Uncategorized News & Rumors

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:

• Our Free Agent Tracker features up-to-date details on this summer's free agent signings, with data sortable by team, position, contract years, and contract amount.
• We also have free agent lists for both this summer and next summer in text form, which will continue to be modified as players are signed or released.
• Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed since 2007, sorting by player, team, year, and other variables.
• Every Thursday at 4:00pm CT, Luke Adams answers readers' questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of past chats here.
• Our list of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is used or expires.
• We're also tracking teams' amnesty provisions — using our complete list, you can check to see which clubs have used the amnesty clause and which will carry it into next summer.
• The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Our Offseason Outlook series previewed this summer for all 30 NBA teams.
• Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere every Saturday in his weekly Hoops Links feature.
• 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 explained how the Bulls' signings will affect their cap flexibility, examined the NBA's new maximum salary, and listed the expected first-year salaries for this year's first-round picks.

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 follow 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 Carl Landry as he navigates free agency, you can visit this page. If you're interested in whether Jose Calderon might be traded from the Raptors to your favorite team, all Calderon-related updates are located 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, Landry's page is located at hoopsrumors.com/carl-landry.

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. The latest news on a potential NBA return for Phil Jackson, for instance, can be found on his rumors page, while if you want to check out our Week in Review pieces, those are all available here.

There are still plenty of unsigned free agents on the market, but with respect to Carl Landry, Alonzo Gee, Brandon Rush, Leandro Barbosa, and the other top remaining options, we almost certainly won't see any more $30MM+ contracts signed this summer.

As Hoops Rumors' Free Agent Tracker shows, 15 free agents have signed multiyear contracts worth $30MM or more this offseason, based on reported salary figures. We're not 100% sure all the reported salaries are accurate, but these are the numbers we know so far, and should at the very least be in the neighborhood of the official figures.

So which players saw the biggest paydays this summer? Listed below are the 15 largest free agent contracts of the summer of 2012, from Deron Williams to Goran Dragic. Let us know in the comments section which players you feel are worthy of these massive contracts, and which ones might have been overpaid. Here's the complete list:

• Deron Williams (Nets): Five years, $98.77MM
• Brook Lopez (Nets): Four years, $60.83MM
• Eric Gordon (Hornets): Four years, $58.37MM
• Roy Hibbert (Pacers): Four years, $58.37MM
• Nicolas Batum (Trail Blazers): Four years, $45MM
• JaVale McGee (Nuggets): Four years, $44MM
• Gerald Wallace (Nets): Four years, $40MM
• Ersan Ilyasova (Bucks): Five years, $40MM
• George Hill (Pacers): Four years, $40MM
• Jeff Green (Celtics): Four years, $36MM
• Kevin Garnett (Celtics): Three years, $34MM
• Ryan Anderson (Hornets): Four years, $34MM
• Jason Thompson (Kings): Five years, $30.19MM
• Tim Duncan (Spurs): Three years, $30MM
• Goran Dragic (Suns): Four years, $30MM

Note: Blake Griffin signed a five-year extension with the Clippers that would rank second on this list, but since he wasn't a free agent, he isn't included.

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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.

Last season, under the first year of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the first-year values of the mid-level and bi-annual exceptions were relatively easy to remember — the mid-level for non-taxpaying teams started at $5MM, the taxpayer MLE began at $3MM, and the room exception for under-the-cap teams began at $2.5MM. The bi-annual exception, meanwhile, checked in at a first-year value of $1.9MM.

However, the CBA dictates that these exceptions are set to grow in value annually. Besides the non-taxpayer mid-level, which doesn't increase until next summer, each of the aforementioned exceptions grew by 3% this year. The new first-year numbers are a little harder to remember — $3.09MM for the taxpayer MLE, $2.575MM for the room exception, and $1.957MM for the BAE.

To avoid having to recall those figures and constantly calculate the new second- and third-year values of contracts that use full exceptions, we've put together a chart for quick reference. Here are the maximum contracts, in both years and dollars, that teams can hand out using these four salary cap exceptions (click for full size):

For complete explanations of how these and other cap exceptions work, be sure to check out Hoops Rumors' glossary.

Player Efficiency Rating isn't the be-all, end-all statistic by which to measure NBA players, but it does provide an easy way to at least get an idea of a player's productivity. While the stat is not without its issues, it manages to neatly level the playing field when comparing, for instance, a point guard and a center.

So, with many of this year's top free agents off the board. Let's check in on the remaining available players, sorting them by their 2011/12 PER. Players must have played at least 500 minutes last season to be listed here. Restricted free agents are marked with an asterisk, while the player's PER is in parentheses. Here's the top five at each position:

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10:35pm: A league official has corrected the earlier information sent out, tweets ESPN.com's Marc Stein. The amnesty deadline for this season is actually at 11:00pm central time today, rather than at 4:00pm CT. That allowed the Nuggets to amnesty Chris Andersen, and gives teams about 25 more minutes to cut players using the amnesty provision. The lists below will be updated to reflect any last-minute decisions.

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If you want to keep tabs on all of Hoops Rumors' stories and updates, you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our feed through your RSS reader of choice. However, if you prefer to only receive news about your favorite NBA team, we have you covered. Below are links to our Facebook, Twitter, and RSS pages and feeds for all 30 teams.

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Under the league's new Collective Bargaining Agreement, free agents can be offered up to five years by a team holding their Bird Rights, or four years by any other team. It's not often that we see a free agent receive that maximum number of years, as long-term deals are generally reserved for elite or near-elite players. However, so far in July 2012, we've seen nine free agents signed for as many years as possible. Let's check out the list, with the help of Hoops Rumors' Free Agent Tracker….

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The NBA announced that the salary cap for the 2012/13 season will be $58.044MM, according to an official release from the league. The tax level for next season has been set at $70.307MM, which means teams will pay a one dollar tax for each dollar in excess of the tax level. Both the salary cap and tax level remain the same from the 2011/12 season.

The non-taxpayer mid-level for the upcoming season is $5MM, the taxpayer mid-level is $3.09MM and the mid-level for a team with room under the salary cap is $2.575MM. The league also announced the minimum team salary, which is 85 percent of the salary cap, will also stay the same at $49.337MM.