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Biannual Exception

May 27th, 2014 at 2:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

The most common method over-the-cap teams use to sign free agents from other teams is the mid-level exception, but it’s not the only tool those clubs can use to squeeze an extra player onto the payroll. The biannual exception is a way to sign a player who commands more than the minimum salary and less than the mid-level.

As its name suggests, the biannual exception can only be used every other year. Even if a team uses only a portion of the exception, it becomes unavailable the following year.

The biannual exception is available only to limited number of clubs, even among those that didn’t use the biannual the season before. Teams with player salaries, cap holds and cap exceptions that add up to less than the salary cap lose their biannual exception, as well as their full mid-level exception and any trade exceptions. They must use their cap room to sign players. Additionally, teams lose access to the biannual exception when they go more than $4MM over the tax threshold, exceeding what’s known as the tax apron. So, only teams over the cap but under the tax apron can use the biannual exception.

If a team uses all or part of the biannual exception, it triggers a hard cap for that season. Clubs that sign a player using the biannual can’t go over the tax apron at any time during the season in which the contract is signed.

The biannual exception provides for a starting salary of $2.077MM in 2014/15. That’s approximately 3% greater than the starting salary in a biannual deal this past season, and the figure will continue to rise by about 3% each year under the collective bargaining agreement. A biannual contract can be for either one or two seasons, with a raise of 4.5% for the second season. Teams also have the option of splitting the exception among multiple players. The bi-annual exception becomes pro-rated starting on January 10th, so it’s rarely used for late-season signees.

Five teams used the biannual exception in 2013/14, the most since 2009/10, as I noted last summer. Those five — the Nuggets, Wizards, Timberwolves, Warriors and Pacers — are ineligible to sign a player via the biannual in 2014/15. That’s true for Golden State even though Jermaine O’Neal only signed a one-year contract, for Denver even if Nate Robinson opts out, and for Washington even though the team traded Eric Maynor.

Previous versions of this post appeared on April 23rd, 2012 (by Luke Adams) and May 1st, 2013.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Maximum Salary

May 12th, 2014 at 1:41pm CST by Chuck Myron

Superstars like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are often referred to as “maximum-salary players” as they approach free agency, since they’re likely to command the most lucrative contract offers possible when they hit the market. That holds regardless of whether they’re making less than the max on their current deals, as in the case of James, or have suggested they’ll take less when they next sign, as Anthony has. The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement limits players to salaries based on a percentage of the salary cap, but the maximum varies from player to player. That helps explain why Anthony could sign at a discount this summer and still make a higher salary than James, even if the four-time MVP ends up with the max.

If a player has been in the NBA for six years or fewer, he can earn up to 25% of the salary cap in the first year of his deal. Players with seven to nine years of experience can earn up to 30%, while veterans with 10 or more years in the NBA are eligible for up to 35% of the cap.

Those percentages are somewhat deceiving, since the NBA uses factors to determine the maximum salary that are slightly different than what goes into calculating the salary cap. That’s why James Harden made $13,701,250 on his max deal in 2013/14 rather than $14,669,750, which is 25% of the $58.679MM salary cap for 2013/14. For players eligible for the 30% max in 2013/14, their top salary was $16,441,500, and the 35% max was $19,181,750. These figures will fluctuate from year to year, depending on the league’s projected Basketball Related Income for a given season.

There are a number of exceptions to the maximum salary, as follows:

The maximum salary only applies to the first year of a multiyear contract. For example, if Eric Bledsoe were to sign a maximum-salary deal this summer, he would be subject to the maximum salary for the first season, with either 7.5% or 4.5% raises, depending on whether he signs with the Suns or another team. So by the third or fourth year of his contract, he could be earning significantly more than the max.
A free agent’s maximum salary is always at least 105% of his previous salary. For instance, Anthony’s 2013/14 salary was $21,388,954. He is eligible to sign a new contract that will allow him to earn a maximum of $22,458,402 — 105% of his prior salary. That’s why he could take slightly less and still earn more than James, whose salary in 2013/14 was $19,067,500.
A first-round pick coming off his four-year rookie scale contract is eligible for a maximum-salary contract extension worth 30% of the cap (rather than 25%) if he meets one of the Derrick Rose Rule criteria. That entails winning an MVP award, being voted an All-Star Game starter at least twice, or being named to an All-NBA team at least twice.

