Hoops Rumors Originals

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

• Luke Adams examined Five Lingering Offseason Questions before the opening of training camps.
• We provided a list of the teams that are now limited to just minimum contract offers.
• Our weekly mailbag answered questions on LaMarcus Aldridge, Carmelo Anthony and Nikola Mirotic.
• Our Contract Extension Tracker is the best way to follow all the players who are eligible to receive extensions this fall.
• We looked at the case for the Lakers’ Julius Randle in our Extension Candidate Series.
• Our Offseason in Review series examined the Mavericks and Magic.
• Our Community Shootarounds discussed which non-playoff teams from last year are ready to make the postseason and who are the best available free agents.
• We conducted polls for the win totals of the Jazz, Sixers, Blazers, Hornets, Heat, and Clippers, respectively.
• If you don’t have it already, be sure to download the Trade Rumors app for iOS/Android and give it a try.

So far this offseason, we’ve been keeping close tabs on the way teams are acquiring new players, tracking free agent signings, draft pick signings, draft-and-stash deals, two-way contracts, and trades. However, there’s another form of transaction worth monitoring: contract extensions.

Extensions, of course, don’t involve adding a new player to the roster. By extending a contract, a team ensures that a current player will remain locked up for multiple years to come. While it may not change the club’s outlook on the court, it can have a major impact on that team’s salary cap situation — in terms of total value, the extensions signed this summer by James Harden and John Wall rank among the largest new contracts.

While rookie scale extensions are the most common form of contract extension, no fourth-year player has signed a rookie scale extension so far this offseason. Andrew Wiggins is expected to do so soon though, and there are many other players eligible for new deals up until the October 16 deadline. It’s common for about six to eight players entering the final year of their respective rookie contracts to sign extensions before the October deadline, and I wouldn’t expect this year to be any different.

[RELATED: Players eligible for rookie-scale extensions]

While they’re generally less common than rookie-scale extensions, veteran extensions are happening a little more frequently these days, with the league’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement expanding the rules for eligibility and creating some additional incentives for star players to sign new deals before they reach free agency. So far this offseason, each new contract extension signed has been a veteran extension.

Listed below are the players who have finalized contract extensions so far in the 2017/18 league year. This list, which can be found on the right-hand sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features” on our desktop site (or on the “Features” page in our mobile menu) will be kept up to date throughout the offseason, and even into the ’17/18 season, if any veteran players ink an extension at that point.

Veteran extensions:

• Russell Westbrook (Thunder): Five years, 35% maximum salary (story). Starts in 2018/19.
• James Harden (Rockets): Four years, 35% maximum salary (story). Starts in 2019/20.
• John Wall (Wizards): Four years, 35% maximum salary (story). Starts in 2019/20.
• Robert Covington (Sixers): Four years, $60MM (story). Includes renegotiation for 2017/18. Extension starts in 2018/19.
• LaMarcus Aldridge (Spurs): Two years, $50MM (story). Starts in 2019/20.
• Norman Powell (Raptors): Four years, $41.965MM (story). Starts in 2018/19.
• Josh Richardson (Heat): Four years, $41.965MM (story). Starts in 2018/19.

Rookie scale extensions:

• Andrew Wiggins (Timberwolves): Five years, 25% maximum salary (story). Starts in 2018/19.
• Joel Embiid (Sixers): Five years, 25% maximum salary (story). Starts in 2018/19. Includes injury protections.
• Gary Harris (Nuggets): Four years, $74MM (story). Starts in 2018/19.
• T.J. Warren (Suns): Four years, $47MM (story). Starts in 2018/19.
• Check out our in-depth look at 2017’s rookie scale extensions for more details.

With NBA training camps around the corner, teams are finalizing their preseason rosters, and Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players signed new contracts this offseason. To that end, we present 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, years, salary, and a handful of other variables.

A few notes on the tracker:

• Some of the information you’ll find in the tracker will reflect reported agreements, rather than finalized deals. As signings become official, we’ll continue to update and modify the data.
• Similarly, contract years and dollars will be based on what’s been reported to date, so in many cases those amounts will be approximations rather than official figures. Listed salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed either — deals marked with a † symbol are primarily non-guaranteed.
• A restricted free agent who agrees to or signs an offer sheet will be included in the tracker, but the team won’t be specified until his original club matches or passes on the offer sheet, in order to avoid confusion.
• Two-way contracts and draft pick signings aren’t included in the tracker.
• Click on a player’s name for our full report on his deal.
• If you’re viewing the tracker on mobile, be sure to turn your phone sideways to see more details.

