Hoops Rumors Originals

As teams explore the trade market for potential deals to complete their rosters for training camp, there are a number of trade restrictions those clubs must take into account. For instance, recently-signed draft picks can’t be traded for 30 days and waiver claims can’t be traded for until the 30th day of the regular season. Most notably, newly-signed free agents can’t be dealt until at least December 15.

The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement states that a free agent who signs with an NBA team can’t be traded for three months or until December 15, whichever is later. So, players who sign new contracts prior to September 15 won’t be trade-eligible until at least December 15.

There are also some recently-signed players who meet a few specific criteria and can’t be traded until January 15. That list of players can be found right here. Players who have unique trade-eligible dates can be found right here.

For now, here are the players who aren’t eligible to be traded until December 15. Players whose contracts haven’t been officially finalized aren’t yet listed below. Players who have the ability to veto trades in 2019/20 are marked with a caret (^). We’ll continue to update this page over the next few months as players are signed or waived.

Updated 12-16-19 (7:17am CT)

Atlanta Hawks

• Jabari Parker

Boston Celtics

• Javonte Green
• Enes Kanter
• Vincent Poirier
• Kemba Walker
• Brad Wanamaker ^

Brooklyn Nets

• Wilson Chandler
• Kevin Durant
• Kyrie Irving
• DeAndre Jordan
• David Nwaba
• Theo Pinson ^
• Garrett Temple

Charlotte Hornets

• Caleb Martin
• Terry Rozier

Chicago Bulls

• Shaquille Harrison ^
• Luke Kornet
• Tomas Satoransky
• Thaddeus Young

Cleveland Cavaliers

• None

Dallas Mavericks

• J.J. Barea ^
• Seth Curry
• Boban Marjanovic
• Delon Wright

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We’re over a month and a half into 2019’s NBA free agent period, and with news of contract agreements and signings continuing to trickle in, Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players are heading to which teams this offseason.

To this end, we continue to update our Free Agent Tracker, a feature we’ve had each year since our inception in 2012. Using our tracker, you can quickly look up deals, sorting by team, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.

A few notes on the tracker:

• Some of the information you’ll find in the tracker will reflect tentative agreements, rather than finalized deals. As signings become official, we’ll continue to update and modify the data as needed.
• Similarly, contract years and dollars will sometimes be based on what’s been reported to date, so those amounts could be approximations rather than official figures. Salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed either.
• Our tracker will continue to be updated with the latest moves right up until opening night. Signings completed after the season begins won’t be included.
• If you’re viewing the tracker on our mobile site, be sure to turn your phone sideways to see more details.

Our 2019 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar of our desktop site under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the site. On our mobile site, it can be found in our menu under “Free Agent Lists.”

The tracker will be updated throughout the offseason, so be sure to check back for the latest info. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

Our lists of free agents by position/type and by team break down the players who have yet to reach contract agreements.

Every week, the Hoops Rumors writing team creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our original segments and features from the past seven days:

• Luke Adams analyzed how players who turned down player options fared in free agency this offseason. He found a number of players who made the right move.
• Adams broke down with players are going to be free agents next offseason by team and made a list of notable big men on the free agent market right now.
• In honor of Magic Johnson’s 60th birthday (and the NBA legend’s Twitter feed), we made a list of the top 60 players heading into the 2019/20 season.
• We outlined some of the key dates and deadlines this NBA preseason.
• Dana Guaruder asked whether the Pistons should offer Andre Drummond an extension in one Community Shootaround discussion and started a conversation about the NBA schedule changes in another.
• In an additional Community Shootaround, we asked how DeMarcus Cousins‘ injury will impact the Lakers.
• We asked which team is going to win the Southeast Division next season. As of this writing, over 40% of Hoops Rumors readers believe it will be the Heat.
• Roughly a third of Hoops Rumors readers who answered our poll on the Northwest Division believe the Nuggets will again take the division crown.
• Adams detailed the 2019 draft-and-stash signings and chronicled which teams claimed players off of waivers so far during the 2019/20 league year.
• Which players have trade kickers in 2019/20? Adams listed each player along with the percentage of salary amounts of each trade kicker.
• The Spurs have appeared in 22 straight postseasons. In a Community Shootaround, Arthur Hill asked whether the team will make it 23 in a row.
• Which NBA clubs have a G League affiliate? We provided the answer.

Heading into the 2019 offseason, 27 veterans held player options on their contracts, allowing them to either opt in for the 2019/20 season or opt out and reach the open market. Of those 27 players, a dozen decided to turn down their options and become free agents.

For some players, that decision was a simple one. Kyrie Irving, for instance, was never going to exercise his $21.3MM option with the Celtics, since opting out allowed him to get a raise, gain long-term security, and land with his preferred team.

The decision wasn’t so easy for every player who opted out though. Now that most of those 12 veterans have officially signed new contracts and the salary details are in, we want to look back on those decisions and see if they paid off.

