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond, Kyle Singler
• Bucks (4): Ersan Ilyasova, Ekpe Udoh, Larry Sanders, John Henson

With the NBA regular season scheduled to get underway in just over an hour, be sure to check out Hoops Rumors’ 2013 Free Agent Tracker to refresh your memory on the offseason’s player movement. Using our tracker, you can quickly browse the summer’s contract agreements, sorting by team, position, contract length, total salary, and a handful of other variables.

For instance, if you want to see all the Clippers’ offseason signings, you can sort by team and find all of the club’s free agent additions listed here. If you’re curious to see how many players signed contracts of four years or more, you can sort by contract length and bring up that list right here.

A few additional notes on the tracker:

• While the years and dollar figures listed in the tracker are close to 100% accurate, based on the numbers that have been reported, we’re still waiting on numbers for a few recent signings, such as Brandon Davies‘ deal with the Sixers.
• Contract amounts aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed, and are based on what’s been reported.
• Training-camp invites are included in the tracker. For our purposes, we’re considering these so-called “summer contracts” to be any deal with no guaranteed money. Fully guaranteed and partially guaranteed contracts aren’t listed as summer contracts, which are marked with a † symbol.

Our Free Agent Tracker is designed to monitor offseason player movement, so it won’t be updated going forward — at least not until we unveil the 2014 version next summer. However, it will continue to stay active as a resource. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

It’s October 29th, which means the offseason has finally ended, and the 2013/14 NBA regular season is officially upon us. The schedule kicks off tonight with a trio of games, but before it does, we wanted to make sure we were on the record with our predictions for the coming season.

As we did last year, when our predictions ranged from the good to the bad to the ugly, we’ve forecast the top eight seeds in each conference, along with the Finals teams and the winners of each of the league’s major awards. Hoops Rumors writers Alex Lee, Zach Links, Spencer Lund, Chuck Myron, Jonathan Nehring, Michael Pina, Ryan Raroque, and I have made our picks.

Click below to peruse our choices, and feel free to join the discussion in the comments section if you have thoughts on our picks or want to share predictions of your own.

Hoops Rumors Writers’ 2013/14 NBA Predictions

A few more camp cuts await, as the Wizards stand at 18 players after Friday’s trade and the Rockets are holding tight at 17 guys. The players Washington lets go will all be on guaranteed contracts, since the team doesn’t have anyone on its books without a full guarantee on his deal. Houston could waive its pair of non-guaranteed contracts, but that would mean parting with Patrick Beverley and Greg Smith, both important contributors, as Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors pointed out last night.

Most of the players released from camp rosters this month were on non-guaranteed deals, but several of them had at least a partial guarantee, and two — Royce White of the Sixers and Chris Johnson of the Timberwolves — had fully guaranteed contracts. The Sixers, with plenty of cap room to accommodate extra payouts, owe more than $1.85MM to players who won’t be on their regular season roster.

Ironically, the smallest partial guarantee in the NBA this month, the $15K promised to Lance Thomas, managed to survive cuts. The largest partial guarantee to be paid out to a player waived this month is the $200K the Knicks owe C.J. Leslie.

Here’s a breakdown of every partially or fully guaranteed contract let go in October, sorted by team. Note that it doesn’t count players who were waived before camp, like Quentin Richardson and Chris Duhon.

76ers

• Royce White ($1,719,480) — full guarantee
• Gani Lawal ($100K)
• Rodney Williams ($35K)
• Vander Blue (unknown amount)
• Khalif Wyatt (unknown amount)

Clippers 

• Brandon Davies ($50K)

Hawks

• Adonis Thomas ($50K)

Kings

• Brandon Heath ($35K)
• Trent Lockett ($35K)

Knicks

• C.J. Leslie ($200K)
• Jeremy Tyler ($100K)

Rockets

• B.J. Young ($40K)

Timberwolves

• Chris Johnson ($916,099) — full guarantee

Trail Blazers

• Dee Bost ($50K according to HoopsWorld; $25K according to ShamSports)
• E.J. Singler ($50K)
• Richard Howell (unknown amount)

Warriors

• Seth Curry ($75K)
• DeWayne Dedmon ($25K)

HoopsWorld and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

Much has been made of the 13 teams that have new head coaches, but precious little notice has been paid to the fact that there are 13 teams with a new most highly paid player. Trades and free agency have rendered 11 of those teams with a new name as their greatest player personnel investment, while the other two clubs demonstrate the variance in which contracts are structured.

