Friday is the first day this season that an NBA team can sign a player to a standard 10-day contract. As we explained earlier this week in a glossary entry, a 10-day deal allows a club to temporarily add a player to its 15-man roster without any commitments beyond those 10 days.
Under the league’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement, all 10-day contracts are worth a player’s minimum salary. The minimum salary in a given season differs from player to player, based on his years of NBA service entering the season. For instance, in 2023/24, a rookie on a full-season minimum deal will earn $1,119,563, whereas a 10-year veteran who is earning the minimum will make $3,196,448.
[RELATED: NBA Minimum Salaries For 2023/24]
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 2023/24 regular season is 174 days long, a player’s full-season minimum salary can be divided by 174 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 ’23/24:
| Years in NBA | Salary |
|---|---|
| 0 | $64,343 |
| 1 | $103,550 |
| 2 | $116,075 |
| 3 | $120,250 |
| 4 | $124,425 |
| 5 | $134,863 |
| 6 | $145,301 |
| 7 | $155,738 |
| 8 | $166,176 |
| 9 | $167,004 |
| 10+ | $183,704 |
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 service to 10-day, minimum-salary contracts.
In those instances, teams are on the hook for $116,075, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience, while the NBA covers the difference. So a team would pay the same amount ($116,075) whether they sign a player with three years under his belt or a player with 12 years of NBA experience.