The 2021/22 NBA season has already been a record-setting one for 10-day signings, but all of the 10-day deals completed prior to today have required a hardship exception. In order to sign a player to a 10-day contract, a team has needed to have either a player in the health and safety protocols or at least four players affected by longer-term injuries.
As of today, January 5, NBA teams can begin signing free agents to standard 10-day contracts without requiring a hardship exception to do so. A 10-day contract allows a team to add a player to its roster for either 10 days or three games (whichever occurs later) without any commitment beyond that.
The differences between standard and hardship 10-day deals are as follows:
- A player can only sign up to two standard 10-day contracts with the same team in a single season — after those two deals, the team must decide whether to sign him to a rest-of-season contract or part ways with him. However, a player can sign more than two hardship 10-day deals with the same team, as Davon Reed has done with the Nuggets.
- A team must have a spot available on its 15-man roster in order to add a player on a standard 10-day contract. But when a team is granted a hardship exception to complete a 10-day signing, it’s also granted an extra roster spot. At one point this season, for instance, the Hawks were carrying nine players on 10-day hardship deals in addition to their 15 players on standard contracts.
- A standard 10-day contract counts against team salary for cap and tax purposes, whereas a hardship 10-day deal does not.
For some teams, the 10-day contract provides an opportunity to take a flier on a young player to see if he deserves a longer-term look. Other clubs may utilize 10-day deals for short-term injury fill-ins, or simply to meet minimum roster requirements. The Jazz, for instance, only have 13 players on standard contracts after trading Miye Oni to Oklahoma City on Tuesday and must fill their 14th spot within the next two weeks.
As always, the NBA’s 10-day signing window will open during the same week that the league-wide salary guarantee deadline arrives. A team that wants to part ways with a player before his full-season salary becomes guaranteed must do so by January 7 so that he clears waivers before the league-wide salary guarantee date of January 10.
The start of the 10-day contract period and the salary guarantee deadline go hand in hand, since teams cutting players before their salaries become fully guaranteed will often sign players to 10-day contracts to fill those newly-opened roster spots — in some cases, the same player who was waived at the salary guarantee deadline returns to his team on a 10-day contract, as clubs looks to maximize their roster flexibility ahead of the trade deadline.
Since Christmas Day, Brad Wanamaker, Wayne Selden, Denzel Valentine, and Gabriel Deck have all been waived before their 2021/22 salaries could become fully guaranteed. The Thunder will also reportedly cut Oni after acquiring him from Utah. The rest of the players without fully guaranteed contracts can be found right here — many should be safe, but there will likely be at least a few more released by Friday evening.
As for which teams might be the best candidates to sign a player to a standard 10-day contract, there are currently eight clubs with at least one open 15-man roster spot. The Knicks, who are one of those teams, could be the first to complete a standard 10-day signing — they tried to add Ryan Arcidiacono earlier this week on a 10-day hardship contract, but had that deal voided because they no longer qualified for a hardship exception. Arcidiacono is still expected to join the team on a standard 10-day pact.