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Poll: Who Will Win Saturday’s Gold, Bronze Medal Games?

August 9th, 2024 at 7:13pm CST by Luke Adams

Saturday’s gold and bronze medal matchups at the Paris Olympics may look awfully familiar to fans of international basketball.

In the battle for gold, the United States and France will meet in a rematch of the 2020 Olympic final, when Team USA beat the French team by a score of 87-82 in Tokyo.

The U.S. squad is currently a 16-point favorite in Saturday’s rematch, according to BetOnline.ag. That’s no real surprise. Team USA, with a more loaded roster than the one it took to Tokyo, dominated the group stage with a 3-0 record and a +64 point differential, while France had just a +2 point differential and needed an overtime victory over Japan to secure a 2-1 record.

But France has the home crowd on its side and has pulled off an impressive pair of upsets in the knockout round, defeating Canada and Germany in consecutive contests to get back to the gold medal game. The U.S., meanwhile, looked beatable for the first time this tournament in its semifinal vs. Serbia and needed to erase a 17-point deficit to advance to the final.

Team USA has won men’s basketball gold in every Olympics since 2004 and it would be a major surprise if it didn’t happen again, but if the French team – led by rising star Victor Wembanyama – plays like it did against Canada and Germany, it should at least be a competitive game.

As for the bronze medal matchup, it’s another rematch of a recent international showdown — Germany defeated Serbia at the 2023 FIBA World Cup last September for gold. On Saturday, the two nations will square off in the hopes of earning an Olympic medal. It would be the first Olympic men’s basketball medal for Germany or the second for Serbia, which won silver in Rio in 2016.

While Germany took last year’s gold medal game, the Serbians didn’t have star center Nikola Jokic on their World Cup roster. Having the three-time NBA MVP available for this game makes Serbia the favorite, but oddsmakers are expecting a close one — BetOnline.ag has the Germans listed as just two-point underdogs.

While Jokic has led the way for Serbia with 18.8 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 8.2 assists per game, Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic has been a reliable sidekick, matching Jokic’s scoring average (18.8 PPG) while also chipping in 4.4 RPG and 4.0 APG and making 42.9% of his three-point attempts. Vasilije Micic (12.2 PPG, 5.0 APG), Filip Petrusev (9.4 PPG, 5.0 RPG), and Aleksa Avramovic (10.0 PPG) are among the team’s other key contributors.

On the other side, the Germans have been led by Dennis Schröder (18.0 PPG, 7.8 APG) and Franz Wagner (18.6 PPG, 5.2 RPG), with Daniel Theis (9.0 PPG, 8.0 RPG), Isaac Bonga (9.8 PPG, 4.2 RPG), and Moritz Wagner (8.6 PPG, 3.6 RPG) also playing significant roles.

Prior to their semifinal loss to France, Germany looked like perhaps the second-best team in the tournament, with a 4-0 record and a +60 point differential. But Serbia has been awfully good too — they’ve lose twice to the U.S., but have gone 3-0 with a +57 point differential against everyone else.

We want to know what you think. Who will win the gold and bronze medal games in Paris on Saturday?

Vote in our poll below, then head to the comment section below to share your predictions!

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NBA Players With Trade Kickers In 2024/25

August 6th, 2024 at 8:00am CST by Luke Adams

A trade kicker is a contractual clause that pays an NBA player a bonus when he’s traded. They’re one of the tools teams have at their disposal to differentiate their free agent offers from the ones put on the table by competing clubs — or to incentivize a player to sign an extension before he reaches free agency.

Sometimes the kicker is worth a fixed amount, but usually it’s based on a percentage of the remaining value of the contract. So, a player who has a 10% trade kicker is eligible for a bonus worth 10% of the amount of money he has yet to collect on his deal (not counting an option year).

Regardless of whether a trade kicker is set at a fixed amount or a percentage, the bonus can’t exceed 15% of the remaining value of the contract. Most trade kickers are worth 15%, the highest percentage allowed.

A trade bonus must be paid by the team that trades the player, rather than the team acquiring him. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement also allows a player to waive part or all of his trade kicker as part of a deal, if he so chooses.

If you want a more detailed explanation of how trade kickers work, check out the Hoops Rumors Glossary entry on the subject.

Here’s a list of the NBA players who have active trade kickers for 2024/25, listed alphabetically, along with the details of those trade bonuses:

The following players have trade bonuses on their contracts, but those bonuses would be voided if they were to be traded during the 2024/25 league year, since they’re already earning this season’s maximum salary:

The following players have signed contract extensions that will include trade kickers, but those extensions won’t go into effect until at least the 2025/26 season:

Information from ESPN’s Bobby Marks was used in the creation of this post.

