DECEMBER 5, 12:58pm: Stein has followed up on his earlier report on rookie extensions (noted below), tweeting today that he’s now hearing the timeline for those extensions are expected to remain unchanged in the new CBA — players on rookie contracts will likely still be eligible for new deals after their third season, rather than after their second season, according to Stein.
DECEMBER 3, 6:09pm: The NBA remains on track to announce its agreement with the National Basketball Players Association between now and December 15, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports. That is the final date in which either side can opt out of the current CBA and commissioner Adam Silver has maintained that it always was the “real” deadline for a new deal.
Stein hears that the new agreement will feature several changes. It’s likely that the start of 2017/18 season will be moved up somewhere between 7-10 days in order to help reduce the number of back-to-backs teams face over the course of the year. The preseason is likely to be shortened with each team playing in a max of five or six exhibition games, which is down from the current eight game max. Opening night could then fall as early as mid-October.
Another looming change, according to Stein, is that the new deal will allow teams to sign first-round picks to extensions after the second year of their rookie deals. Currently, players are eligible for an extension after year three.
“One of the things we’re talking about, without being too specific in bargaining right now, is coming up with some additional opportunities for the incumbent team to retain the player, some advantages in terms of being able to negotiate earlier to extend the contract,” Silver recently said.
“I think if we ‘early up’ some of those opportunities, at least teams will be in a better position to know, one, whether they can keep that player. And if they can’t, there will be more of an opportunity to deal that player and get value for that player if it seems likely that player is going to leave.”
If this provision were to exist in the new agreement, then members of the 2015 draft class, such as Karl-Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingis, would be eligible for extensions this summer.