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.
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Draft position largely determines how much first-round picks make with their first contracts, but it has little to do with the deal that comes after that. Player values can change drastically over the life of a rookie scale contract, as the 2007 draftees demonstrate. Since rookie contracts last no longer than four seasons, 2007 is the latest class in which most of the draftees have signed their second NBA contracts.
With the NBA postseason nearing its end and the draft and free agency fast approaching, there are a number of different ways you can follow Hoops Rumors to keep tabs on the latest NBA news and rumors this summer.
The NBA's current 1000-combination lottery system has been used for each draft since 1994. The format wasn't identical every year — the number of possible outcomes assigned to each team used to be slightly different, and from 1996 to 1998, the expansion Raptors and Grizzlies were ineligible to win the first overall pick, altering the lottery process. But essentially, the NBA draft lottery is in its 19th season in its current form.
With 2012's lottery scheduled for tonight in New York, let's take a look back to see how the first overall pick has been won in past seasons. Listed below are the winning teams, their place in the lottery standings, their odds at the first overall pick, and the players they selected….
With the summer approaching, new details of the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement figure to become relevant over the next few weeks, slightly modifiying the usual process for free agency. One such change will impact the qualifying offers teams extend to free agents this offseason, based on a newly-defined "starter criteria."
The new CBA describes a "starter" as either starting 41 games or playing 2,000 minutes in a season, and rewards players for meeting those criteria. If a player achieved one of those benchmarks in the season prior to his free agency, or averaged one of those benchmarks in the two seasons leading up to his free agency, his qualifying offer will be affected as follows:
- A top-14 pick who does not meet the starter critera will receive a same qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the 15th overall pick.
- A played picked between 10th and 30th who meets the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the ninth overall pick.
- A second-round pick or undrafted player who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 100% of the amount applicable to the 21st overall pick.
Because the 2008 class of rookies will be hitting restricted free agency this season, the 2008/09 rookie scale will dictate the qualifying offers received. Using RealGM's rookie scale chart for 2008, we can calculate the qualifying offers as follows:
- 120% of the amount applicable to the ninth overall pick is $4,385,416.
- 120% of the amount applicable to the 15th overall pick is $4,001,917.
- 100% of the amount applicable to the 21st overall pick is $2,695,391.
So which players will be affected by this new rule this summer? Using our list of restricted free agents, the above calculations, and the starter criteria, this offseason's modified qualifying offers are listed below. Teams will have to offer these free agents a one-year contract worth the listed amount to make them restricted — otherwise they'll become unrestricted and can freely sign with any club.
Top-14 picks who failed to meet the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $4,001,917:
Players picked between 10th and 30th who met the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $4,385,416:
- Brook Lopez
- Jason Thompson
- Brandon Rush
- Marreese Speights
- Roy Hibbert
- JaVale McGee
- J.J. Hickson
- Ryan Anderson
- Courtney Lee
- Nicolas Batum
Other free agents with three years or less in the NBA who met the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $2,695,391:
1 Starter criteria are assumed to be prorated for the lockout-shortened 2011/12 season. For instance, Courtney Lee played 1,757 minutes in the 66-game season. In a typical 82-game season, that number prorates to 2,183 minutes, exceeding the necessary 2,000 minutes.
Note: Thanks to Mark Deeks of Sham Sports for confirming information in this post.
May 30th is the first date of the NBA offseason we've circled on the calendar, with the 2012 draft lottery set to take place tomorrow night in New York. Many crucial dates will follow, however, so let's examine what the offseason schedule looks like for the Association, as teams prepare for the 2012/13 campaign:
May
- 30: NBA draft lottery.
June
- 18: Withdrawal deadline for draft early entrants (4:00pm CT).
- 28: NBA draft.
- 29: Last day to exercise team, player, and early termination options.
- 30: 2011/12 salary cap year ends. Last day to sign a player to an extension, and last day to extend a qualifying offer to a potential restricted free agent.
July
- 1: 2012/13 salary cap year and July moratorium begin. Free agents become free.
- 11: July moratorium ends and new salary cap figures take effect. Teams can sign free agents, make trades, and extend contracts. Seven-day amnesty period begins.
- 16: First-round draft picks become free agents if not offered a contract.
- 23: Last day to withdraw a qualifying offer to a restricted free agent without the player's approval.
- 27: 2012 Summer Olympics begin.
August
- 12: Olympics end.
- 15: Released players begin staying on waivers for only 48 hours rather than a full week.
September
- 6: Second-round draft picks become free agents if not offered a contract.
October
- 1: Last day for a restricted free agent to accept a qualifying offer.
- 29: Last day of offseason. Roster size reduced to 15-player maximum. Last day to make sign-and-trade transactions, and last day to waive non-guaranteed summer contracts.
- 31: Last day rookie scale contracts can be extended, and last day option years on rookie contracts for the 2013/14 season can be exercised.
Larry Coon's Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.
It's hard to know exactly what's at stake in Wednesday's NBA draft lottery, when the order for the June 28th draft will be finalized. Anthony Davis is the clear frontrunner for the No. 1 pick, but after that, it gets murky. Beyond speculation on who gets picked when and by whom, there's really no telling how any of the draft prospects will turn out once they become pros. The history of the draft is full of stories about "can't miss" phenoms who never fulfilled their ballyhooed potential. Still, history can tell us a little about the relative likelihood of draftees becoming productive NBA players.
Below is the average career PER for players taken with each of the top 14 picks since 2003, when the lottery expanded to 14 teams. PER, or player efficiency rating, is a catch-all metric developed by John Hollinger of ESPN.com to provide a concise per-minute assessment of a player's performance, as Basketball-Reference explains. Like any single statistic, it's not infallible, and overrates some players who don't see much time on the floor. That's one reason why, for instance, Mouhamed Sene and J.J. Redick have the same career per of 13.5. Still, it's interesting to see what it says about a group of draft picks over time.
Most striking is the difference between the average PER for a No. 1 pick and every other position in the lottery. The 20.1 PER for recent No. 1 picks is 32% higher than that of No. 2 picks, and 23% higher than the 16.3 PER for No. 4 picks, the next best average. So, that's one more reason teams will be rooting hard to move into the top position Wednesday. The rest of the top 10 is bunched up, with another drop from there. Here are the numbers:
1st: 20.1
2nd: 15.2
3rd: 15.7
4th: 16.3
5th: 15.3
6th: 13.6
7th: 15.0
8th: 13.0
9th: 14.8
10th: 14.2
11th: 11.6
12th: 11.9
13th: 12.7
14th: 12.6
Note: We've assigned zeroes for 2011 No. 5 pick Jonas Valanciunas and 2005 No. 11 pick Fran Vasquez, who've yet to play in the NBA. If Valanciunas is left out of calculations, the average PER for the No. 5 pick is 17.2, and without Vasquez, the PER for No. 11 picks jumps to 13.0.