There were 16 players who were either playing on some form of max deal or had signed max extensions when I examined the league’s maximum-salary players in August. Those ranks have since swollen to 18 with the additions of Paul George and DeMarcus Cousins, who inked max extensions. The list demonstrates the many caveats and variations involved with max contracts, which ranged in value from slightly more than $57.5MM to nearly $123.7MM in 2013/14. Simply put, it’s difficult to define the NBA’s maximum salary in a broader sense, since it applies to individual players and not the league as a whole.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

A version of this post, written by Luke Adams, was initially published on May 8th, 2012.

Mid-Level Exception

May 11th, 2014 at 3:41pm CST by Chuck Myron

The mid-level exception is the most common way for NBA teams that are over the salary cap to sign free agents from other clubs. Teams can make use of the mid-level every season, and they can split it among multiple players. Different mid-level exceptions apply based on a team’s proximity to the cap.

The most valuable kind of mid-level exception is available to teams that are over the cap but less than $4MM above the tax threshold. Still, clubs deep into the tax, and even those under the cap, have access to less lucrative versions of the mid-level. Here’s a glance at how all three forms of the exception are structured:

For teams with cap room:

Called the mini mid-level, or the room exception
Maximum two-year contract
Maximum 4.5% annual raises
First-year salary is worth $2,732,000 for 2014/15

For over-the cap teams:

Called the full mid-level, or the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception
Maximum four-year contract
Maximum 4.5% annual raises
First-year salary is worth $5,305,000 for 2014/15
Once used, the team cannot surpass the “tax apron” ($4MM above tax line) for the remainder of the season.

For taxpaying teams:

Called the mini mid-level, or the taxpayer’s mid-level exception
Maximum three-year contract
Maximum 4.5% annual raises
First-year salary is worth $3,278,000 for 2014/15.

The value of the starting salary in each exception increases by about 3% each season under the current collective bargaining agreement. Here’s the maximum contract a free agent could receive this summer using each of these three forms of mid-level exception:

Room Exception

2014/15: $2,732,000
2015/16: $2,854,940
Total: $5,586,940

Non-Taxpayer’s MLE

$5,305,000
$5,543,725
$5,782,450
$6,021,175
Total: $22,652,350

Taxpayer’s MLE:

$3,278,000
$3,425,510
$3,573,020
$10,276,530

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Versions of this post, written by Luke Adams, were initially published on April 24th, 2012 and May 10th, 2013.

Cap Holds

May 1st, 2014 at 1:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers have committed only about $34.1MM in guaranteed money to player salaries for 2014/15, but that doesn’t mean the team will have nearly $30MM to spend on free agents. Each of the Lakers’ own free agents will be assigned a free agent amount or “cap hold” until the player signs a new contract or the Lakers renounce his rights.

The following criteria are used for determining the amount of a free agent’s cap hold:

First-round pick coming off rookie contract: 250% of previous salary if prior salary was below league average; 200% of previous salary if prior salary was above league average
Bird player: 190% of previous salary (if below average) or 150% (if above average)
Early Bird player: 130% of previous salary
Non-Bird player: 120% of previous salary
Minimum-salary player: Two-year veteran’s minimum salary, unless the free agent only has one year of experience, in which case it’s the one-year veteran’s minimum.

A cap hold for a restricted free agent can vary based on his contract status. A restricted free agent’s cap hold is either his free agent amount as determined by the criteria mentioned above, or the amount of his qualifying offer, whichever is greater. Kent Bazemore and Ryan Kelly are set for restricted free agency this summer. Both earned the minimum salary this year, so if they were unrestricted free agents, their cap holds would only be worth next year’s minimum. Their status as restricted free agents bumps their cap holds to the amount of their qualifying offers — $1,115,243 and $1,016,482, respectively. The Lakers can knock their cap holds down to the minimum if they elect not to tender qualifying offers to them, making them unrestricted free agents.