Let’s dive in…

Opting out was definitely the right call:

• Kevin Durant
  • Option: $31,500,000 (Warriors)
  • New contract: Four years, $164.3MM (Nets)
• Kyrie Irving
  • Option: $21,329,752 (Celtics)
  • New contract: Four years, $136.5MM (Nets)
• Kawhi Leonard
  • Option: $21,329,752 (Raptors)
  • New contract: Three years, $103.1MM (Clippers)
• Jimmy Butler
  • Option: $19,841,627 (Sixers)
  • New contract: Four years, $140.8MM (Heat)
• Khris Middleton
  • Option: $13,000,000 (Bucks)
  • New contract: Five years, $177.5MM (Bucks)
• Julius Randle
  • Option: $9,073,050 (Pelicans)
  • New contract: Three years, $56.7MM (Knicks)

These six players were among free agency’s biggest winners. Durant, Leonard, and Butler landed maximum-salary contracts, Irving can reach the max via incentives, and Middleton secured more overall guaranteed money than all of them. Randle’s overall payday paled in comparison to the others, but it was still a no-brainer for him to turn down his option to return to New Orleans.

All six of these players will receive significant raises for the 2019/20 season over what they could have received on their options, and they all scored multiyear contracts.

Opting out hurt a little in the short term, but will pay off in the long term:

• Al Horford
  • Option: $30,123,015 (Celtics)
  • New contract: Four years, $109MM (Sixers)
• Harrison Barnes
  • Option: $25,102,512 (Kings)
  • New contract: Four years, $85MM (Kings)
• Jonas Valanciunas
  • Option: $17,617,976 (Grizzlies)
  • New contract; Three years, $45MM (Grizzlies)

Horford, Barnes, and Valanciunas will earn less in 2019/20 than they would have if they’d picked up their respective options. But that modest trade-off was worth it for the long-term security.

Horford and Barnes each tacked on upwards of $60MM+ in total guaranteed money to their contracts by opting out. Valanciunas, meanwhile, will accepted a pay cut of about $1.6MM this season in order to secure an extra two years and $29MM on his new deal.

It’s essentially a wash:

• Nerlens Noel
  • Option: $1,988,119 (Thunder)
  • New contract: One year, $2MM (Thunder)
• James Ennis
  • Option: $1,845,301 (Sixers)
  • New contract: Two years, $4MM (Sixers)

Noel and Ennis each had minimum-salary options on their contracts. They opted out and signed for… the minimum.

It wasn’t a huge win for either player, but they can each at least claim they’ll be making more in 2019/20 than they would have if they’d opted in. Noel’s salary increased from $1,988,119 to $2,028,594, while Ennis gets a slight bump from $1,845,301 to $1,882,867 (his second year is another player option).

The jury’s still out, but it’s not looking great:

• Nene
  • Option: $3,825,360 (Rockets)
  • Remains unsigned

The only unsigned player on this list, Nene is unlikely to match the $3.8MM salary he would have earned with the Rockets. Still, if he can catch on with an NBA team on a minimum deal, he’ll at least recoup a good chunk of his lost money — the 2019/20 veteran’s minimum for a player with his experience is $2,564,753.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

The most notable dates of the 2019 NBA offseason are behind us now that we’re through the draft and the free agent period. However, there are still a number of dates and deadlines to keep an eye on in the coming weeks and months before teams take the court again to kick off the 2019/20 regular season.

The list below doesn’t include every event or deadline that will take place prior to opening night on October 22, but these are several of the most important upcoming dates for teams and players.

Here’s the breakdown:

August 31:

• Last day that teams can waive players and apply the stretch provision to their 2019/20 salaries. After August 31, teams can still use the stretch provision on players who have multiple years left on their contracts, but their ’19/20 cap hits will remain unchanged.

August 31 – September 15:

• The 2019 FIBA World Cup takes place in China. The first round will run through September 5, with the second round wrapping up on September 9. The quarterfinals will take place on September 10-11, followed by the semifinals on the 13th and the final on the 15th.

September 5:

• Last day for teams to issue required tenders to unsigned second-round picks; those players become free agents on September 6 if not tendered. [RELATED: Four 2019 NBA draft picks remain unsigned]

September 28:

• Training camps begin for teams participating in preseason games outside North America. This applies to the Pacers and Kings (India), Rockets and Raptors (Japan), and Nets and Lakers (China).

October 1:

• Training camps begin for the rest of the NBA’s teams.

October 19:

• Last day for players on fully non-guaranteed contracts to be waived and not count at all against a team’s 2019/20 cap. They must clear waivers before the first day of the regular season.

October 21:

• Last day of the 2019 offseason.
• Roster limits decrease from 20 players to 15 (4:00pm CT)
• Last day for teams to sign a player to a rookie scale extension (5:00pm CT). [RELATED: Players eligible for rookie scale extensions]
• Last day for teams to sign an extension-eligible veteran player with multiple seasons left on his contract (ie. Bradley Beal) to an extension. An extension-eligible veteran player on an expiring deal (ie. Kyle Lowry) can still be extended after October 21.
• Last day for teams to complete sign-and-trade deals.
• Last day for teams to convert an Exhibit 10 contract into a two-way contract.

October 22:

• Regular season begins. [RELATED: 2019/20 schedules by team]

Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and NBA.com were used in the creation of this post.