Eastern Notes: Schröder, Thibodeau, Allen, Rivers, Horst

Dennis Schröder is playing some of the best ball of his career and he isn’t oblivious to the fact that he could be playing elsewhere at some point this season, the Nets guard told Brian Lewis of the New York Post.

“I’ve been in the league 12 years, and people have talked about my name in trade talks for 12 years. [And] I’ve been traded twice,” Schröder said. “… So [gossip] is going to happen. They use it as an event where they can promote who is on the block. I don’t really care.

“But I’ve bought into this system right now because they pay my checks, and I’m doing my job every single day, and I’m always professional about it, always going to make the most out of it. Get one percent better every single day. And whatever happens, happens. I understand it’s a business, but no worries here.”

Schröder, who is averaging 19.5 points and 6.2 assists per game, has an expiring $13MM contract.

We have more from the Eastern Conference:

  • The Knicks depleted their depth with some blockbuster moves this offseason and coach Tom Thibodeau has shown a reluctance to trust his reserves, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. In their last three losses, Thibodeau basically ran a six-man rotation in the second half with Miles McBride as the lone reserve receiving meaningful playing time.
  • The Cavaliers will look to stay unbeaten on Wednesday at Philadelphia but they could go without their starting center. Jarrett Allen is listed as questionable due to a lower left leg strain, Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets. Allen appeared a little hobbled on Monday, according to Fedor, when he was limited to nine points, five rebounds and one block in 26 minutes against Chicago.
  • It’s unlikely that Doc Rivers is on the hot seat after the Bucks’ 2-8 start, considering Rivers received a four-year, $40MM contract after Adrian Griffin was fired in midseason, according to The Athletic’s Sam Amick. General manager Jon Horst is under pressure after a few disappointing seasons, and league sources told Amick that there’s skepticism he’d be given the leeway to make another coaching change this soon.

Western Notes: Wembanyama, Thompson, Booker, Reddish, Russell

Victor Wembanyama enjoyed his best game of the season against Sacramento on Monday. The second-year Spurs star racked up 34 points, 14 rebounds, six assists and three blocks. He knocked down half of his 12 three-point attempts and the team’s interim coach wants him to keep hunting shots after a slow offensive start to the season.

“He makes shots every day,” Mitch Johnson said, per Michael C. Wright of ESPN. “He missed really good shots to start the year, and I understand why it’s a talking point. But I don’t think we ever wavered on him not making shots. I think it is just the percentages evening out at this point.”

We have more from the Western Conference:

  • Klay Thompson feels even better now about his decision to move on from the Warriors and join the Mavericks, he told Tim MacMahon of ESPN. Thompson says it was a necessary move mentally as well as career-wise. “Honestly, it’s rejuvenated me and done something I needed bad just for my mental and my career,” Thompson said. “So, I really feel the love here, and I feel highly valued that I can do great things.” Thompson is averaging 13.8 points in 3o.1 minutes per night while starting 10 games.
  • Devin Booker is still adjusting to Mike Budenholzer‘s rotation patterns. With past coaches, Booker often played the entire first quarter. That hasn’t happened this season — Budenholzer prefers to utilize his players in shorter bursts, Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic notes. “Probably the last eight years of my career, I played the first 12 minutes,” the Suns star guard said. “Trying to find a rhythm, but at the same time, set guys up. It’ll come.”
  • The Lakers are off to a 6-4 start and the Orange County Register’s Khobi Price offers 10 observations through the team’s first 10 games. He notes Cam Reddish has made the most of his increased playing time since being added to the rotation last week and that bench scoring has jumped since D’Angelo Russell was moved to the second unit.

Raptors Notes: Quickley, Rajakovic, Agbaji

Immanuel Quickley has endured an unfortunate string of injuries and another one has cropped up. The Raptors guard has been diagnosed with a partial UCL tear in his left elbow, Blake Murphy of Sportsnet tweets. He’ll be reevaluated in a week.

As Michael Grange of Sportsnet notes (Twitter link), Quickley missed all of training camp and four preseason games with a thumb sprain. He also sat out eight games with a pelvic contusion from a fall in the season opener. The elbow injury comes after he returned for two games. Quickley averaged 75 games a season in the past three seasons.

