Hoops Rumors Originals

The Pacers have about $89MM in guaranteed money committed to player salaries for 2024/25 — or about $96MM if Tyrese Haliburton makes an All-NBA team. However, even though next season’s salary cap is expected to come in at $141MM, Indiana won’t begin the 2024 offseason with $45MM in cap room to spend.

In fact, the Pacers technically won’t open the new league year with any cap space at all. Each of Indiana’s own free agents will be assigned a free agent amount – or “cap hold” – until the player signs a new contract or the Pacers renounce his rights.

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 the rights to its own 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.

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

• First-round pick coming off rookie contract: 300% of the player’s previous salary if prior salary was below league average; 250% of previous salary if prior salary was above league average.
• Bird player: 190% of previous salary (if below league 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.
• Two-way player: One-year veteran’s minimum salary.

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.

No cap hold can exceed the maximum salary for which a player can sign. For example, the cap hold for a Bird player with a salary above the league average is generally 150% of his previous salary, as noted above. But for someone like Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, whose cap charge is $37,893,408 this season, 150% of his previous salary would be nearly $57MM, well beyond his projected maximum salary.

Instead, Siakam’s cap hold will be equivalent to the maximum salary for a player with between seven and nine years of NBA experience. If we assume a cap of $141MM, that figure works out to $42.3MM.

One unusual case involves players on rookie contracts whose third- or fourth-year options are declined. The amount of their declined option becomes their cap hold, and if the player’s team wants to re-sign him, his starting salary can’t exceed that amount.

For instance, the Hornets declined James Bouknight‘s 2024/25 fourth-year option last fall, then waived him in February. If Bouknight had remained on Charlotte’s roster, the team wouldn’t have been able to offer him a starting salary this offseason worth more than $6,064,496, the amount of that option. That figure would also have been his cap hold.

That rule is in place so a team can’t circumvent the rookie scale and decline its option in an effort to give the player a higher salary. It applies even if the player is traded after his option is declined, but only to the club the player is part of at season’s end. For instance, if Bouknight had been traded from the Hornets to the Pistons, Detroit would have been prohibited from offering him a starting salary greater than $6,064,496 as a free agent, but any other team could have exceeded that figure.

If a team holds the rights to fewer than 12 players, cap holds worth the rookie minimum salary are assigned to fill out the roster. So, even if a front office chooses to renounce its rights to all of its free agents and doesn’t have any players under contract, the team wouldn’t be able to fully clear its cap.

An incomplete roster charge in 2024/25 projects to be worth $1,160,544, meaning a team without any guaranteed salary or any other cap holds would have closer to $127MM in cap room than $141MM due to its 12 rookie minimum holds.

A player who has been selected in the draft but has not yet officially signed his rookie contract only has a cap hold if he was a first-round selection. A cap hold for a first-round pick is equivalent to 120% of his rookie scale amount, based on his draft position. An unsigned second-round pick doesn’t have a cap hold.

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 example, the Warriors are still carrying cap holds on their books for retired players like David West and Matt Barnes, who never signed new contracts since playing for Golden State.

Keeping those cap holds allows teams 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 capped-out teams. If and when the Warriors want to maximize their cap room, they’ll renounce West and Barnes, but they’ve remained over the cap – and haven’t needed to remove those holds – since those players became free agents in 2017.

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 the Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

The NBA made it a priority in its latest Collective Bargaining Agreement to do all it could to reduce load management and to ensure that the game’s biggest stars suited up more often. That resulted in the league beefing up its existing Player Participation Policy and introducing a new requirement for players to qualify for end-of-season awards.

In order to be eligible for all of the NBA’s end-of-season awards, a player must appear in at least 65 games (out of 82) during the regular season. That means they can’t miss more than 17 regular season contests.

Sixers center Joel Embiid and Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell are among the players who were on track to be All-NBA locks but who won’t play in 65 games this season due to injuries and therefore won’t be eligible.

However, it’s not quite as simple as looking at a player’s games played total at the end of the season and seeing whether or not it’s at 65+. There are scenarios in which a player could still qualify for award consideration if he appears in fewer than 65 games and scenarios in which a player would not qualify for consideration even if he technically appears in more than 65 games.

The technicalities:

First, it’s important to clarify that for the purposes of this rule, a player is considered to have played in a game only if he logged at least 20 minutes in that game. That requirement was implemented so that a player couldn’t, say, start a game, check out after 30 seconds, and have it count toward his total.