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Community Shootaround: Indiana Pacers

August 5th, 2024 at 8:26pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The defending champion Celtics have been on a spending spree, re-signing their own free agents and locking up rotation players to lucrative extensions.

The Sixers made the biggest free agent splash, signing Paul George. The Knicks made a stunning trade, acquiring Mikal Bridges from their crosstown rival. The Cavaliers have given out extensions to three starters. The Bucks still have the duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.

So it’s easy to forget that the Pacers were in the Eastern Conference Finals. Their biggest star is Tyrese Haliburton, currently the 12th man on Team USA’s loaded roster. Haliburton pulled a hamstring in Game 2 against the Celtics, though the Pacers were heavy underdogs anyway. But it may have made the series a little more competitive if he had stayed healthy.

Haliburton had some ups and downs during the playoffs but delivered in a big way in his best outings. Now, he’s wondering why the Pacers are being overlooked as one of the top contenders in the East.

“All I keep seeing is, ‘Who’s going to win the East? Boston, Milwaukee, New York, or Philly?’” Haliburton said recently. “It’s like, what are we doing [not being included]? But again, we’re Indiana, people didn’t even know, people didn’t even watch us play until the playoffs. People didn’t watch us play until the second round. But again, that respect comes with winning. So if we want to gain that respect, we just got to keep having success as a team. And it’s coming.”

Like Boston and Cleveland, the Pacers’ offseason has been highlighted by locking in some of their regulars to new contracts. Pascal Siakam received a max four-year deal in free agency and Andrew Nembhard, who posted big numbers in Games 3 and 4 of the conference finals with Haliburton out, signed a three-year contract extension. Siakam’s backup, restricted free agent Obi Toppin, was also re-signed.

Myles Turner remains one of the most productive centers in the league and the Pacers also have a solid young 1-2 punch at small forward in Aaron Nesmith and Bennedict Mathurin. Head coach Rick Carlisle is one of the best in the business, a future Hall of Famer with a championship on his resume.

Undeniably, there’s plenty of quality pieces all over the roster. But are they still lacking that one major impact player to put them over the top? Haliburton could be a perennial All-Star but is he more suited to being the No. 2 player on a championship team than the franchise player?

Those are a couple of questions some experts have about the Pacers, though there’s no reason to expect that they’ll regress. In fact, with the experience they gained in the postseason, they could be even more dangerous next season.

That brings up to today’s topic: Do you feel the Pacers are underrated? Where do they currently rank in the Eastern Conference’s pecking order? Do they need another impact player or can they win a championship with the roster they’ve already built?

Please take to the comments section to weigh on this topic. We look forward to your input.

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Community Shootaround: Pistons’ Offseason Moves

August 4th, 2024 at 5:34pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Troy Weaver‘s four-year stint running the Pistons was a flop but he did gift his successor, Trajan Langdon, with over $60MM in salary cap space this summer.

Detroit’s new president of basketball operations didn’t make any blockbuster deals, nor did he accumulate many future assets. Instead, Langdon mainly chose to bring in veteran help on short-team deals to make the team more competitive while easing the burden on the team’s star, Cade Cunningham.

The most significant transaction was bringing in free agent Tobias Harris on a two-year, $52MM deal. Harris, 32, wasn’t the difference-maker the Sixers hoped he would be when they signed him to a five-year, $180MM contract in 2019, but he’s a solid, durable and productive starter.

Langdon took on Tim Hardaway Jr.‘s $16.2MM salary in a trade with Dallas with three future second-rounders attached as sweeteners. Free agent Malik Beasley was signed to a one-year, $6MM deal and restricted free agent Simone Fontecchio was brought back on a two-year, $16MM contract.

That quartet should dramatically improve the team’s woeful perimeter shooting while tapping into Cunningham’s play-making ability. They’ll also greatly boost the professionalism for a team that endured the worst season in franchise history. It’s quite possible some of the veterans will be flipped for assets during the season.

Detroit also claimed big man Paul Reed off waivers, though his contract doesn’t become full guaranteed until midseason.

The other major move, unrelated to the cap, was firing Monty Williams and hiring J.B. Bickerstaff as head coach. Bickerstaff was eager to get another coaching job after getting fired by the Cavaliers. Williams had to be coaxed by owner Tom Gores into coaching last season via a lucrative six-year contract. Gores was willing to eat the remaining years on Williams’ contract in order to give Langdon and the organization a fresh start.