We have more on the Raptors:

  • Head coach Darko Rajakovic knows what the organization wants out of him this season, as he told The Athletic’s Eric Koreen in a Q&A session. “This year the focus is very clear. We need to develop young guys. We need to develop our roster,” he said. “The main thing, the most important thing, is being dedicated to the process of the development — individually and as a team. And this year for us, process has to be more important than the outcome of some of those games. That’s not saying that you’re not competing. That’s not saying that we don’t want to win. I think it’s completely opposite. As you can see, we are undermanned, but we are really competing and staying in all of those games against really good teams.”
  • Rajakovic and his staff deserve credit for the team’s competitiveness in the early going, despite its shortcomings. He has also earned the right to be second-guessed on some of his late-game decisions in the final two minutes of a close game, and Grange details some moves that Rajakovic could have handled differently.
  • When the team picked up the fourth-year option on Ochai Agbaji‘s contract, there were legitimate reasons to question the move. That’s not the case anymore. Through 11 games this season, he’s averaging 14.0 points while shooting 58.8% from the field and 47.7% on 3-point tries. “Summer league wasn’t the way I wanted it to go. I would say I was a little discouraged after that, but that was kind of just motivation even more for me going back into (team) mini-camps that we had just to kind of go and prove myself again and kind of re-establish that confidence,” Agbaji told Koreen. “Summer league and last year, I’ll always tell people now, those were kind of just the building blocks of me. Obviously you have to have those down days to have up days.” Agbaji is eligible for a rookie scale extension next summer.

Harry Giles Joining Shanxi Loongs

Free agent big man Harry Giles has signed with the Shanxi Loongs of the Chinese Basketball Association, as Dario Skerletic of Sportando relays. The team posted a photo on the Chinese social media site Weibo of Giles wearing Shanxi gear.

Giles, 26, has appeared in a total of 165 regular season games since being drafted with the 20th overall pick in 2017, including 23 contests last season for the Nets and Lakers. He was a five-star recruit out of high school and was viewed as a probable lottery pick before his career was derailed by knee injuries, which forced him to miss his entire rookie campaign and parts of subsequent seasons.

Giles holds career averages of 5.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.1 assists in 11.7 minutes per game for four NBA teams, including the Kings and Trail Blazers.

The former Duke standout was with the Hornets in training camp this fall, but didn’t earn a spot on the team’s regular season roster, having been cut at the end of the preseason.

Giles is joining a Shanxi team that is off to an 8-2 start in CBA play this season. The club’s two leading scorers are also ex-NBA players — Brandon Goodwin, formerly of the Nuggets, Hawks, and Cavaliers, is averaging 24.1 points per game for the Loongs, while former Thunder, Pistons, and Wizards swingman Hamidou Diallo has put up 18.9 PPG.

Lakers’ Wood Experiences Setback, Out At Least Four More Weeks

Lakers big man Christian Wood has experienced a setback in his recovery from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link), head coach J.J. Redick told reporters on Tuesday that Wood developed soreness in the knee during his ramp-up process and will be reevaluated in four weeks.

Wood underwent an arthroscopic surgical procedure on his knee in early September. At the time, the team said he’d be re-examined in approximately eight weeks. That was a little over nine weeks ago.

The procedure was the second one Wood has had on that troublesome knee this year. His 2023/24 season came to an early end when he was sidelined by a left knee injury in February that forced him to undergo arthroscopic surgery in March. The veteran forward/center was technically cleared to play in the final two games of the Lakers’ first-round series vs. Denver, but the club opted not to use him after such a long layoff.

Wood played a rotation role for the Lakers when he was healthy last season, averaging 6.9 points and 5.1 rebounds in 17.4 minutes per contest during the regular season (50 games). However, his shooting percentages – 46.6% from the floor and 30.7% on three-pointers – were well below his career rates.

While a healthy version of Wood would likely be in the frontcourt mix for Los Angeles this season, it sounds like the 29-year-old won’t be back on the court until mid-December at the earliest. Even if he’s able to return at that time, which is hardly a lock, it will be about 10 months since he has last played in an NBA game, so it may take him some time to round into his usual form.

With Wood out, Anthony Davis and Jaxson Hayes have handled the majority of the center minutes for L.A. this fall.

Southeast Notes: Bitadze, Carter, Jovic, Love, Sarr

Magic center Goga Bitadze, who stepped up when Wendell Carter was injured and started 33 games last season, finds himself in a similar position this fall. With Carter on the shelf due to left foot plantar fasciitis, Bitadze has started the past four games for Orlando and has averaged a double-double (10.5 points, 10.5 rebounds) to go along with 3.0 assists and 1.8 blocks per night in those starts.

