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NBA Free Agency: July 2 Recap

July 3rd, 2017 at 12:26am CST by Luke Adams

After big names like Stephen Curry and Blake Griffin came off the board quickly on Saturday, multiple players from the second and third tiers of free agency reached agreements on Sunday.

Those agreements aren’t yet official, but unless something unexpected happens within the next several days, they’ll be finalized sometime after the July moratorium ends on Thursday.

Here’s our breakdown of July 2’s most notable contract agreements:

Here are a few more of the day’s notable headlines:

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NBA Free Agency: July 1 Recap

July 2nd, 2017 at 1:09am CST by Luke Adams

Nothing that happened in the NBA world on Saturday was quite as shocking as Friday night’s trade agreement between the Pacers and Thunder on a deal that will send Paul George to Oklahoma City. However, July 1 featured its share of excitement, with many of this year’s top free agents striking deals and coming off the market.

Like that George trade, these deals aren’t official yet, so the reported terms could change, or agreements could fall through altogether, like one between Nene and the Rockets did. But generally speaking, teams and players are on track to finalize these contract agreements sometime after the July moratorium ends on Thursday.

Here’s our breakdown of July 1’s most notable contract agreements:

Be sure to use our 2017 NBA Free Agent Tracker to keep tabs on all of this summer’s contract agreements.

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Hoops Rumors’ 2017 NBA Free Agent Tracker

July 1st, 2017 at 7:15am CST by Luke Adams

With free agency officially underway and news of contract agreements already breaking, Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players are heading to which teams this July. To this 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, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.

A few notes on the tracker:

  • During the July moratorium (July 1-6), most of the information you’ll find in the tracker will reflect 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 be based on what’s been reported to date, so in many cases those amounts will be approximations rather than official figures. Salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed either.
  • A restricted free agent who signs an offer sheet won’t be included in the tracker right away. We’ll wait to hear whether the player’s original team will match or pass on that offer sheet before we update our tracker, in order to avoid confusion.
  • 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 site. 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.

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Hoops Rumors Originals: 6/24/17 – 6/30/17

June 30th, 2017 at 11:59pm CST by Joshua Fischman

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

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2017 Qualifying Offers Recap

June 30th, 2017 at 9:07pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Players eligible for restricted free agency don’t become restricted free agents simply by default. In order for a team to make a player a restricted free agent, a qualifying offer must be extended to him. The qualifying offer, which is essentially just a one-year contract offer, varies in amount depending on a player’s service time and previous contract status. A qualifying offer is designed to give a player’s current team the right of first refusal. Because the qualifying offer acts as the first formal contract offer a free agent receives, his team then receives the option to match any offer sheet the player signs with another club. You can read more about qualifying offers here.

If a player is not tendered a qualifying offer, he becomes an unrestricted free agent and is free to sign with any team that were to come calling with his previous squad unable to prevent such a transaction. Listed below is the complete list of players who were eligible to receive qualifying offers this season and whether or not one was tendered. Players are listed in alphabetical order by category:

Players Receiving Qualifying Offers

Players Not Receiving Qualifying Offers

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Top 50 NBA Free Agents Of 2017

June 30th, 2017 at 9:47am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA’s new league year will officially begin on Saturday at 12:01 am eastern time, and while this year’s free agent period may not be as wild as last year’s, when the salary cap jumped by $24MM, there are several teams with the ability to splash around this July, and several players worth significant investments.

Listed below are our top 50 free agents for the 2017/18 NBA season. The players on this list will definitely become free agents on July 1 (or are free agents already), which is why we haven’t included any players who may remain under their current contracts. Rajon Rondo, for instance, is considered likely to be waived, but could still be traded or retained, so he’s on our list.

Our rankings take into account both a player’s short-term and long-term value. If we were to consider solely a player’s worth for the 2017/18 season, veterans like Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol would likely place higher, while younger free agents with upside, such as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Nerlens Noel would be ranked a little lower.

In addition to the 50 players listed below, there are plenty of other notable free agents available this summer. You can check out our breakdowns of free agents by position/type and by team for the full picture.