No cap hold can exceed the maximum salary for which a player can sign. That’s why Pau Gasol‘s cap hold will be less than 150% of his salary this season even though the Lakers hold his Bird rights. Gasol made slightly more than the maximum salary for a veteran of 10 or more years this past season. There’s a decent chance that the maximum salary for 2014/15 could be higher than $20,250,143, which is 105% of what Gasol makes now, but it certainly won’t go high enough to allow for a cap hold worth 150% of Gasol’s pay from this season.

The Lakers have an even more unusual case in MarShon Brooks, who was traded twice this season. They have his Bird rights, but the Celtics declined the fourth year team option on his rookie scale contract before the season, so the Lakers can’t pay him more than what he would have made in the option year. That rule is in place so a team can’t circumvent the rookie scale and decline its option so it can give the player a higher salary, and it applies even if the player is traded after the option is declined, as in the case of Brooks. The Lakers faced a similar dilemma with Jordan Hill two years ago. In these cases, the cap hold is equal to the amount of the fourth-year team option.

If a team holds the rights to fewer than 12 players, cap holds worth the minimum rookie salary ($507,336) are assigned to fill out the roster. So, if Nick Young opts out of his contract and the Lakers choose to renounce their rights to all of their free agents and players on non-guaranteed contracts, the team would have three players and about $34.1MM left under contract. However, nine holds worth $507,336 would be added to the team’s cap, reducing its total cap space by about $4.6MM.

Cap holds aren’t removed from a team’s books until the player signs a new contract or has his rights renounced by the club. For instance, since John Salley never signed elsewhere after reaching free agency after the 1999/00 season, and the Lakers have never renounced him, the Lakers still have a minimum salary hold for Salley on their cap. It’s been so many years since the Lakers have gone under the cap that there’s been no reason for them to renounce their rights to players who retired long ago. Keeping those cap holds allowed the Lakers some degree of cushion to help them remain above the cap and take advantage of the mid-level exception and trade exceptions, among other advantages afforded cap teams. There’s a strong chance that Salley, Mitch Richmond, Brian Shaw, Karl Malone and others will disappear from the Lakers’ list of cap holds this summer with the team finally poised to open cap space.

The general purpose of a cap hold is to prevent teams from using room under the cap to sign free agents before using Bird rights to re-sign their own free agents. If a team wants to take advantage of its cap space, it can renounce its rights to its free agents, eliminating those cap holds. However, doing so means the team will no longer hold any form of Bird rights for those players — if the team wants to re-sign those free agents, it would have to use its cap room or another kind of cap exception.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

A Version of this post was initially published on May 1st, 2012, by Luke Adams.

Bird Rights

April 24th, 2014 at 11:16am CST by Chuck Myron

The Bird exception, named after Larry Bird, is a rule included in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that allows teams to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own players. A player who qualifies for the Bird exception, formally referred to as a Qualifying Veteran Free Agent, is said to have “Bird rights.”

The most basic way for a player to earn Bird rights is to play for the same team for at least three seasons, either on a multiyear deal or separate one-year contracts. Still, there are other, more complicated criteria. A player retains his Bird rights in the following scenarios:

He changes teams via trade, rather than being waived or signing elsewhere as a free agent. For instance, MarShon Brooks is in the third year of his contract. He has been traded three times, from the Nets to the Celtics, the Celtics to the Warriors and the Warriors to the Lakers, but he still has his Bird rights because he hasn’t been waived.
He finishes a third season with a team after having only played partial seasons with the club for one or both of the first two years (without signing elsewhere in between).

However, a player sees the clock on his Bird rights reset to zero in the following scenarios:

He changes teams via free agency.
He is selected in an expansion draft.
He is waived and is not claimed on waivers.
His rights are renounced by his team.

If a player has earned Bird rights, he is eligible to sign a maximum-salary contract for up to five years with 7.5% annual raises when he becomes a free agent. The maximum salary will vary depending on how long the player has been in the league, but regardless of the amount, a team can exceed the salary cap to complete the deal.

