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.
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….
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.
When the NBA introduced the amnesty clause in the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement, it could only be used in the summer of ’05. However, when the league and players’ union reached an agreement on the new CBA in 2011, the amnesty provision was modified to allow teams to use it in any of the next five offseasons.
You can read more about how the amnesty provision works in our Hoops Rumors glossary entry, but the purpose of this post is to track which teams have used the amnesty clause to date, and which teams still have it in their back pockets. You can find this tracker at any time on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.”
Here’s how the amnesty landscape currently looks:
When the Sixers’ new two-year, $13.1MM deal with Spencer Hawes becomes official, it will make NBA history. Hawes will be the first player ever to re-sign with a team after accepting a qualifying offer from the same team the year before. Hawes is already in select company as one of only 14 players ever to accept a qualifying offer, the one-year tender teams must make to players coming off their rookie contracts in order to retain the right to match offers from other teams. Usually, qualifying offers are merely the starting point for negotiations, if that.
NBA free agency officially begins at midnight eastern time tonight, at which point teams are permitted to talk to and negotiate with other clubs' free agents. However, no free agent contracts can be signed until July 11th, due to the July moratorium. Our explanation of the July moratorium is one link you'll want to check out as you prepare for the 2012 free agent period. Here are a few more:
With the draft just two days away and free agency beginning this weekend, there are a number of different ways you can follow Hoops Rumors to keep tabs on the latest NBA news and rumors this summer.
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.
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.
At this point in the calendar year, it's hard to gauge exactly how much money NBA teams will have to spend in the offseason. Most decisions on team and player options are still to come, draft bonuses aren't on clubs' books yet, and the amnesty period is on the way. Still, we can get a sense of which teams will have the flexibility to spend this summer by taking a look at the guaranteed contracts that have been signed for next season. Listed below are the current guaranteed salary commitments for all 30 NBA clubs. Keep in mind that the 2012/13 salary cap and luxury tax thresholds are expected to be about the same as this year's — $58,044,000 for the cap and $70,307,000 for the tax.
Lately we've heard about the interest the Blazers have in signing former draft picks Joel Freeland and Victor Claver, the Rockets maneuvers concerning Donatas Motiejunas, and other news about international players signing in the NBA. Teams commonly draft international players with no intention of signing them immediately, "stashing" their rights away until they're ready to play in the NBA. Teams can retain draft rights to players for as much time as they want as long as they're playing professionally outside the NBA, so it's useful for teams that want to build assets for the future and avoid carrying a rookie (and his salary) on the bench.
We've put together a list of teams that hold the rights to international players who have been drafted since 2005.