Here are our top 50 free agents of 2017:

1. Kevin Durant, F (Warriors)"<strong
2. Stephen Curry, G (Warriors)
Durant and Curry stand on their own above the rest of 2017’s free agent class. They’re both former MVPs. They’re both members of the NBA champion Warriors. And they’re both not going anywhere this summer. The NBA offseason is unpredictable, and anything could happen once the new league year opens on Saturday and Durant and Curry officially become free agents. But the expectation is that the duo will have no desire to talk to any team besides Golden State. Because the Warriors hold Curry’s Bird rights, he’s expected to get a five-year deal worth the max ($200MM+) if he wants it, while Durant will likely sign a shorter-term pact, possibly worth a little less than the max.

3. Gordon Hayward, F (Jazz)
An effective scorer heading into 2016/17, Hayward elevated his game to another level in his contract year, earning his first All-Star nod and averaging a career-high 21.9 PPG. Hayward contributes on both ends of the floor and is an efficient scorer, with a shooting line of .471/.398/.844 last season — he’s also just 27 years old, meaning his next contract should cover his prime years. Hayward’s choice this summer appears likely to come down to a move to South Beach, a reunion with his former coach Brad Stevens in Boston, or a return to Utah with a rising Jazz team coming off a 51-win season.

4. Blake Griffin, F/C (Clippers)
Griffin had been on track to hit free agency alongside fellow star Clipper Chris Paul, but CP3 unexpectedly opted into the final year of his contract as part of a trade to the Rockets this week, making Griffin’s situation more intriguing. It’s not clear yet if Paul’s departure will make Griffin more or less likely to return to Los Angeles, but it will be interesting to see how high the Clippers and other suitors are willing to go. Griffin is certainly worth a maximum salary offer based on talent alone, but his injury history will make teams proceed with caution — the former first overall pick has averaged just 54 regular season games played over the last three seasons.

Read more

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Breakdown Of Math Behind Rockets’ Trades

June 28th, 2017 at 1:14pm CST by Luke Adams

Earlier today, news broke that the Clippers will be sending Chris Paul to the Rockets in a blockbuster trade, with Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, and Sam Dekker heading to Los Angeles. However, that trade is not yet official, and can’t be made official based on the terms reported, since it doesn’t meet the NBA’s salary-matching rules.

The Rockets are currently a little below the cap, but Paul’s salary would take them above the cap, with means they’d need to take advantage of the traded player exception to complete the deal. Based on NBA rules, Houston needs to include enough outgoing salary to get within $5MM of Paul’s 2016/17 salary, which is $22,868,827. So, if Paul is willing to waive the 15% trade kicker in his contract, the Rockets’ magic number for outgoing salary is $17,868,827.

Here are the 2016/17 cap numbers for Williams, Beverley, and Dekker:

  • Williams: $7,000,000
  • Beverley: $6,000,000
  • Dekker: $1,720,560
  • Total: $14,720,560

That package leaves the Rockets $3,148,267 short of the outgoing salary required to land Paul before the new league year begins. It’s possible Houston could wait until after July 1 to complete the deal, but the team would need to include even more salary at that point, since CP3 will get a raise, while the total value of the Rockets’ value decreases due to a slight pay cut for Beverley.

The Rockets have reportedly now added Montrezl Harrell and his $1,045,000 salary to their trade package, and have other pieces on their roster that they could include, but the majority of those players are either too valuable to move or don’t earn enough money to make up the difference.

That’s why, as David Aldridge of TNT tweets, the Rockets have been calling teams all over the league in an effort to find non-guaranteed salaries to include in the deal. A “horde” of teams is involved or trying to get involved in those discussions, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter links), who adds that the Rockets are telling teams they’ve assembled the necessary pieces. Since rosters expand to 20 players in the offseason, roster limits haven’t stopped Houston from adding extra players.

Because the Rockets finished the season about $3.1MM below the cap, the team can acquire players in trade using that cap space. Typically, the CBA restricts teams from trading for a player, then flipping him right away in another deal that aggregates his salary with other salaries. However, that rule doesn’t apply to players acquired using cap room.

Here’s what the Rockets have done so far today:

Liggins, Quarterman, and Kelly all have fully or heavily non-guaranteed salaries for the 2017/18 season, making them ideal trade pieces. If we assume all three of those players – plus the original four Rockets – will be included in the Paul trade, Houston now appears to be just $257,315 away from having enough salary to make the deal work, and the club still has enough cap room left to absorb up to about $1.27MM in salary.

