Salaries For 10-Day Contracts In 2020/21

When a team signs a player to a 10-day contract, it can theoretically use cap room or an exception to pay him more than the minimum salary. However, in practice, that essentially never happens — virtually every player that signs a 10-day deal receives a prorated portion of the minimum salary.

The minimum salary in a given season differs from player to player, based on his years of NBA experience entering the season. For instance, in 2020/21, a rookie on a full-season minimum deal will earn $898,310, whereas a 10-year veteran who is earning the minimum will make $2,564,753.

[RELATED: NBA Minimum Salaries For 2020/21]

The same is true for 10-day deals. A rookie will earn significantly less over the course of his 10 days with a team than a tenured NBA veteran will.

Because the 2020/21 season is 146 days long, a player’s full-season minimum salary can be divided by 146 to calculate his daily salary. From there, it’s just a matter of multiplying by 10 to determine his salary on a 10-day contract.

Using that formula, here’s the full breakdown of what salaries for 10-day deals look like in ’20/21:

Because the NBA doesn’t want teams to avoid signing veteran players in favor of cheaper, younger options, the league reimburses clubs who sign veterans with three or more years of experience to 10-day, minimum-salary contracts.

Those deals will only count against the cap – and against a team’s bank balance – for $110,998, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience. So a player with three years under his belt would have the same cap charge as a player with 12 years of NBA experience.

Here are a few examples based on 10-day deals that are currently active: