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Trade kickers are contractual clauses that pay players a bonus when they’re traded, and they represent one of the tools teams have to differentiate their free agent offers from the deals competing clubs put on the table, as I explained this weekend. They’re often used to woo stars, like Chris Paul and Dwight Howard, both of whom have trade kickers worth the maximum 15% of their new deals. It seems unlikely that either of them will be traded anytime soon, but their kickers offer further deterrence against a trade as well as the possibility that their maximum-salary contracts will become even more lucrative than they already are.

Trade kickers aren’t the exclusive purview of the NBA’s most well-paid players. The agents for Nazr Mohammed, Beno Udrih and Nick Young and all negotiated trade kickers into the minimum-salary deals those players signed this past offseason. The Lakers may well have felt compelled to agree to the kicker to entice Young to sign for below market value, while Mohammed wields the double hammer of a trade kicker and the ability to veto trades, making it highly improbable he gets moved this season.

Sometimes a trade kicker is included in an offer sheet that a team makes to a restricted free agent in hopes that the bonus will dissuade the player’s original team from matching. That appears to have been the case with Jeff Teague, who signed an offer sheet with the Bucks that included a trade kicker. In Teague’s case, the ploy didn’t work, as the Hawks matched anyway.

Teague’s trade kicker is unusual, since it stipulates that in the event of a trade, he’ll receive either a set amount ($600K) or 15% of the value of his contract, whichever is less. Most trade kickers call for the player to get a simple percentage of whatever’s left on the his deal, but Teague is one of a few guys with more complex terms in his contract. Tyreke Evans and Tyson Chandler have similarly structured deals. Trade kickers can also simply call for the player to receive a set amount, though no current players have one like that in their contracts.

Three players with trade kickers were involved in swaps over the summer, so Jason Terry, Andrea Bargnani and Robin Lopez are all on slightly more expensive deals than they were last season. They can be traded again, but they won’t receive any extra money if that happens. Here’s a list of every NBA player with an active trade kicker, listed alphabetically, with the details of the kickers in parentheses. Players who signed deals this past offseason are marked with an asterisk.

• Ray Allen, Heat (15%)
• Nicolas Batum, Trail Blazers (15%)
• Chris Bosh, Heat (15%)
• Vince Carter, Mavericks (10%)
• Tyson Chandler, Knicks (lesser of 8% or $500K — so, the bonus would be $500K until midway through the 2014/15 season)
• *Samuel Dalembert, Mavericks (15%)
• *Tyreke Evans, Pelicans (lesser of 15% or $1MM — so, the bonus would be $1MM until midway through the 2016/17 season)
• Pau Gasol, Lakers (15%)
• Eric Gordon, Pelicans (15%)
• Blake Griffin, Clippers (15%)
• Udonis Haslem, Heat (15%)
• Roy Hibbert, Pacers (15%)
• *Dwight Howard, Rockets (15%)
• *Andre Iguodala, Warriors (15%)
• LeBron James, Heat (15%)
• Amir Johnson, Raptors (5%)
• DeAndre Jordan, Clippers (15%)
• Brook Lopez, Nets (15%)
• Shawn Marion, Mavericks (15%)
• *Nazr Mohammed, Bulls (15%)
• Steve Nash, Lakers (15%)
• *Chris Paul, Clippers (15%)
• *J.J. Redick, Clippers (5%)
• Derrick Rose, Bulls (15%)
• *J.R. Smith, Knicks (15%)
• *Jeff Teague, Hawks (lesser of 15% or $600K — so, the bonus would be $600K until midway through the 2016/17 season)
• Jason Thompson, Kings (5%)
• *Beno Udrih, Knicks (15%)
• Anderson Varejao, Cavaliers (5%)
• Dwyane Wade, Heat (15%)
• Deron Williams, Nets (15%)
• *Mo Williams, Trail Blazers (15%)
• *Nick Young, Lakers (15%)

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

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Sunday could be the start of one of the most intriguing Decembers in recent memory, with Omer Asik, Luol Deng, Dion Waiters, Iman Shumpert among the names coming up in trade rumors. We’ve already seen one deal this season, with Derrick Williams heading to the Kings and Luc Mbah a Moute going to the Timberwolves, but there’s a strong chance that’s not the only one that happens before New Year’s Day. Most free agents who signed this summer become eligible to be traded on December 15th, and that will open the door for plenty of action.