Unless our math is slightly off, it seems the Rockets will need to include one more salary in their trade. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear by the end of the day about one last player who will make up that difference. And if Houston is able to include a little more salary than the absolute minimum required, Paul could also potentially hang onto part of his trade bonus.

[Update #1: The Rockets have reportedly agreed to acquire Darrun Hilliard ($874,636) from the Pistons. Houston now has enough players to send out for Paul, though the Clippers don’t have enough roster spots to take them all back, so the Rockets may end up involving a third team in the deal.]

[Update #2: The Rockets have reportedly included Liggins, Hilliard, and Kyle Wiltjer ($543,471) in the trade for Paul, reaching the required outgoing salary threshold without using Quarterman or Kelly.]

Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post.

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Notable CBA Changes That Will Affect Free Agency

June 27th, 2017 at 3:20pm CST by Luke Adams

With July 1 just a few days away, the NBA is almost ready to turn the calendar and officially begin the 2017/18 league year. At the same time as the new league year gets underway, the league will also implement its new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the players’ union.

For the most part, that CBA looks a lot like the previous CBA. There are very few major changes to the way players can be signed or otherwise acquired by NBA teams. However, the new agreement features several tweaks to existing rules, and many of those small changes will be noticeable once the 2017 free agent period officially opens on Saturday.

Below, we’ve rounded up most of the notable CBA changes that will affect this year’s free agent period. This list isn’t comprehensive. For more details, you can check out the NBA’s recap of key changes to the CBA, or – if you have a bit of a masochistic streak – you can even read the full CBA document. The changes we’ve listed below, however, are the ones that should be most important in the next few weeks.

Let’s dive in…

Salary cap management:

  • The salary cap and tax line for the new league year will be set by June 30. The cap and tax are currently projected to land at $99MM and $119MM, respectively.
  • The July moratorium will end on July 6 at 11:00am CT.
  • The tax apron will now be $6MM above the tax line instead of $4MM above the line. The apron represents a threshold that teams aren’t allowed to cross at any time for the rest of the league year if they’ve used the full mid-level exception or the bi-annual exception, or acquired a player via sign-and-trade.
  • The cap holds for first-round picks are now worth 120% of their rookie scale amounts, instead of 100%, slightly reducing available cap room for teams with first-rounders to consider. Those figures can be found here.

Restricted free agency:

  • Teams will now have two days instead of three days to match an offer sheet.
  • Restricted free agents will be able to formally sign offer sheets during the July moratorium. However, the clock for a player’s previous team to match his offer sheet won’t start until the moratorium ends. If a player signs an offer sheet during the moratorium, the player’s previous team will have until July 8 at 10:59am CT to match the offer.
  • The deadline to withdraw a qualifying offer to a free agent is now July 13, instead of July 23.

Other free agency:

  • Annual raises on new contracts can now be as high as 8% (Bird or Early Bird contracts) or 5% (all other contracts), instead of 7.5% and 4.5%.
  • The amounts of the mid-level, bi-annual, and minimum salary exceptions are increasing significantly. Mid-level and bi-annual figures can be found here, while 2017/18’s minimum salaries can be found right here.
  • The “over-36 rule,” which affected a player who signed a contract that extended beyond his 36th birthday, has been changed to the over-38 rule. This change may be beneficial for players like Chris Paul and Paul Millsap.
  • NBA teams now have the ability to sign a pair of players apiece to two-way contracts. Full details on these new two-way contracts can be found here.
  • Two-way contracts and minimum salary contracts can be officially signed during the July moratorium.

Trades:

  • As of July 1, each team will be able to receive and send $5.1MM in trades for the 2017/18 league year. The limit for 2016/17 was $3.5MM. Cash paid and cash received in trades are two separate entities, meaning a team can’t exceed $5.1MM in cash paid by taking back money in another deal — if a team has paid $5.1MM and received $5.1MM, it can no longer use cash in trades.
  • The traded player exception will now allow non-taxpaying teams to take back up to 175% of the outgoing salary in a simultaneous trade. However, over-the-cap teams still can’t take back more than the outgoing salary plus $5MM for any amount up to $19.8MM, or more than 125% of the outgoing salary for any amount over $19.8MM.