“He’s just steady,” head coach Jamahl Mosley said on Sunday, per Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel (subscription required). “He just stays ready the entire time. Doesn’t say a word when he’s asked to do something; he goes out and does it. He’s a great rim protector, does a great job in the pick and roll … He’s a facilitator on offense, getting guys in position in places on the floor. He just stays ready and that’s part of this team. We always talk about the next man up and guys are starting to step up into that role with other guys being out.”

As Beede writes, Bitadze was a free agent over the summer and potentially could’ve found a larger role and/or more money outside of Orlando, but he chose to stick with the Magic on a three-year, $25MM deal. The big man feels comfortable with the team that took a shot on him in February 2023, days after he was cut by Indiana.

“The guys (and) the coaching staff make it easy,” Bitadze said. “When you’re having joy every single practice, every single day with these guys, playing time is not that important, if you understand what I mean. It’s not that hard.”

Here’s more from around the Southeast:

  • Carter is “doing well” and “slowly progressing” in his recovery from his foot ailment, according to Mosley, but the Magic center will miss his fifth consecutive game on Tuesday as Orlando faces Charlotte, tweets Beede.
  • Heat forward Nikola Jovic came off the bench for the first time this fall on Sunday in Minnesota, but ended up having his best game of the young season, helping Miami claim a one-point win with 15 points and seven rebounds. After the game, head coach Erik Spoelstra challenged Jovic to maintain that level going forward. “This is the standard now,” Spoelstra said, according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “I don’t want to retreat, I don’t want to have to do things to get something out of players. He was very good tonight from the detail standpoint, the effort standpoint, rebounding, size, defending multiple efforts.”
  • Heat forward/center Kevin Love, who made his season debut on Sunday following an early-season absence due to a personal family matter, lauded the organization for giving him the time off he needed, Chiang writes for The Herald. “They were so amazing in supporting me, letting me have my time and allowing me to come back refreshed in my mind,” Love said. “… The support was unbelievable from my teammates, coaching staff, organization. … Now that I’m back, I’m just trying to add that freshness, that lightness to the locker room and hopefully help out there, as well.”
  • After making just 2-of-9 shots from the field on Monday, rookie big man Alex Sarr has a .330 FG% and a .186 3PT% for the season. That’s okay with the Wizards, who knew Sarr’s offense was well behind his defense and are prepared to be patient with the No. 2 overall pick, writes Varun Shankar of The Washington Post. “This is part of the maturation of going through this league,” head coach Brian Keefe said. “You have to see all these different types of matchups. I’ve coached a lot of great players in this league … and you have to go through the fire. And you learn by doing and being out there and seeing what it feels like.”

Suns’ Collin Gillespie Fractures Right Ankle

Suns guard Collin Gillespie has been diagnosed with a right ankle fracture, the team announced today in a press release (Twitter link via Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic).

According to the Suns, Gillespie will be reevaluated in four weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be ready to return at that point — just that he’ll be examined at that time.

Gillespie, who is on a two-way contract with Phoenix, had appeared in only one NBA game so far this season, logging 3:26 of game action in an October 26 win over Dallas. He suffered the injury in the G League season opener on Friday, just two minutes into his debut for the Valley Suns.

The Suns initially listed Gillespie’s injury as a sprain, but Valley Suns head coach John Little said on Monday that the 25-year-old was still undergoing tests to determine the severity of the injury (Twitter video link via Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports).

Gillespie’s absence won’t have any real impact on the Suns’ NBA rotation, since he had several players ahead of him on the depth chart, but it’s an unfortunate turn of events for a young player who already lost one full season due to an injury. The former Villanova standout missed his entire rookie season in 2022/23 as a Nuggets two-way player after suffering a lower leg fracture while helping out with a practice at his alma mater.

Pelicans’ Jose Alvarado Expected To Miss Six Weeks

12:09pm: The Pelicans have officially announced that Alvarado has been diagnosed with a left hamstring strain (Twitter link).

According to the team, the guard will be reevaluated in three weeks, though that doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to return at that time. As noted below, Charania cited sources who estimated a six-week recovery timeline.


11:17am: The bad news just keeps on coming for the Pelicans, who are already missing several rotation players due to injuries and have now lost another one. According to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link), guard Jose Alvarado is expected to be out for six weeks due to a hamstring injury.

Alvarado typically plays a relatively modest rotation role off the bench for the Pelicans, but has started seven of 11 games and logged major minutes this season due to the team’s injury woes.