There weren’t any December trades last season, and while there were many in December 2011, the lockout-shortened calendar fueled those moves. We’ll instead look back on the six December trades that happened in 2009 and 2010, when two dozen players changed hands.

December 18th, 2010: The Wizards traded Gilbert Arenas to the Magic for Rashard Lewis.

• The Magic began dismantling the core of their 2009 Finals team with a pair of significant deals this day. They swapped one regrettable contract for another, acquiring Arenas, whom they later waived via amnesty clause. Arenas doesn’t count against the Magic’s cap anymore, even though they’ll still be paying off his $111MM contract through 2016. Lewis never made a significant contribution to the Wizards, who traded him to New Orleans last year for another pair of overpriced contracts.

December 18th, 2010: The Magic traded Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat, Mickael Pietrus, cash and a 2011 first-round pick (Nikola Mirotic) to the Suns for Earl Clark, Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu.

• Orlando is still paying Arenas, but the team’s more egregious mistakes were in this deal. The Suns reaped a first-round pick for Gortat last month, while Carter is still a productive player for the Mavs, and Mirotic might be the best player outside the NBA. Clark and Richardson were valuable for the Magic only in the sense that they served as ballast in the Dwight Howard trade, and Orlando is trying without much luck to find a taker for Turkoglu’s bloated contract.

December 15th, 2010: In a three-team trade, the Lakers traded Sasha Vujacic and a 2011 first-round pick (JaJuan Johnson) to the Nets; the Rockets traded the rights to Sergei Lishouk to the Lakers, the Rockets traded a 2013 first-round pick to the Nets (Shane Larkin); the Nets traded Terrence Williams to the Rockets; the Nets traded Joe Smith, a 2011 second-round pick (Darius Morris) and a 2012 second-round pick (Robert Sacre) to the Lakers.

• The most significant part of this convoluted deal was the 2013 first-rounder that the Nets got from Houston. Brooklyn sent the pick that became Larkin to the Hawks last year in the Joe Johnson trade, and Atlanta sent it to Dallas on draft night this past June.

December 15th, 2010: The Rockets traded Jermaine Taylor and cash to the Kings for a protected 2011 second-round draft pick (the pick was never conveyed under the terms of the protection).

• This was purely a financial move for the Rockets and GM Daryl Morey, who greased the skids for their involvement in the three-way deal that took place the same day. Taylor played out the season before the Kings waived him in June, and he hasn’t been back in the NBA since.

December 29th, 2009: The Timberwolves traded Jason Hart to the Suns for Alando Tucker, cash, and a 2010 second-round draft pick (Hamady N’Diaye).

• This one didn’t move the needle much, though Minnesota traded the N’Diaye pick on draft night in 2010 for a package that included Lazar Hayward. The Wolves later traded Hayward to the Thunder, and Oklahoma City included Hayward in the James Harden deal. It’s the NBA’s version of the domino theory at work.

December 22nd, 2009: The Jazz traded Eric Maynor and Matt Harpring to the Thunder for the rights to Peter Fehse.

• Harpring had already played his final NBA game by this point thanks to injuries, but he continued to have a major effect on the Jazz because of his $6.5MM contract. Utah had to throw in its first-round pick from the previous June to unload Harpring’s salary and reduce its luxury-tax bill. Oklahoma City wound up with a promising young bench piece who played a significant role on the Thunder’s first deep push into the playoffs.

Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.

The Timberwolves traded 2011 No. 2 overall pick Derrick Williams to the Kings this week, while Dion Waiters, the fourth overall selection in 2012, could be on the move as well. Teams are usually loath to trade away a recent top draft pick because it’s tantamount to admitting a mistake, as HoopsWorld’s Alex Kennedy notes via Twitter, but that doesn’t mean such deals don’t happen with regularity.

At least one top five pick from all but three drafts since 2000 has been traded while still under a rookie scale contract. One of those three drafts is the 2013 edition, so chances are one of this past June’s most sought-after draftees gets traded in the next few years. There could even be a player traded twice on his rookie scale contract, as happened with 2012 No. 5 overall pick Thomas Robinson and a few others in recent years.

