The NBA’s Board of Governors, a group comprising all 30 team owners and league commissioner Adam Silver, has green-lit a deal to remove the 50-game cap on players signed to two-way contracts, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. The Board of Governors will also now let those players join their clubs’ playoff rosters.
Last week, we relayed that the league planned to loosen the restrictions for players on two-way contracts, but was still holding for official ratification from the Board of Governors.
[RELATED: 2020/21 NBA Two-Way Contract Tracker]
Charania adds (via Twitter) that, as was initially reported last week, two-way players who take the floor for their NBA teams for more than the initially-allotted 50 games would get a raise, from their current $449,155 annual rate (half of the rookie minimum) to the league minimum that correlates with their total years logged in the NBA, which can be tracked here.
With several teams facing daunting second-half season schedules and new COVID-19 cases still impacting roster availability, this move will hopefully help teams avoid missing too many scheduled contests during the home stretch of this unique 2020/21 season.
This will help the lower end two way players, but will hurt the breakout guys. In a normal year those breakout would get bumped to the main roster and get higher salaries, but now there would be no reason for a team to promote a two way guy at all. Of course it will help the guys that are good, but not quite good enough yet. Those guys would generally be cut once their games limit was reached.
So good side and bad side to the decision.
Won’t players who don’t get their 2-way contract converted into a standard contract have the opportunity to sign with anyone during free agency?
Unless their 2-way contract extends into next season I guess.
They would be restricted FAs unless they are in their first year, then the two way deal would extend to next year.