A player is permitted to fall short of the 20-minute threshold twice and still have the game count toward his minimum as long as he logs at least 15 minutes in those games. So a player who plays 20 minutes in 63 games and 15 minutes in two more contests would reach the 65-game minimum. However, any outing of less than 15 minutes would not count toward the minimum.

Jamal Murray provides an excellent case study of how this rule operates in practice. If Murray plays in every Nuggets game for the rest of the 2023/24 regular season, he’ll technically have appeared in 66 contests. However, due to various injuries, Murray fell short of the 20-minute mark in three of those games, including two outings in which he logged fewer than 15 minutes.

As a result, Murray’s end-of-season game count may look like this:

• Games of 20+ minutes: 63
• Games of 15+ minutes: 1
• Games of fewer than 15 minutes: 2
• Total games: 66

In that scenario, he’d fall short of the minimum-game criteria despite appearing in 66 total games, since only 64 of them would qualify toward the required minimum.

The season-ending injury exception:

Rockets center Alperen Sengun, conversely, is an example of a player who may still qualify for end-of-season awards despite not reaching the 65-game benchmark.

A player retains his award eligibility if he logged 20+ minutes in at least 62 games (including 85% of his team’s games to that point), then suffers a season-ending injury.

The NBA defines a season-ending injury in this case as one that an independent physician (jointly selected by the league and players’ union) deems more likely than not to sideline the player through at least May 31.

Sengun played in 63 games for the Rockets, logging 20+ minutes in all of them, before suffering a severely sprained ankle and a bone bruise in his knee, an injury that could very well end his season. If an independent doctor determines the injury would likely keep him on the shelf through May 31, he’d be eligible for end-of-season awards, including Most Improved Player.

Grievances and challenges:

A player whose eligibility for awards could affect their next contract is permitted to file an “Award Eligibility Grievance” if he falls shy of the 65-game requirement. Such a grievance would be heard by a league arbitrator.

Murray would be eligible for a Designated Veteran (super-max) extension if he makes an All-NBA team this season, while Sengun could become eligible for a Rose Rule rookie scale extension if he’s named Most Valuable Player this season (this obviously won’t happen, but could in theory). As a result, both players would be eligible to file an Award Eligibility Grievance, if necessary.

However, the threshold for prevailing in a grievance of this sort is high. According to the CBA, the player must provide “clear and convincing evidence” that his team “willfully limited the player’s number of minutes played or games played during the regular season with the intention of depriving the player of (award) eligibility.” If Murray and Sengun fall shy of the requirements, it will be because of injuries, not because of any sort of underhanded tactics by Denver or Houston.

An Award Eligibility Grievance must be filed by 11:59 pm Eastern time on the day after the final day of the regular season, or within two days of the date on which it becomes mathematically impossible for the player to reach the 65-game minimum, whichever comes first. So Murray would have already had to file this grievance if he intended to do so.

A player who falls short of the 65-game minimum can also file an “Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge” in an effort to regain his award eligibility. In this case, the player must prove that if not for extraordinary circumstances, he would have met the 65-game requirement and that it would be “unjust” to exclude him from award consideration.

An Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge must be filed between 12:00 pm Eastern time on the final day of the regular season and 11:59 pm ET on the day after the last day of the regular season. The challenge would be heard by an “independent expert” jointly selected by the NBA and NBPA.

The CBA doesn’t define what sort of extraordinary circumstances would fall under this umbrella. Any sort of injury seems unlikely to qualify, but given that Murray may end up falling shy of award eligibility because he played 14:07 in one game instead of 15 minutes, perhaps his case will merit consideration.

Since we don’t yet have any precedents to refer to, we may have to see how situations like Murray’s play out to get a better sense of how this sort of challenge might – or might not – succeed.

The awards the 65-game rule does and doesn’t apply to:

Failing to meet the 65-game requirement doesn’t necessarily mean that a player is ineligible for every end-of-season award. The 65-game rule only applies to the following awards:

• Most Valuable Player
• Defensive Player of the Year
• Most Improved Player
• All-NBA teams
• All-Defensive teams

That means the following awards don’t require 65 games played:

• Rookie of the Year
• All-Rookie teams
• Sixth Man of the Year

Although the NBA offered no explanation for why 65+ games aren’t required for these specific awards, we can probably assume the league didn’t feel the need to impose extra requirements on awards that already only apply to a smaller group of players.

A player who made his NBA debut prior to 2023/24 won’t be eligible for Rookie of the Year or All-Rookie, and a player who starts more than half his games isn’t eligible for Sixth Man of the Year.