Although the Bird exception allows teams to exceed the cap, a team cannot necessarily use free cap room to sign free agents and then re-sign its own players via Bird rights. A team with a Bird free agent is assigned a “free agent amount” or cap hold worth either 190% of his previous salary (for a player with a below-average salary) or 150% of his previous salary (for an above-average salary), up to the maximum salary amount. For players coming off rookie scale contracts, the amounts of those cap holds are 250% and 200%, respectively.

The Mavericks, for instance, will have a $6.042MM cap hold for Vince Carter on their 2014/15 books — 190% of his $3.18MM salary this season. Dallas could renounce Carter and clear that $6.042MM in cap space, but the Mavs would lose his Bird rights if they did that. That would force them to use either cap room or a different cap exception to follow through on their plan to re-sign him.

Ultimately, the Bird exception was designed to allow teams to keep their best players. The CBA ensures that teams are always able to re-sign them to contracts up to the maximum salary, assuming the player is interested in returning and his team is willing to go over the cap.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Versions of this post were initially published on April 17th, 2012, and May 2, 2013 by Luke Adams.

Early Termination Options

March 11th, 2014 at 3:19pm CST by Chuck Myron

LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade are among the luminaries facing summer decisions about whether to exercise the early termination options in their contracts. Early termination options, or ETOs, are opportunities for players to free themselves from their contracts before they run to term, as the name suggests. They’re essentially player options, but with a few tweaks.

They were originally designed to give players a second chance to escape from their deals, since player options can only cover one season. That’s why James, Bosh and Wade all have early termination options for this summer and player options for 2015 as part of their contracts. The Heat stars signed under the previous collective bargaining agreement. The new CBA prevents deals from running longer than five seasons, and since early termination options may only be included in five-year pacts, contracts can no longer contain both an ETO and a player option.

That ETOs are only allowed in five-year deals also means that most of the players who hold ETOs are marquee names, since few others sign deals that cover five seasons. It also means that going forward, ETOs will be exclusively for free agents who re-sign with their teams via Bird rights, since there’s no other way to obtain a five-year contract in the new CBA.

ETOs allow teams and players slightly more room for negotiation than standard player options do, since the salary in a player option year can’t be any lower than in the previous season. There’s no such rule with an ETO, so players can have the contract front loaded, with an ETO season at a reduced salary around as insurance against an injury or decline in play. If the player is still performing at a high level after four seasons, he can exercise the early termination option and seek another lucrative contract. Teams may also benefit from this rule, similarly using the cheaper fifth season as protection against a drop-off in the player’s production. Still, no existing contract with an ETO is structured this way, in large measure because many of them are for the maximum salary, which precludes front-loading.

A player who signs a deal with a trade kicker stands to benefit if the contract also includes an early termination option. A trade kicker is a bonus that a player receives when he’s traded, and it’s usually equal to a percentage of the money remaining on the deal. Standard player option seasons don’t count toward trade kickers, but seasons covered by ETOs do.

There’s another difference between player options and ETOs that rarely comes into play. If a player opts out using a standard player option, he can still sign an extension before hitting free agency. That’s not the case with ETOs. Still, most players make formal decisions on these options not long before becoming free agents, leaving little time to negotiate extensions. Veteran extensions usually aren’t beneficial to players under the current collective bargaining agreement anyway, so there’s little incentive to choose a player option over an ETO just to gain more flexibility in signing an extension.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

10-Day Contracts

January 4th, 2014 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

Usually, teams can begin signing players to 10-day contracts on January 5th each year. Since tomorrow is a Sunday, the NBA will wait until Monday, the next business day, to renew the annual tradition of the ultimate on-the-job tryout in professional sports.

The 10-day contract has been the foot in the door for several players who’ve gone on to lengthy, successful NBA careers, like Anthony Mason, Bruce Bowen, Raja Bell, Kurt Rambis, Howard Eisley and several others. More recently, C.J. Watson saw his first NBA action on a pair of 10-day contracts with the Warriors in 2008, and he’s since blossomed into a premier backup point guard, having signed a two-year deal for about $4MM with the Pacers this past summer.