The Pistons only have 13 players on guaranteed deals and still have around $10.2MM in cap space, so it seems likely Langdon will make another free agent move or trade before training camp.

Langdon swung for the fences in the lottery, choosing Ron Holland with the fifth overall pick, which many experts considered a reach. The Pistons front office hopes Holland, who played well in the Las Vegas Summer League, can develop his offensive game to match his physical skills.

That brings us to our topic of the day: How do you view the Pistons’ offseason? Should they have made a bigger splash or added more assets? Or was Langdon wise to use his cap room to bring in veteran players on short-term deals?

Please take to the comments section to weigh on this topic. We look forward to your input.

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Community Shootaround: Predict Gold, Silver, Bronze Medal Winners

August 3rd, 2024 at 11:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

It took a week to eliminate four men’s basketball teams from the Olympics, and now the stakes in Paris are about to get much higher. The tournament will take on a March Madness feel when it resumes Tuesday with four quarterfinal matchups. The winners will advance to compete for medals, while the losers will head home facing four long years before they can try again.

Team USA, the prohibitive favorite entering the Games, captured the top seed with convincing wins over Group C rivals Serbia, South Sudan and Puerto Rico and a points differential of +64. Led by first-ballot Hall of Famers LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, the Americans have revived memories of the days when they used to dominate international competitions.

Their next opponent will be Brazil, which hasn’t won an Olympic basketball medal since 1964. The Brazilians emerged from Group B with a 1-2 record and a -7 point differential, defeating Japan while losing to France and Germany. Brazil has the fewest NBA players of anybody left in the competition, as Warriors guard Gui Santos is the only one currently on an NBA roster.

Germany, which went unbeaten while capturing the FIBA World Cup last summer, has looked like the second-best team in the Olympics. Led by a core of Dennis Schroder, Franz Wagner, Moritz Wagner and Daniel Theis, the Germans were +47 in points while sweeping through Group B.

Canada, which is also seeking its second medal in Olympic basketball, looks like a serious contender after winning all three games in Group A, which was dubbed by many as the “group of death.” Led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a finalist for MVP honors last season, the Canadian roster is filled with NBA talent and the team is battle tested after defeating Australia, Greece and Spain.

With Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Serbia and Greece both have players capable of taking over a game, making them especially dangerous in a single-elimination format. Australia’s roster is loaded with NBA players who have a history of competing in big international games, while the French feature a nightmare matchup in Victor Wembanyama and have the incentive of trying to win the gold medal in front of their home crowd.

Germany and Greece will square off Tuesday morning to start the next round, followed by Serbia-Australia, France-Canada and U.S.-Brazil. Winners of the first and third games will meet Wednesday in one semifinal, while the other will match the winners of the second and fourth games. The medal games will take place Saturday.

After watching these teams in action for a week, we want to know what you think. Which countries do you expect to leave Paris with the gold, silver and bronze medals? Please leave your feedback in the space below.

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Players Who Can’t Be Traded Until January 15

August 2nd, 2024 at 8:20pm CST by Luke Adams

As we detailed in a separate article, players who signed new contracts as free agents during the 2024/25 league year can’t be traded for three months or until December 15, whichever comes later. That means that nearly every team has at least one player – and often more than one – who won’t become trade-eligible until mid-December.

There’s also a small subset of free agent signees whose trade ineligibility lasts for an extra month. These players all meet a specific set of criteria: Not only did they re-sign with their previous team this offseason, but they got a raise of at least 20%, their salary is worth more than the minimum, and their team was over the cap, using Bird or Early Bird rights to sign them.

Listed below are the players who meet this criteria and can’t be traded until at least January 15, 2025. We’ll continue to update this page over the next few months, if necessary.

Brooklyn Nets

Charlotte Hornets

Chicago Bulls

Indiana Pacers

Los Angeles Lakers

Miami Heat

New York Knicks

Oklahoma City Thunder

Orlando Magic

Philadelphia 76ers

Phoenix Suns

Sacramento Kings

Toronto Raptors

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Players Who Can’t Be Traded Until December 15

August 2nd, 2024 at 5:28pm CST by Luke Adams

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. 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. 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.

The players who aren’t eligible to be traded until December 15 are listed below.

Players whose contracts haven’t been officially finalized aren’t yet listed below. Players who have the ability to veto trades in 2024/25 are marked with a caret (^). Players on non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts are marked with an asterisk (*). Players on Exhibit 10 contracts won’t be listed here unless they make the regular season roster.