Being able to qualify for these awards despite not meeting the 65-game minimum does nothing for Murray, for example, since he’s not eligible for any of them anyway. However, the lack of a 65-game rule could come in handy for certain All-Rookie hopefuls who won’t reach that total this season, such as Mavericks center Dereck Lively II.

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.

Players and teams have to meet certain criteria to earn Bird rights and Early Bird rights, but Non-Bird rights are practically a given.

They apply to a player who has spent a single season or less with his team, as long as he finishes the season on an NBA roster and is on a standard contract (rather than a hardship or 10-day deal). Even a player who signs a rest-of-season contract right before the regular season finale and spends just a single day with his club would have Non-Bird rights in the offseason.

Teams can also claim Non-Bird rights on Early Bird free agents if they renounce them. The primary motivator to do so would be to allow the team to sign the free agent to a one-year contract, a move that’s not permitted via Early Bird rights.

Teams are eligible to sign their own free agents using the Non-Bird exception for a salary starting at 120% of the player’s previous salary, 120% of the minimum salary, or the amount of a qualifying offer (if the player is a restricted free agent), whichever is greatest. Contracts can be for up to four years, with 5% annual raises.

The cap hold for a Non-Bird player is 120% of his previous salary, unless his previous salary was the minimum. In that case, the cap hold is equivalent to the two-year veteran’s minimum salary. If a Non-Bird free agent only has one year of NBA experience, his cap hold is equivalent to the one-year veteran’s minimum salary.

The salary limitations that apply to Non-Bird rights are more severe than those pertaining to Bird rights or Early Bird rights, so in many cases, the Non-Bird exception may not be enough to retain a well-regarded free agent. For instance, the Nuggets held Bruce Brown‘s Non-Bird rights last summer, but couldn’t have used them to match or exceed the offer the veteran wing received from the Pacers.

Because Brown had earned a relatively modest $6,479,000 salary in 2022/23, Denver’s ability to offer a raise using the Non-Bird exception was extremely limited — the Nuggets would have only been able to offer 120% of Brown’s previous salary using his Non-Bird rights, which worked out to $7,774,800. Indiana used its cap room to give Brown a $22MM starting salary, easily topping Denver’s maximum offer.

The Bucks may end up in a similar situation this offseason with Malik Beasley, who will only have Non-Bird rights after playing out a one-year, minimum-salary contract. Milwaukee almost certainly won’t have cap room, and the mid-level exception won’t be an option either as long as the team’s salary remains above the second tax apron. If they want to re-sign Beasley, the Bucks may have to hope he’ll accept an offer in the $3.6MM range via the Non-Bird exception.

Holding Non-Bird rights on a free agent didn’t help the Nuggets with Brown and may not be enough for the Bucks with Beasley, but there are cases in which the exception proves useful.

The Clippers, for instance, only had Non-Bird rights on Russell Westbrook last offseason, but that gave them the ability to offer a starting salary worth 20% more than the veteran’s minimum that another team might have offered. Since Westbrook wanted to remain in Los Angeles, the Non-Bird exception – which allowed for a starting salary of $3,835,738 – was enough to re-sign him. His minimum salary would have been $3,196,448.

After being traded from the Pacers to the Raptors earlier this season, Brown will have Non-Bird rights again this summer if Toronto opts to turn down his $23MM team option for 2024/25. However, in that scenario, the Raptors would have significantly more flexibility than Denver did to offer Brown a new contract, since he’ll be coming off a much higher salary this time around. Toronto could offer Brown a starting salary of up to $26.4MM (120% of $22MM) using the Non-Bird exception.

Finally, it’s worth noting that a player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year deal (or a two-year deal that includes a second-year option) and will have Early Bird or Bird rights at the end of that contract would surrender those rights if he consents to a trade. In that scenario, he’d only finish the season with Non-Bird rights.

No players in this position consented to a trade this year, but it was a factor in Miles Bridges‘ decision to tell the Hornets he wouldn’t approve a deal.

If Charlotte had traded him to a new team, Bridges would have only had Non-Bird rights, meaning his new team wouldn’t have been able to offer him a starting salary higher than $9,505,560 (120% of his $7,921,300 salary for 2023/24) without using cap room or another exception. By remaining with the Hornets, Bridges hung onto his Bird rights, giving him more pathways to a significant payday, either by re-signing in Charlotte or via a sign-and-trade.

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.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.