In their latest Collective Bargaining Agreement, which went into effect in 2017, the NBA and NBPA relaxed the rules for veteran contract extensions and introduced the “super-max” extension. The changes made it easier for players to qualify for extensions and ensured that many of those players wouldn’t necessarily earn more money if they waited for free agency.
As a result, the number of veteran stars agreeing to extensions prior to free agency has increased in recent years. Already this offseason, for instance, 10 players have finalized veteran extensions, and many of those players – including Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Joel Embiid – are among the NBA’s biggest stars.
Under the previous CBA, there was little incentive for most veteran stars to get a deal done early. For instance, as Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) writes, after Durant won his MVP award in 2014, the Thunder could’ve only offered him a two-year, $44.9MM extension. If the current rules had been in place, a four-year, $139MM offer would’ve been possible. Or Durant could’ve signed a five-year, $178MM extension with Oklahoma City a year later.
While we don’t know if Durant would’ve accepted such an offer, we do know that opting for free agency was, at the time, the only viable path for him if he wanted to maximize his earnings. That opened the door for him to leave Oklahoma City for Golden State as a free agent.
“The extension rules have been a game changer to teams,” an Eastern Conference GM told Marks. “At least we are not caught off guard now if a player does not want to stay.”
As Marks details, players have become more inclined to lock in their lucrative long-term contracts early, knowing that if they do eventually want a change of scenery, there are ways to put pressure on the team to try to make that happen. Ben Simmons is currently pushing the Sixers to trade him with four years left on his contract, while it looked briefly this summer like Damian Lillard – who has four years left on his deal with the Trail Blazers – might take the same path.
“I always tell my client to take the money now in an extension and worry about the future later,” one agent said to ESPN. “We can always force a trade later and it would be reckless giving up guaranteed money now.”
With stars increasingly more likely to agree to extensions, we’ve seen fewer big names change teams as free agents as of late. In 2020, Gordon Hayward – coming off an injury-plagued stint in Boston – was the biggest star to join a new team as a free agent. This offseason, that honor may belong to 35-year-old point guard Kyle Lowry. And the list of free agents for 2022 isn’t exactly loaded with star power — James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, and Zach LaVine are the most noteworthy names, but Harden and Irving seem likely to agree to extensions this fall, and it’s possible Beal will too.
It wasn’t long ago that teams deliberately hoarded cap space in the hopes of making a run at star free agents, but that approach hasn’t really paid dividends during the last couple summers and is perhaps falling out of fashion.
“You are naive to think that the best way to build your roster is through free agency and not the draft and trades,” a Western Conference GM told Marks. “Preserving cap space and waiting for that next great player to become available will get you fired.”
As Marks notes, it remains to be seen whether this is a short-term trend or a sign of things to come, especially since we don’t know how certain rules could be tweaked in the next CBA. Still, given how many of 2022’s potential star free agents have already come off the board and how few teams project to have significant cap space next offseason, it doesn’t look like this trend will reverse in the immediate future.
They sign extensions then demand a trade. Same results, different language.
My thoughts exactly
Forcing a trade has nothing to do with the new contract rules. Stop posting.
Are you disagreeing with the article?— or you just did not bother reading it before commenting.
“Contract rules has REDUCED star player movement.” Forget players forcing trades
Hawks/Ressler made a point of getting rid of their rolling capspace kind of senselessly, and were rewarded with a final4, so the trend got support even if no extensions were involved.
Since this “sign-extension-now-force-trade-later” is the new normal, penalties for “agitated-early-termination” should be instituted.
Also, since both are things, they should have names besides force-out.
Perhaps all extensions should have early termination option by player included at least at the halfway mark, since they seem to be 4-year contracts. Whatever, the player should have to decide early in the offseason, so the decision doesn’t get drawn out and used for leverage.
All I will say is that I really like it when a player wants to be traded, any player has the right to be traded at any point, specially if the team doesn’t wanna trade him…
Otherwise it isn’t right that teams can trade players whenever, even when they don’t wanna be traded, if teams can get rid of a player whenever they want, players must have the right to get rid of a team whenever they want, as well!
So nothing wrong in players forcing their way out, it is within their right, hence why they do it, & if it comes to that is because teams haven’t played ball with it, so players must try to lessen their value so teams get the worst possible package for them, that way they might learn the lesson, if a guy wants out, open the door & let him go, it is the best option for the team, always, right?
@ElDon
You have absolutely no idea what the contract between player and team stands for. The team is securing the yearly RIGHTS for a given term of that players career. If they sign a 5 year deal then that team can dictate where that player plays. And guess what, if the latter gets injured or performance decreases the player still gets 100% of their guaranteed money. So no, it’s not fair to demand a trade when you’re under contract. And it’s not as simple as letting them go. The rules dictate that a team must take back an equal amount of salary. Almost never is it for a player or players of equal talent. Let’s change the rule. No salary matching needed. The player can be traded but they lose that extra year IF they signed that max contract their home team gives them
Top 10 superstars need only one thing
discipline
If they disrespect anybody, teams can discipline them
Just like the Sixers can discipline Ben Simmons during his holdout?
Elite (max level) players may not get to FA status as much as they did, but (in reality) they’ve rarely moved teams in FA once getting there. Most were fake FAs, who quickly and predictably re-upped with their existing teams at full insider price. Now most of those guys don’t have to wait and go through the formality of being a FA. Should provide more clarity and fewer fake FAs. If you look at the few signings of max FAs by a new team over the past 10 years, I think almost all of those guys would still move via FA in the same way under the current rules. LBJ and Durant, combined, accounted for more than half of those signings, btw, and the rest were mostly borderline max guys that few teams would reserve max money slots.
I like exciting free agent classes.
I still remember being a kid on vacation when the car radio said the Lakers signed Shaq.
I know small markets hate it but those same fans also hate when players demand a trade.
Maybe not allowing big extensions will prevent agents from telling players “we can always force a trade later”.