Contract extensions:

  • Veteran players will now be eligible to sign contract extensions if two years have passed since they signed their last veteran contract. Previously, veterans didn’t become extension-eligible until three years had passed since their last signing date.
  • Veterans signing an extension are now eligible for an initial raise of up to 20%, instead of 7.5%.
  • The Designated Veteran Extension will be available for players who met a specific set of criteria related to years of experience, contract history, and All-NBA (or other award) honors. Stephen Curry, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook will be the players to watch for the DVE this summer.
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Community Shootaround: Awards Show

June 26th, 2017 at 6:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder

In past seasons, the winners of all the major NBA awards would have been unveiled weeks ago. The league traditionally announced the biggest awards one-by-one while the playoffs were going on.

The regular season has been over for nearly 2 1/2 months but the league has kept the voting under wraps, except for announcing the finalists for each prize. We’ll finally learn tonight who captured the most votes for Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player along with the biggest individual honor, the Most Valuable Player.

The NBA decided to hold back those announcements this year until after the draft by putting together a two-hour extravaganza on TNT.

All of the awards were based on regular-season performance. The two that hold the most intrigue are the Rookie of the Year and MVP selections. Joel Embiid posted by far the best stats among first-year players but appeared in just 31 games. We’ll find out if that was enough games in the voters’ minds or if his Sixers teammate Dario Saric or the Bucks’ Malcolm Brogdon brings home the hardware. Saric and Brogdon were the only unanimous selections for the All-Rookie Team, which was unveiled earlier today.

Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard are the three finalists for MVP but most people expect a tight race between Westbrook and Harden. Westbrook broke Oscar Robertson‘s triple-double record, while Harden put up monster numbers of his own after becoming the primary ballhandler in Mike D’Antoni‘s attack.

This leads us to our question of the day: Do you like the idea of having a postseason awards show following the playoffs or would you prefer that the NBA go back to announcing the major awards during the postseason?

Please take to the comments section to weigh in on this topic. We look forward to what you have to say.

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NBA Minimum Salaries For 2017/18

June 26th, 2017 at 2:12pm CST by Luke Adams

While some NBA teams will head into free agency with more than enough cap room to add a maximum salary player, others clubs will be totally capped out. However, each of the NBA’s 30 clubs will be on common ground in one respect: No team will be ineligible to sign a player to a minimum salary contract.

Teams with cap room available will have a little more flexibility to sign players to longer-term minimum salary contracts, but over-the-cap clubs will still be able to use the minimum salary exception to add as many players as they want. Unlike other exceptions, such as the mid-level or the bi-annual, the minimum salary exception can be used multiple times, for contracts of up to two years.

[RELATED: Values of 2017/18 mid-level, bi-annual exceptions]

Undrafted free agents and late second-round picks are often recipients of minimum salary contracts, but there are plenty of veterans who end up settling for the minimum too. Of course, because a player’s minimum salary is determined by how much NBA experience he has, many veterans will earn more than twice as much money as a rookie will in 2017/18 on a minimum salary contract.

Listed below are 2017/18’s minimum salary figures, sorted by years of NBA experience. If a player spent any time on an NBA club’s active regular season roster in a given season, he earned one year of experience. So any player with zero years of experience has not yet made his NBA debut.

Here’s the full breakdown:

Years of Experience Salary
0 $815,615
1 $1,312,611
2 $1,471,382
3  $1,524,305
4 $1,577,230
5 $1,709,538
6 $1,841,849
7 $1,974,159
8 $2,106,470
9 $2,116,955
10+ $2,328,652

Because the NBA doesn’t want teams to avoid signing veteran players in favor of cheaper, younger players, the league reimburses clubs who sign veterans with three or more years of experience to one-year, minimum salary contracts. Those deals will only count against the cap – and against a team’s bank balance – for $1,471,382, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience.

For instance, if David Lee – who has 12 years of NBA experience – signs a one-year, minimum salary contract with a new team, that team would only be charged $1,471,382 for Lee’s contract. He’d earn $2,328,652, but the NBA would make up the difference. This only applies to one-year contracts, rather than multiyear deals.

If a player signs a minimum salary contract after the regular season begins, he’ll earn a pro-rated portion of the amount listed above.

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