Ten-day deals also help veterans make comebacks. Chris Andersen languished in free agency for sixth months after the Nuggets used the amnesty clause to get rid of him, but a pair of 10-day contracts with the Heat kick-started a revival for the Birdman. He wound up signing for the rest of the season and played a key role on Miami’s championship team before landing much greater security with a two-year contract this past summer.

Similarly, former first-round pick Gerald Green had been out of the league for three years when he made a splash during his pair of 10-day deals with the Nets in 2011/12. That earned him a contract for the rest of the season, and he parlayed 12.9 points and 48.1% shooting in 25.2 minutes per game for the Nets into a three-year, $10.5MM contract with the Pacers the following summer.

Still, the 10-day is usually a fleeting glimpse at NBA life for players on pro basketball’s fringe. Only a fraction of last year’s 10-day signees remain in the league, as I noted earlier this season. Hunter Atkins of The New York Times followed another Nets player who signed a 10-day contract in 2011/12, chronicling Andre Emmett‘s brief return to the NBA. Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated took a similarly revealing look at the life of Zabian Dowdell as he tried to make the most of a 10-day with the Suns three years ago.

Teams can sign a player to as many as two 10-day contracts before committing to him for the rest of the season, or, as in many cases, turning him away. Clubs can terminate a 10-day contract at any time if they no longer want the player around. Ten-day deals are almost always for a pro-rated portion of the minimum salary, though agents and teams are free to negotiate the financial terms.

Usually, teams only have one player on a 10-day contract at a time, though they’re allowed to carry as many 10-day contracts as they have players on the inactive list. If a team has 13 players on the active list, it can carry one more 10-day contract than the number of inactive players it has, meaning a 15-man club could have as many as three guys on 10-day deals.

The 10-day salaries, however small, count for cap and luxury-tax purposes, so a team like the Celtics, who are perilously close to the tax threshold, may be wary of bringing anybody aboard by this method. Other teams may make liberal use of 10-day deals. The taxpaying Heat signed four players to a total of seven 10-day contracts, both NBA highs last season. The Mavericks came closest to matching that as they scrambled in vain in make the playoffs, inking four players to six 10-day deals.

Veterans who have recently been released from NBA teams, like Lou Amundson, Hilton Armstrong and Mike James, figure to draw consideration for 10-day contracts, as should notable players who’ve gone unsigned this season, like Richard Hamilton, Mickael Pietrus and Daniel Gibson. Recent D-League signees Terrence Williams, Von Wafer and Chris Smith could all see their way back to the NBA via 10-day contracts. NBA neophytes could merit 10-day deals, too, and many of them will be showing off to scouts at the five-day D-League showcase starting Sunday.

All season long, you can keep tabs on 10-day signings with the Hoops Rumors tracker. If you click “Filter,” you’ll see a menu of options that can display customized lists of 10-day signings dating back to the 2006/07 season.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

A version of this post was initially published on January 5th, 2013.

Categories:
Hoops Rumors Glossary

Trade Kickers

December 1st, 2013 at 12:58pm CST by Chuck Myron

The collective bargaining agreement limits the flexibility teams have to sweeten their offers to free agents. Trade kickers are one of the few tools that clubs have at their disposal, and they’re often written into contracts. Formally known as trade bonuses, they represent extra cash that players receive in case their teams trade them.

One rule regarding trade kickers changed in the 2011 CBA. For contracts signed since the new CBA took effect, the bonus must be paid by the team that trades the player, rather than the acquiring team. Sometimes the kicker is a fixed amount, but usually it’s based on a percentage of the remaining value of the contract. So, a player who has a 10% trade kicker is given 10% of the amount of money he’s yet to collect on his deal.

The value of a trade kicker declines each passing day during the season, since the amount the player gets for the current year of his deal is prorated. In a hypothetical scenario, let’s say the Cavaliers trade Anderson Varejao today. There are 137 days left in the 170-day season, including today. The commensurate amount left on Varejao’s $9,036,364 salary this year is $7,282,246. Added to the $4MM in guaranteed salary he’s set to make next season, Varejao’s 5% trade kicker would net him an extra $564,112.