We’ll continue to update this page over the next few months as players are signed or waived.

Updated 9-16-24 (8:00pm CT)

Atlanta Hawks

Boston Celtics

Brooklyn Nets

Charlotte Hornets

Chicago Bulls

Cleveland Cavaliers

Dallas Mavericks

Read more

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Hoops Rumors Glossary: Renegotiations

July 31st, 2024 at 9:07am CST by Luke Adams

It’s common practice in the National Football League for a team to renegotiate its contract with a player, but we hear far less about the concept in the NBA. So can an NBA team actually renegotiate a contract with one of its players?

The answer is almost always no, and it’s a firm no if the follow-up question is whether the sides can renegotiate the value of the contract downward. Unlike NFL teams, an NBA club can’t create extra cap flexibility by renegotiating a contract to push present-day cap hits into future years.

However, renegotiations are allowed to make an NBA contract more lucrative, and they can happen as long as a specific set of circumstances are in place:

  • Only contracts that cover four or more seasons can be renegotiated, though that rule doesn’t apply to rookie scale deals — even though they run for four years, they can’t be renegotiated.
  • Renegotiations can only occur after the third anniversary of a contract signing, an extension, or a previous renegotiation (assuming the previous renegotiation increased the salary in any season by 5% or more).
  • Perhaps most importantly, teams can’t renegotiate any contracts if they’re over the cap, and they can only increase the player’s salary in the current season by the amount of cap room they have (or to the player’s maximum salary).

If a renegotiation happens at the same time as an extension, the player’s salary can increase or decrease by as much as 40% from the last season of the existing contract to the first season of the extension. Following the first year of the extension, raises (or pay cuts) are limited to 8% annually.

Here are a few other rules related to contract renegotiations:

  • Teams can’t renegotiate contracts between March 1 and June 30, so the last day of February is always the deadline to complete renegotiations in a given league year.
  • Renegotiations can’t occur as part of a trade. If a player is traded, he’s ineligible to renegotiate his contract for the next six months. Similarly, if a player renegotiates his contract, he’s ineligible to be traded for six months.
  • In order for a signing bonus to be included in a renegotiation, the contract must be extended as well.
  • Two-way contracts can’t be renegotiated.

Renegotiating a contract to include a significant raise for the current season can be a clever way of incentivizing a long-term extension for a player who would otherwise reach free agency. Contract renegotiations are rare, due to the specific series of requirements necessary to pull them off, but we’ve seen a few completed within the past 13 months.

Domantas Sabonis renegotiated and extended his contract with the Kings last July, while Jordan Clarkson did the same with the Jazz. Jonathan Isaac also completed a renegotiation and extension with the Magic earlier this month.

The Clarkson and Isaac deals were prime examples of how teams can use their cap room in a current season to “overpay” a player in the short term in order to get him on more favorable terms in future seasons.

Clarkson, for instance, entered the 2023/24 league year on an expiring $14,260,000 base salary. The Jazz used their cap space to renegotiate that figure up to $23,487,629, then negotiated a 40% pay cut for the first season of a two-year extension, so Clarkson will earn $14,092,577 in ’24/25 and $14,285,714 in ’25/26. Simply offering that two-year, $28.38MM extension may not have been enough to get Clarkson to sign, but increasing his current-year salary by more than $9MM helped incentivize him to put pen to paper.

The Magic made a similar move with Isaac this summer, bumping his current salary all the way up to $25MM, then having it decline by 40% to $15MM for the first season of a four-year extension.

Sabonis, meanwhile, had a $19.4MM base salary in 2023/24 as he entered the final year of his current contract. The Kings didn’t have the cap room necessary to bump him up to his maximum salary of $40,806,300, but they were able to renegotiate his ’23/24 salary up to $28MM. From there, they gave Sabonis a 40% raise in year one of his extension, starting his new four-year deal at $39.2MM (plus incentives) in ’24/25.

This year’s top remaining renegotiation candidate is Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen, who is on an expiring $18,044,544 contract and will become eligible for a renegotiation as of August 6. Markkanen’s maximum salary for 2024/25 would be $42,176,400 and Utah is the only NBA team that has the cap room necessary to give him that $24MM+ raise.

If the Jazz and Markkanen do renegotiate his contract on or after August 6, it will be interesting to see what the terms of his extension look like. He has a case for a maximum-salary contract, but if Utah is essentially giving him $24MM+ in free, up-front money before the extension begins, the team may have some leverage to ask him to take less than his max.

