More Details On New CBA

Several interesting details for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the NBPA have emerged on Monday.

Sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link) that players on two-way contracts will have the ability to negotiate with teams to guarantee half of their salaries on the first day of the regular season. Currently, two-way players are on mostly non-guaranteed contracts worth half the minimum salary — a little over $500K for a rookie.

According to Charania, players who sign Exhibit 10 training camp deals will be getting a significant increase in bonus pay. Those players are currently eligible for a bonus worth up to $50K if they’re waived before the regular season starts and spend at least 60 days with a team’s G League affiliate — in the new CBA, that bonus is worth $75K. As Charania notes, that change will impact roughly 60% of players in the NBA G League.

Charania provides additional context (Twitter links) to a few previously reported items as well. The room mid-level exception, which is increasing in value by 30% beyond its standard rise, will now cover three years instead of two.

The contract value of the new second-round pick exception can be worth up to the equivalent of the minimum for a third-year player — that would be $1,836,090 for 2022/23, whereas a rookie minimum is worth $1,017,781. The new exception can be used to sign contracts that cover up to four years.

[RELATED: Running List Of Changes In NBA’s New Collective Bargaining Agreement]

Finally, for players to be eligible for end-of-season awards, it was previously reported that they would have to log at least 20 minutes in at least 63 games for them to count toward the minimum of 65 games played. They would be permitted to play between 15-20 minutes in two games and still have them count toward the minimum of 65. According to Charania, there are also protections against season-ending injuries (62-game minimum instead of 65), and unspecified “bad faith circumstances.”

Here are some more CBA updates:

• Starting in 2024/25, teams below the salary cap floor — currently 90% of the cap — on the first day of the regular season will not receive a tax distribution from the league’s taxpaying teams, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link). This is a pretty huge change, as it is penalizing teams with excess cap room, not just taxpayers. The Spurs and Pacers would have missed out on an estimated $15.2MM tax distribution payment this season if the new rule had been in effect, Marks notes.
• In the current CBA, if a player declines a player option in conjunction with a new contract extension, the first year of an extension has to at least match the declined option. For example, Bogdan Bogdanovic signed a four-year extension and the first year was required to match his declined $18MM option for 2023/24. However, sources tell ESPN’s Zach Lowe (Twitter link) that players will be able to decline their options and sign extensions starting with a first-year value below the declined option in the new CBA, giving both teams and players a little more negotiating flexibility.
• In a current simultaneous trade, a taxpaying team can take back 125% of the outgoing salary, plus $100K. Starting in 2023/24, that will be reduced to 110% for teams over either the first or the second tax apron, and in ’24/25, that will be cut back to 100%, Marks tweets. As an example, the Kevin Durant trade from February would not have been permitted under the new changes.
• It was previously reported that teams over the second tax apron would be unable to trade their first-round pick seven years in the future. According to Tim Bontemps and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter links), if those teams continue to exceed the second apron twice in the following four years, their draft pick will fall to the end of the first round. However, if the teams are under the second apron in three of the next four years, the first-round pick becomes “unfrozen” and able to be traded, sources tell Bontemps and Marks. The rule will start in ’24/25, Bontemps adds.
• The new in-season tournament, which will award $500K to players on the winning team, will also include prize money for players on teams that make the quarterfinals ($50K per player on losing teams), semifinals ($100K per player on losing teams), and lose in the finals ($200K per player), report Wojnarowski and Marks (Twitter link).
• Eric Pincus of Sports Business Classroom hears there will be a limit on how many players on minimum contracts can be aggregated in trades, though he doesn’t specify details (Twitter links). Pincus adds that the change will only apply to the offseason and before most free agents become trade-eligible on December 15.