Regardless of whether the trade kicker is set at a fixed amount or a percentage, the bonus can’t exceed 15% of the remaining value of the contract. That means that if a set amount of $1MM would equal more than 15% of what the player is owed, the kicker would pay out less than $1MM in the event of a trade.

Trade kickers don’t do much to help the most well-compensated players. The bonus can’t push a player’s salary above the maximum salary, even if the player is already making more than the max. Pau Gasol has a 15% kicker in his deal, but his $19,285,850 salary this season is already more than the $19,181,750 maximum for a player with 10 or more years of experience, as he has. That means the trade kicker is void, and Gasol wouldn’t receive any extra money if the Lakers dealt him away.

Similarly, players on rookie-scale contracts can’t make more than 120% of the scale amount, so if a first-round pick negotiates a trade kicker into his rookie deal, he can’t wind up making more than 120% of the value assigned to his draft slot. This rarely happens, though, since first-round picks generally wind up with contracts worth 120% of the slot value anyway.

The amount of the kicker that’s applied to a team’s cap is spread out equally over the remaining years of the contract. So, if a player with two seasons left on his deal were due a kicker worth $1M, the team obligated to pay it would take a cap hit worth $500K in both of those seasons, regardless of whether the player’s salary is different in each of the two years left on the deal.

However, if a player has years on the deal that are partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed, the cap hit is apportioned based on the guaranteed money in the deal, excluding all option years. So, if a two-year contract is fully guaranteed this year and 50% guaranteed next season, two-thirds of the kicker would apply to this year’s cap and one-third of it would be on next year’s cap. If the contract is non-guaranteed next season, the entire trade kicker would hit this year’s cap.

Other notes on trade kickers:

Player and team option years don’t count toward the value of a kicker, unless the option has already been exercised.
Years following early-termination options do count toward how much the player receives via the kicker, even though they don’t count toward the team’s cap hit.
Incentive clauses don’t figure into the value of a kicker, which is calculated using a player’s base compensation only.
Players may waive any amount up to the full value of the trade kicker to facilitate a swap, if they wish. However, players can’t change the amount of their trade kickers to allow a deal that would otherwise put a hard-capped team over the tax apron, even if everyone involved in the deal wants that to happen. Such a trade is simply illegal.
For salary-matching purposes in trades, the kicker counts for the team absorbing the player, but not for the team that trades him away.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

This post was initially published on December 9th, 2012.

Categories:
Hoops Rumors Glossary

D-League Assignments

November 2nd, 2013 at 10:34am CST by Chuck Myron

D-League teams stocked their rosters through last night’s draft, and soon NBA teams will be adding more players to D-League lineups. Last year, rules were adjusted to allow NBA clubs to make an unlimited number of D-League assignments, and they took full advantage, as our lengthy list of 2012/13 assignments and recalls shows. The same rules are in place again this year, so once the D-League season gets underway, rare will be the day when players aren’t being shuttled back and forth between the NBA and its junior circuit.

The players that NBA teams assign to the D-League aren’t quite like other D-Leaguers. NBA players receive their full salaries while on D-League assignment, whereas the D-Leaguers without an NBA contract receive paltry annual earnings that topped out at around $26K last season. Still, a D-League assignment could wind up costing an NBA player, since performance in the D-League doesn’t count toward any incentive clauses built into an NBA contract. So, for instance, say Anderson Varejao is injured at some point this season, and he plays a few rehab games with Cleveland’s D-League affiliate, the Canton Charge. None of the numbers Varejao might put up in Canton would count toward the $250K in performance incentives built into his deal with the Cavs.

Of course, Varejao would be a rare case as a long-tenured NBA player on a D-League assignment. Most NBA players in the D-League have fewer than three years of experience. That’s in part because NBA teams want to give their young players some extra seasoning, as the “D” in D-League stands for development, after all. Yet players in their first, second or third NBA seasons are the only ones NBA teams can unilaterally send down to the D-League. Otherwise, they must get the consent of the union as well as the player. Still, it’s not uncommon for a team to send a veteran player to practice with its D-League affiliate without making the formal assignment necessary for the player to appear in a D-League game.

