December 15 was a key date this year on the NBA calendar for two reasons. It represented the deadline for either the NBA and the players’ union to opt out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, but that date was ultimately pushed back after the two sides reached a tentative agreement on a new CBA on Wednesday night. The league and the NBPA will now have until January 13 to ratify the new CBA.
Today is still important for a second reason though — it represents the date that more than a quarter of the players in the NBA become eligible to be traded by their respective teams. By our count, 124 players who signed contracts during the offseason fall into this group. Cap expert Albert Nahmad (Twitter link) has the same figure, while The Vertical’s cap guru Bobby Marks (Twitter link) says there are 125. Either way, a significant chunk of the NBA’s players can now be dealt.
The NBA’s rules call for recently-signed players to become trade-eligible three months after they finalized their deals, or on December 15, whichever comes later. That means that players who signed their contracts after September 15 still can’t be traded. There are also certain rules that restrict some players who meet specific criteria from being dealt in January 15. For the most part though, December 15 is the date on which NBA trade season unofficially opens.
[RELATED: Players who become trade-eligible on January 15]
[RELATED: Other players who can’t be traded until specific dates]
Of course, just because teams have more options for trades now, that doesn’t mean we’ll see a flurry of moves right away. As Marks writes at The Vertical, clubs typically know that an offer on the table now will still be available to them in a month or two. And many teams aren’t ready to shake things up.
Still, in the past couple years, teams have been somewhat active in the days following December 15. In 2014 and 2015, four total trades were consummated between December 15 and Christmas Day, including the Mavericks acquiring Rajon Rondo from the Celtics on December 18, 2014. In each season, only one in-season trade has been finalized prior to December 15.
[RELATED: 2014/15 NBA Trades]
[RELATED: 2015/16 NBA Trades]
Not every team will be impacted significantly by today’s newly trade-eligible group. The Thunder, for instance, have no players affected, since none of their offseason free agent signees remain with the club. On the other hand, a team like Miami will see more than half of its players become eligible to be dealt, substantially increasing the club’s trade opportunities.
We’ve previously broken down the full list of players who will become eligible today, but we’ll pass along those names once more, right here:
Atlanta Hawks
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Charlotte Hornets
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Detroit Pistons
Golden State Warriors
Houston Rockets
Indiana Pacers
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Lakers
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
- Wayne Ellington
- Udonis Haslem
- James Johnson
- Rodney McGruder
- Willie Reed
- Dion Waiters
- Hassan Whiteside
- Derrick Williams
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
New Orleans Pelicans
New York Knicks
- Ron Baker
- Brandon Jennings
- Mindaugas Kuzminskas
- Courtney Lee
- Maurice Ndour
- Joakim Noah
- Marshall Plumlee
- Sasha Vujacic
Oklahoma City Thunder
- None