In his last six full games prior to injuring his hamstring on Monday, the 26-year-old had averaged 17.2 points, 5.7 assists, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.7 steals in 33.3 minutes per night, with a shooting line of .422/.447/.800.

Alvarado is one of six Pelicans starters or rotation players currently sidelined. The team is also operating without Zion Williamson (hamstring), Dejounte Murray (hand), CJ McCollum (adductor), Herbert Jones (shoulder), and Jordan Hawkins (back) as a result of multi-week injuries. Additionally, Trey Murphy (hamstring) missed the team’s first 10 games before making his season debut on Monday.

Teams can apply for a hardship exception allowing them to add an extra player to their 15-man roster if they have four players who have missed at least three games due to injuries and are expected to remain out for at least two more weeks.

The hardship exception allows for an extra temporary roster spot for each additionally unavailable player beyond that minimum four-player threshold, meaning the Pelicans could qualify for multiple hardship exceptions once Williamson and Alvarado have missed at least three games apiece. If Hawkins is also expected to miss an extended period, New Orleans could be eligible for as many as three extra roster spots, though the recovery timeline originally reported for Hawkins was just a week or two.

Of course, it’s also worth noting that hardship signings will count toward the Pelicans’ team salary for cap and tax purposes and the club is currently operating about $2.8MM over the luxury tax line, as Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. New Orleans, having never paid the tax, will likely try to sneak below the threshold later in the season, so the team may be wary about adding additional salary to its books, even on 10-day hardship contracts.

After Monday’s loss to Brooklyn, the Pelicans are 3-8, placing them in a tie with Portland for the No. 13 seed in the Western Conference. New Orleans has a challenging stretch of games on tap that includes matchups with the Thunder, Nuggets, Lakers, Mavericks, Cavaliers, Warriors, and Pacers in the next two weeks.

Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat: 11/12/2024

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Hoops Rumors Glossary: Luxury Tax Penalties

NBA teams can become hard-capped during a given league year if they use specific cap exceptions or make certain transactions, but the league doesn’t have a hard cap in place for all its teams.

However, in addition to its soft cap, the league does have a luxury tax threshold, which serves to discourage excessive spending. When a team’s total salary is over that line at season’s end, the NBA charges a tax for every surplus dollar the club spends.

The luxury tax line is set each season at 121.5% of the salary cap threshold, rounded to the nearest thousand. In 2024/25, the league’s salary cap is set at $140,588,000, so the luxury tax threshold is $170,814,000. That means any team whose total ’24/25 salary exceeds $170,814,000 on the last day of the regular season is subject to a tax bill.

The NBA’s luxury tax system is set up so that the penalties become more punitive the further teams go beyond the tax line. Teams who are in the first tax bracket will pay a significantly less significant tax rate per dollar than teams operating in the third or fourth bracket (or beyond).

In 2023/24, the amount of each tax bracket was $5MM, which meant a team faced an increased tax rate once its total salary surpassed $5MM over the tax, $10MM over the tax, $15MM over the tax, and so on.

In 2024/25 and in subsequent seasons, the size of those tax brackets will increase at the same rate as the salary cap. For example, since the cap rose by about 3.36% from ’23/24 to ’24/25, the size of each tax bracket increased by 3.36% too, from $5MM to $5,168,000.

Here’s what the luxury penalties will look like in 2024/25:

Tax bracket
Amount above tax line
Tax rate (per $)
Maximum penalty
1 $1 – $5,168,000 $1.50 $7,752,000
2 $5,168,001 – $10,336,000 $1.75 $9,044,000
3 $10,336,001 – $15,504,000 $2.50 $12,920,000
4 $15,504,001 – $20,672,000 $3.25 $16,796,000

For each additional $5,168,000 above the tax line beyond $25,840,000 a team operates, its tax rates increase by $0.50 per dollar of team salary. So, the penalty is $3.75 per dollar between $20,672,001 and $25,840,000, $4.25 per dollar between $25,840,001 and $31,008,000, and so on.

Here’s a practical example of how the tax penalties work. The Nuggets currently have a team salary of $182,574,315, which is above this season’s tax line by $11,760,315, putting them in the third tax bracket. Denver’s total salary will likely move up or down before the season is over, but the team’s current projected tax bill is $20,356,788. That’s based on a penalty of $7,752,000 from the first tax bracket, $9,044,000 from the second, and $3,560,788 from the third (a penalty of $2.50 per dollar on $1,424,315).