I certainly wouldn’t expect the Jazz to try to negotiate a 40% pay cut for year one of a Markkanen extension like they did with Clarkson, but even a modest dip would make the forward’s contract more team-friendly down the road.

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 version of this post were published in 2015, 2017, and 2022.

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2024/25 Non-Guaranteed Contracts By Team

July 30th, 2024 at 3:55pm CST by Luke Adams

As the NBA regular season approaches and teams reduce their rosters from the 21-player offseason limit to the 15-man regular season max, the best way to determine which players will survive preseason cuts is to consider their contracts. Players with guaranteed salaries for 2024/25 are far more likely to earn spots on 15-man rosters than players whose contracts aren’t fully guaranteed.

Keeping that in mind, we’re using the space below to keep tabs on the players on each NBA team who don’t have fully guaranteed contracts. The players listed here have non-guaranteed salaries, partially guaranteed salaries, or Exhibit 9 or Exhibit 10 contracts, which essentially function like non-guaranteed deals.

Unless otherwise noted, these players are on minimum-salary contracts. Some players on this list have partial guarantees, which we’ve also mentioned below.

Not all of these players will be waived before the regular season begins, so we’ll maintain this list for the next several months, up until January 10, 2025. That’s the day that all players still under contract will have their salaries fully guaranteed for the rest of the 2024/25 season.

[RELATED: Early NBA Salary Guarantee Dates For 2024/25]

Only players who have formally signed contracts are listed below, so if a player has reportedly reached an agreement with a team on a non-guaranteed deal, we’ll add him to our list when that deal becomes official and we confirm the details.

Without further ado, here’s the full list of players without fully guaranteed salaries for 2024/25, broken down by team:

Updated 9-19-24 (11:02pm CT)

Note: Players on Exhibit 10 contracts are marked with an asterisk (*).

Atlanta Hawks

Boston Celtics

Brooklyn Nets

Charlotte Hornets

Chicago Bulls

Cleveland Cavaliers

Dallas Mavericks

Denver Nuggets

Detroit Pistons

Golden State Warriors

Houston Rockets

Indiana Pacers

Los Angeles Clippers

Los Angeles Lakers

Memphis Grizzlies

Miami Heat

Milwaukee Bucks

Minnesota Timberwolves

New Orleans Pelicans

New York Knicks

Oklahoma City Thunder

Orlando Magic

Philadelphia 76ers

Phoenix Suns

  • None

Portland Trail Blazers

Sacramento Kings

San Antonio Spurs

Toronto Raptors

Utah Jazz

Washington Wizards

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Signed Second-Rounders To Count Against Cap As Of Wednesday

July 30th, 2024 at 10:55am CST by Luke Adams

Between July 1 and July 30 of each NBA league year, a player signed using the second-round pick exception doesn’t count toward his team’s cap, but that changes as of July 31. Beginning on Wednesday, each of the second-rounders signed using that exception will begin carrying 2024/25 cap hits.

[RELATED: 2024 NBA Draft Pick Signings]

Twenty-eight of the NBA’s 30 teams are operating over the cap, so this change will really only affect two teams: Detroit and Utah.

The Pistons signed No. 37 overall pick Bobi Klintman on July 13 to a contract that will be worth $1,257,153 in 2024/25. His $1,257,153 salary hasn’t counted against Detroit’s cap up until today, but it will count starting on Wednesday. That means Detroit’s cap room will be reduced from $11,496,652 to $10,239,499.

The impact that change will have on the Pistons’ rest-of-summer plans is minimal, bordering on nonexistent. But it’s still worth noting since it slightly affects the kind of moves the team can make. For example, as of today, Detroit could accommodate a P.J. Tucker salary dump from the Clippers without sending back any salary. As of Wednesday, that wouldn’t be possible.

Interestingly, the Jazz have yet to sign No. 32 overall pick Kyle Filipowski, so their cap situation will remain unchanged on Wednesday. With reported deals for Drew Eubanks and Johnny Juzang still not official yet either, Utah could create up to about $35MM in space by renouncing various cap holds.

I expect the Jazz are waiting to resolve their Lauri Markkanen situation – either via trade or renegotiation-and-extension – before signing Filipowski and formally finalizing their other agreements. Trading Markkanen could mean taking on additional salary in a deal, while renegotiating his contract could require up to $24MM+ in cap room to bump his 2024/25 salary to the max.

Having resolution on Markkanen – which could happen in about a week when he becomes renegotiation-eligible – will give Utah’s front office a better sense of its cap situation going forward, allowing the team to move forward with its other business.

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