Our 2017 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the desktop site. You can find it on the “Features” page in our mobile menu. It 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.

NBA training camps are right around the corner, but several pieces of offseason business remain unsettled around the league. Here are some leftover offseason storylines to watch, with regular season openers just a month away:

1. Who will sign contract extensions before opening night?

Two maximum salary extension offers are reportedly on the table at the moment — the Thunder are ready to sign Russell Westbrook to a Designated Veteran Extension, and the Timberwolves are prepared to lock up Andrew Wiggins to a five-year rookie scale extension. Since max contracts don’t require much negotiating, they often get finalized fairly early in the offseason, so it’s somewhat surprising that Westbrook and Wiggins have yet to put pen to paper, but they still have a few more weeks to do so.

Outside of those two players, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on several other candidates for rookie scale extensions in the coming weeks. Fourth-year players like Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Clint Capela, Gary Harris, Jusuf Nurkic, Marcus Smart, Zach LaVine, and Rodney Hood are eligible for new deals, and will be on track for restricted free agency in 2018 if they don’t re-up with their respective teams this year. Under the new CBA, the deadline for rookie scale extensions has been moved up to the day before opening night, so teams will have until October 16 to sign their extension-eligible players.

2. Who will be traded before opening night?

It appears increasingly likely that one of the summer’s primary subjects of trade speculation – Carmelo Anthony – will open training camp as a Knick. It should be fascinating to see if Anthony and the Knicks can bury the hatchet once camp begins, or if the two sides only become more motivated to get something done at that point.

Anthony is the most notable trade candidate out there, but other teams around the league figure to explore preseason deals after seeing their new-look rosters in action. Last year in September and October, for instance, the Bucks pulled off a pair of trades that had a major impact on their 2016/17 rotation, acquiring Michael Beasley from the Rockets and Tony Snell from the Bulls.

3. When – and where – will the remaining restricted free agents sign?

Four restricted free agents remain on the market, with Nikola Mirotic (Bulls), JaMychal Green (Grizzlies), Alex Len (Suns), and Mason Plumlee (Nuggets) all seeking out new deals. Given the lack of teams with cap room around the league, those players have limited leverage, and it’s possible that a couple of them will take the Nerlens Noel route and sign their one-year qualifying offers, hoping to cash in as unrestricted free agents in 2018.

October 1 looms as a key date for these restricted free agents — that’s the last day for an RFA to sign his qualifying offer, unless his team agrees to extend that deadline. If a player doesn’t sign his qualifying offer or work out a multiyear deal by October 1, he remains a restricted free agent, but no longer has that QO as a fallback option, further limiting his options.

[UPDATE: Plumlee has agreed to re-sign with the Nuggets.]

4. When – and where – will the remaining unsigned draft picks sign?

As our list of draft pick signings shows, there are two second-rounders whose 2017/18 outlook remains unclear. One is Grizzlies big man Ivan Rabb, the 35th overall pick, whose status may depend on what happens with restricted free agent JaMychal Green. If Green returns to Memphis, there may not be room on the roster this season for Rabb — the club already has 15 guaranteed salaries, and a Green signing would increase that total to 16. In that case, perhaps a deal overseas or a stint in the G League would be in Rabb’s future, though that outcome may not thrill his agent.

Meanwhile, the Rockets have yet to indicate a direction for 43rd overall pick Isaiah Hartenstein. International basketball reported David Pick suggested back in July (via Twitter) that Hartenstein is likely to start the year with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s G League affiliate, but there are a number of different ways that could happen. It remains to be seen whether the Rockets will sign Hartenstein to an NBA contract and assign him to the G League, ink him to a two-way contract (they have one open slot), or have him sign a straight G League contract.

5. Which players on rookie scale contracts will have third- or fourth-year team options declined?

This storyline figures to extend a couple weeks into the regular season, since NBA teams have until October 31 to decide whether to exercise or decline 2018/19 team options on rookie-scale players entering their second or third NBA seasons. We’ve listed those players here.

Of course, many of those will be no-brainers — D’Angelo Russell, Jamal Murray, and Karl-Anthony Towns aren’t about to have their options declined. But there are some trickier decisions worth keeping an eye on. For instance, will the Bulls pick up Cameron Payne‘s fourth-year option, guaranteeing his salary for the 2018/19 season? Considering they’re in rebuilding mode and gave up a considerable haul at the trade deadline to acquire Payne, the Bulls are probably a good bet to exercise that option. But it’s not a lock, given Payne’s injury history, not to mention how bad he looked down the stretch last season for the Bulls.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.