The rates listed above apply to most taxpayers, including 10 of the 14 teams currently in the tax for 2024/25: the Nuggets, Suns, Timberwolves, Celtics, Knicks, Heat, Sixers, Mavericks, Pelicans, and Cavaliers. However, a team can become subject to a more punitive “repeater” penalty if it paid the tax in at least three of the previous four seasons.

This scenario currently applies to four teams — the Warriors, Clippers, Bucks, and Lakers paid the tax at least three times from 2021 to 2024, which means they’ll be repeat offenders this season.

Here are the penalties that apply to repeat taxpayers in 2024/25:

Tax bracket
Amount above tax line
Tax rate (per $)
Maximum penalty
1 $1 – $5,168,000 $2.50 $12,920,000
2 $5,168,001 – $10,336,000 $2.75 $14,212,000
3 $10,336,001 – $15,504,000 $3.50 $18,088,000
4 $15,504,001 – $20,672,000 $4.25 $21,964,000

As is the case with the standard penalties, the tax rate continues to increase by $0.50 per tax bracket, so a repeater taxpayer in the fifth bracket would face a tax rate of $4.75 per dollar; that would increase to $5.25 per dollar in the sixth tax bracket, and so on.

The Clippers are currently carrying $173,279,116 in total salary, surpassing the tax line by $2,465,116. Because they’re charged $2.50 per dollar as a repeater taxpayer, their projected tax bill is $6,162,790 instead of the standard rate of $3,697,674.

The further into tax territory a team goes, the greater the difference between the repeater rate and the standard rate becomes. For instance, the Bucks’ projected tax bill at the moment is $74,837,699. If they weren’t subject to repeater penalties, it would be just $52,554,394.

The 2024/25 season is the last one in which the rates outlined above will apply. Beginning in 2025/26, the NBA is adjusting the tax rates to make them even more punitive for repeater taxpayers and heavy spenders. Conversely, the penalties for standard taxpayers who finish the season in one of the first two tax brackets will be lowered.

Here are the changes coming next season:

Tax bracket
Standard tax rate (per $)
Repeater tax rate (per $)
1 $1.00 $3.00
2 $1.25 $3.25
3 $3.50 $5.50
4 $4.75 $6.75

These rates will continue to increase by $0.50 per tax bracket beyond the fourth bracket.

The goal of these tweaks is to discourage teams from soaring way beyond the luxury tax line without making the tax line itself a major deterrent.


Since luxury tax penalties are calculated by determining a team’s total cap hits at the end of its season, a team that starts the year above the tax line could get under it before the end of the season by completing trades or buyouts. The Pelicans did just that in 2023/24, moving out of tax territory by salary-dumping Kira Lewis‘ expiring contract in January.

New Orleans is one of just two NBA teams that has never been a taxpayer (Charlotte is the other) and is operating only narrowly above the tax line this season, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the team make another mid-season deal to duck the tax.

It’s also worth noting that team salary for tax purposes is calculated slightly differently than it is for cap purposes. Here are a few of the adjustments made at season’s end before a team’s tax bill is calculated:

  • Cap holds and exceptions are ignored.
  • “Likely” bonuses that weren’t earned are removed from team salary; “unlikely” bonuses that were earned are added to team salary.
    • Note: Bonuses based on playoff-related criteria can be removed or added to team salary after the regular season ends. In that scenario, a team’s tax bill is based on its salary at the end of the team’s season (ie. its playoff run), not the end of the regular season.
  • If a player with a trade bonus is acquired after the final regular season game, that trade bonus is added to team salary.
  • If a rookie or second-year player signed a minimum-salary free agent contract, the applicable minimum-salary cap charge for a two-year veteran is used in place of that player’s cap charge.
    • Note: This “tax variance” rule only applies to free agents, not drafted players.

So let’s say that five teams finish the season owing a total of $75MM in taxes. Where does that money go? Currently, the NBA splits it 50/50 — half of it is used for “league purposes,” while the other half is distributed to non-taxpaying teams in equal shares. In our hypothetical scenario, the 25 non-taxpaying teams would receive $2MM apiece.

As cap expert Larry Coon explains in his CBA FAQ, “league purposes” essentially covers any purpose the NBA deems appropriate, including giving the money back to teams. In recent years, the NBA has used that money as a funding source for its revenue sharing program.

Coon also notes that the CBA technically allows up to 50% of tax money to be distributed to non-taxpaying teams, but there’s no obligation for that to happen — in other words, the NBA could decide to use 100% of the tax money for “league purposes.”


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.