Hoops Rumors Originals

NBA teams have until Monday night (Oct. 23) to officially set their rosters for the 2023/24 regular season. However, a majority of NBA teams will likely have their rosters ready to go on Saturday, with far more roster cuts expected today and tomorrow than on Sunday or Monday.

Why is that? Well, releasing a player on Saturday will ensure he clears waivers on Monday, before the regular season gets underway.

Players who are cut during the season are also paid for each day they spend on waivers, so a player who hits waivers on Sunday and doesn’t clear until the first day of the season on Tuesday would technically earn one day’s worth of pay, even if his contract isn’t guaranteed. A player released on Monday would spend two regular season days on waivers.

[RELATED: 2023/24 NBA Roster Counts]

For players with partial or full guarantees, spending the first day or two of the regular season on waivers doesn’t really matter, since they’re getting their full 2023/24 salary (or their partial guarantees) no matter when they’re released. But if a team waits until Monday to cut a player with a non-guaranteed salary, that team will be on the hook for two days’ worth of dead money for the player.

Two days’ worth of dead money won’t exactly break the bank — it would range from about $13-37K for a minimum-salary player. Still, most teams already know which players are in and which are out, so there’s no need to take the decision down to the wire on Monday. They’ll make those cuts on Friday or Saturday and will avoid adding extra cap charges to their books for ’23/24. Even that small amount of savings could be important for teams who are right around the tax line or up against a hard cap.

While many teams will make their cuts on Saturday, a handful of clubs can afford to wait an extra day or two if they want to, since they’ll be waiving (or trading) players who have full or partial guarantees.

The Wizards, for instance, have 17 players on fully guaranteed contracts and will need to reduce that number to 15. Waiting until Sunday or Monday to make their cuts won’t affect their cap outlook at all, since all 17 of those players will receive their full-season salaries either way.

Additionally, teams whose final roster moves won’t involve placing a player on waivers can afford to wait until Monday to finalize those moves.

For example, the Spurs currently have 15 players on guaranteed standard contracts, a pair on two-way contracts, and Charles Bediako on an Exhibit 10 deal. While we don’t know exactly what the team’s plan is, San Antonio could simply convert Bediako to a two-way contract on Monday in order to set its roster for the regular season, with no further cuts required.

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As we outlined in detail last month, the salary-matching rules that apply this season to a club whose team salary is over either tax apron are only temporary.

Rather than immediately implement all the new restrictions that will affect over-the-apron teams in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement at once, the NBA is gradually rolling them out. Most of those new rules will take effect once the 2023/24 season is over.

That slow rollout of the new trade rules is working out well for many of the teams with the league’s highest payrolls in ’23/24. Several deals completed this offseason, including major recent moves like the Bucks‘ acquisition of Damian Lillard and the Celtics‘ trade for Jrue Holiday, have only be possible because the new restrictions on apron teams have yet to be enacted.

Here’s a breakdown of the upcoming rule changes that would have impacted certain deals in recent months:

Aggregation

The biggest trade-related change coming next offseason for teams over the second tax apron relates to salary aggregation — the act of combing the outgoing cap hits of two or more players in order to match an incoming player’s salary.

This is how the Bucks matched Lillard’s incoming cap charge, which exceeds $45MM. Milwaukee aggregated Holiday ($36.86MM) and Grayson Allen ($8.93MM) in order to meet the league’s salary-matching rules. The Celtics took a similar approach when they landed Holiday, aggregating Malcolm Brogdon ($22.5MM) and Robert Williams ($11.57MM) to ensure they’d included enough outgoing salary.

Neither of those structures would have been possible next offseason, when a team whose salary is over the second apron will be prohibited from aggregating salaries in a trade. If that had been the case this summer, Milwaukee wouldn’t have been able to acquire Lillard without trading Giannis Antetokounmpo. In other words, that deal wouldn’t have been possible.

Salary matching

While teams over the second tax apron won’t be able to aggregate player salaries in a trade beginning next summer, teams over either tax apron will face even more restrictive salary-matching rules.

They’ll be unable to take back more salary than they send out in a trade.

This offseason, teams over either tax apron have been permitted to take back up to 110% of their outgoing salary. For example, when the Celtics acquired Holiday, the combined salaries of Brogdon and Williams ($34.07MM) fell a little short of Holiday’s $36.86MM cap hit. But the Celtics were permitted to take back up to 110% of their outgoing figure, which was more than enough to cover Holiday’s salary.

That won’t be possible next year. In fact, if this salary-matching rule and the new rule preventing second-apron teams from aggregating salaries had been effect this year, there literally would have been no way for the Celtics to acquire Holiday, whose salary is higher than anyone else’s on Boston’s roster.

Even if they had sent out Kristaps Porzingis, who was formerly their highest-paid player, the C’s only would’ve been able to take back up to $36,016,200, the amount of Porzingis’ cap hit — that wouldn’t have been enough for Holiday. And Boston wouldn’t have been able to aggregate another player’s salary with Porzingis’ in order to reach Holiday’s figure.

Cash

Teams over the second tax apron are, by definition, not shy about spending their money, but beginning next summer, they won’t be permitted to add cash as a sweetener to complete a deal.

So the $5.7MM in cash that San Antonio received from the Suns in the Cameron Payne trade in July, which will cover most of Payne’s $6.5MM salary for 2023/24? Phoenix was allowed to send that money this year, but it won’t be an option for any team over the second apron once the ’23/24 season ends.

This rule won’t put as many constraints on teams above the second apron as the first two we discussed, but it will take one more tool away from those clubs when they try to negotiate trades.

Trade exceptions

When a team creates a trade exception in one deal, it can use that exception in a subsequent deal in order to acquire a player whose salary fits in the exception without sending out another outgoing salary.

Beginning after the 2023/24 regular season ends though, teams over either tax apron won’t be allowed to use a trade exception that they generated in a prior year. For the purposes of this rule, the “prior year” is defined as the end of one regular season to the end of the following regular season.

That means that a team whose salary is over the first or second apron at the end of the 2023/24 season will essentially lose any trade exception generated in a prior deal. A team could still generate a trade exception in June and then use it to accommodate a separate move in July, but a trade exception created at February’s deadline would be off the table in the offseason.

Who would’ve been affected by this rule if it were in effect this summer? Well, the Clippers acquired Kenyon Martin Jr. from Houston using a traded player exception that they generated in February when they sent Reggie Jackson to Charlotte. That $2.13MM TPE was just big enough to absorb Martin’s $1.93MM salary.

If all of the new CBA’s trade rules had been implemented this offseason, the Clippers would’ve lost access to that Jackson TPE and would have had to send out a player making at least $1.93MM in order to acquire Martin.