The most highly paid players on the Hawks, Sixers and Jazz left via free agency to claim those titles on other teams. The Rockets are the only other club that brought in its new highest earner via free agency, though that doesn’t count the Bucks, who signed O.J. Mayo and traded for Caron Butler, each of whom will earn a team-high $8MM this year. Two other teams brought in their current most highly paid player via trade.

Six teams have new top earners who were on the roster last season. That includes the Suns and Kings, who are the clubs who reveal the aforementioned dexterity of contracts. Goran Dragic‘s four-year deal with the Suns pays him $7.5MM for each season, but Marcin Gortat‘s includes raises. Gortat’s raises caught and passed Dragic’s flat salaries this year.  Marcus Thornton‘s raise helped him claim the top spot in Sacramento, where he surpasses John Salmons, whose contract includes salary declines instead of raises.

In-season trades will surely add more teams to this list, though one club appears most poised for a change. Hedo Turkoglu remains atop the Magic payroll, but the team is trying to unload his deal via trade. If the Magic don’t find any takers, they’ll likely waive him before his $12MM contract, which is only $6MM guaranteed, becomes fully guaranteed on January 10th.

The Magic are also still paying the amnestied Gilbert Arenas, who would have claimed the top spot had he and the team not agreed to spread his payments out over two additional years. In any case, this list excludes amnestied players who either aren’t on the roster now or, in the case of the 2012/13 salaries listed, weren’t on the roster last season.

• Hawks: 2012/13, Josh Smith ($13.2MM) — 2013/14, Al Horford ($12MM)
• Celtics: 2012/13, Paul Pierce ($16,790,345) — 2013/14, Kris Humphries ($12MM)
• Bobcats: 2012/13, Ben Gordon ($12.4MM) — 2013/14, Al Jefferson (13.5MM)
• Cavaliers: 2012/13, Anderson Varejao ($8,368,182) — 2013/14, Andrew Bynum (12.25MM)
• Nuggets: 2012/13, Andre Iguodala ($14,968,250) — 2013/14, Ty Lawson ($10,786,517)
• Pistons: 2012/13, Jose Calderon ($11,046,591) — 2013/14, Josh Smith ($13.5MM)
• Rockets: 2012/13, Omer Asik/Jeremy Lin ($8,374,646) — 2013/14, Dwight Howard ($20,513,178)
• Bucks: 2012/13, Monta Ellis ($11MM) — 2013/14, Caron Butler/O.J. Mayo ($8MM)
• Sixers: 2012/13, Andrew Bynum ($16.889MM) — 2013/14, Thaddeus Young ($8.85MM)
• Suns: 2012/13, Goran Dragic ($7.5MM) — 2013/14, Marcin Gortat ($7,727,280)
• Kings: 2012/13, John Salmons ($8.083MM) — 2013/14, Marcus Thornton ($8.05MM)
• Spurs: 2012/13, Manu Ginobili ($14,107,492) — 2013/14, Tony Parker ($12.5MM)
• Jazz: 2012/13, Al Jefferson ($15MM) — 2013/14, Richard Jefferson ($11.046MM)

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

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:

• 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 Free Agent Tracker, which features data sortable by team, position, contract years, and contract amount, has been continually updated to include all of this summer’s deals, including training camp invites.
• If you’re interested in monitoring the status of non-NBA players, be sure to check out our International Player Movement Tracker, developed with the help of Mark Porcaro. It includes data on thousands of players, and continues to be updated daily. Both our NBA free agent tracker and our international tracker will include moves up to 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.
• With the October 31st deadline for rookie-scale extensions just over a week away, you can read about some of the offseason’s remaining extension-eligible players in our Extension Candidate series.
• If you missed any trades made since the 2012/13 season ended, you can catch up using our list of 2013 offseason swaps.
• 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. These weekly live chats have been on hiatus for much of the offseason, but are set to return next week along with the NBA regular season. In the meantime, 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 calculated next summer’s maximum contract scenarios for LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, examined how new team executives have fared this offseason, and looked ahead to projected 2014 cap space for all 30 teams.