Once a player has been assigned to the D-League, he can remain there indefinitely. He may also return to the NBA team the very next day only to once more find himself in the D-League hours later. That’s what happened multiple times for a few Thunder players last season, as Oklahoma City made frequent use of its one-to-one affiliation with the nearby Tulsa 66ers. The Thunder are one of 14 NBA teams that either owns a D-League team outright or operates the affiliate’s basketball operations in a “hybrid” partnership with a local ownership group. Teams that have these arrangements can set up a unified system in which the D-League club runs the same offensive and defensive schemes and coaches dole out playing time based on what’s best for the parent club. That gives these NBA teams an advantage, so it’s no surprise that a growing number of them are striking up one-to-one affiliations — last year, only 11 teams had such an arrangement.

That leaves the other 16 NBA teams to share just three D-League squads, which will make for a tight squeeze. D-League teams are allowed to expand their rosters to accept players on assignment from their NBA affiliates, and if there’s still no room, an NBA team would be allowed to send a player to a D-League team with which it’s not affiliated.

For more on the D-League, check out our list of affiliations for this year and bookmark https://www.hoopsrumors.com/nba-d-league/ to track the latest news about NBA players in the D-League.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

This post was initially published on November 7th, 2012.

NBA Roster Limits

September 11th, 2013 at 4:58pm CST by Luke Adams

During NBA regular seasons, teams aren't permitted to carry more than 15 players on their rosters, except in rare instances. Generally, when a club with 15 players on its roster acquires a new player, it must waive someone to clear a spot.

In the offseason, however, teams are permitted to carry up to 20 players on their rosters. One club taking advantage of that extra flexibility this summer, as it did a year ago, is the Houston Rockets — last offseason, even after Houston hit the 20-man limit, the club continued to pursue free agents. This time around, the Rockets have 19 players lined up for training camp, and continue to be linked to additional targets.

Many of the Rockets' players are on partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed deals, making it virtually certain that most of those extra bodies will simply be waived before the regular season begins, so that the team can reduce its roster to the in-season limit of 15 players. However, Houston (or any other team) is allowed to carry more than 15 guaranteed contracts until the season starts, if it so chooses.

For instance, when the Suns sent Caron Butler to the Bucks in exchange for Ishmael Smith and Viacheslav Kravtsov, it increased Phoenix's total guaranteed contracts to 17. Since then, the team has released Michael Beasley, but at least one player with a guaranteed deal will have to be traded or waived before the season begins. In all likelihood, the Suns will have to release a player, then continue paying the player's full-season salary, given the guaranteed nature of his contract.

Before the season opens, teams like the Rockets and Suns, who are carrying more than 15 players, will be required to make cuts. However, other clubs may have to worry about meeting the roster minimum, rather than getting below the maximum.

The fewest number of players an NBA team can have on its roster during the regular season is 13, a figure exceeded by all the league's clubs at the moment. Still, not every team is carrying 13 or more guaranteed contracts. Several teams have 12 players on guaranteed contracts, while the Sixers, Bulls, Cavaliers, and Lakers only have 11. That means players with partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed contracts on those clubs have a decent chance of obtaining roster spots, as their teams attempt to reach the 13-player regular-season minimum.

A few more notes on NBA roster sizes:

In the lockout-shortened 2011/12 season, NBA teams were allowed to have 13 active players, rather than 12 active players with at least one on the inactive list. This change became permanent starting in 2012/13.
Teams are permitted to carry just 11 active players or zero inactive players for no more than two weeks at a time. A team can also temporarily place up to four players on its inactive list (for a total roster of 16 players) with league approval in the event of a hardship. The injury-riddled Timberwolves took advantage of this opportunity last season.
Players assigned to a D-League affiliate are automatically placed on their NBA team's inactive list.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon's Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

This post was initially published on September 10th, 2012.

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Hoops Rumors Glossary