Many of the draftees who wound up in trades were disappointments, but some of them were productive players, like Jeff Green and Devin Harris, while James Harden was a budding star. Financial motivation was at the heart of the Thunder’s decision to trade Harden, while the opportunity to obtain a veteran inside presence in Kendrick Perkins prompted Oklahoma City to part with Green.

Other top draftees wound up parting ways with their teams ahead of schedule for other reasons. Many teams failed to pick up either the third or fourth year options on their rookie scale contracts, while Jay Williams, the No. 2 overall pick from 2002, hit the waiver wire after his debilitating motorcycle accident. The Bulls let Marcus Fizer, the No. 4 pick from 2000, hit the Bobcats expansion draft just days before his rookie scale deal was up.

This compilation doesn’t include players acquired via trade on draft night, since they had yet to sign their rookie contracts or appear in a game, and such swaps are often pre-ordained in advance of the draft.

2012

• No. 5 Thomas Robinson — Kings traded him to Rockets on February 20th, 2013; Rockets traded him to Trail Blazers on July 10, 2013

2011

• No. 2 Derrick Williams — Timberwolves traded him to Kings on November 26th, 2013

2010

• No. 3 Derrick Favors — Nets traded him to Jazz on February 23rd, 2011
• No. 4 Wesley Johnson — Timberwolves traded him to Suns on July 27th, 2012

2009

• No. 2 Hasheem Thabeet — Grizzlies traded him to Rockets on February 24th, 2011; Rockets traded him to Trail Blazers on March 15th, 2012
• No. 3 James Harden — Thunder traded him to Rockets on October 27th, 2012

2008

• No. 2 Michael Beasley — Heat traded him to Timberwolves on July 12th, 2010

2007

• No. 5 Jeff Green — Thunder traded him to Celtics on February 24th, 2011

2006

• No. 3 Adam Morrison — Bobcats traded him Lakers on February 7th, 2009
• No. 4 Tyrus Thomas — Bulls traded him to Bobcats on February 18th, 2010
• No. 5 Shelden Williams — Hawks traded him to Kings on February 16th, 2008; Kings traded him to Timberwolves on February 19th, 2009

2005

• None

2004

• No. 5 Devin Harris — Mavericks traded him to Nets on February 19th, 2008

2003

• No. 2 Darko Milicic — Pistons traded him to Magic on February 15th, 2006

2002

• No. 4 Drew Gooden — Grizzlies traded him to Magic on February 19th, 2003; Magic traded him to Cavaliers on July 23rd, 2004
• No. 5 Nikoloz Tskitishvili — Nuggets traded him to Warriors on February 24, 2005

2001

• None

2000

• No. 3 Darius Miles — Clippers traded him to Cavaliers on July 29th, 2002; Cavaliers traded him to Trail Blazers on January 21st, 2004
• No. 5 Mike Miller — Magic traded him to Grizzlies on February 19th, 2003

RealGM was used in the creation of this post.

Including draft-night deals and the agreement that released Doc Rivers from his contract with the Celtics, NBA teams consummated an impressive 34 trades during the 2013 offseason. The summer is typically busier than the winter when it comes to trades, but the first month of the season has resulted in plenty of rumors and speculation. Productive and intriguing players like Omer Asik, Luol Deng, Dion Waiters, and Iman Shumpert are considered trade candidates, and one former second overall pick has already been on the move, as the Wolves sent Derrick Williams to the Kings.

That swap between Minnesota and Sacramento is the only in-season trade finalized so far, but we expect to see many more made in the coming weeks and months. We’ll be tracking all of 2013/14’s deals right here, starting with the Williams/Luc Mbah a Moute swap. The list may be brief for now, but it will be updated throughout the year, and can be found anytime on the “Hoops Rumors Features” sidebar on the right-hand sidebar. If you fall behind on the rumor mill, be sure to check back to see if you missed out on any of this season’s trades.

February 20th

• The Sixers get Byron Mullens and the Clippers’ 2018 second-round pick.
• The Clippers get a 2014 second-round pick.

February 20th

• The Pacers get Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen.
• The Sixers get Danny Granger and the Warriors’ 2015 second-round pick (from the Pacers).

February 20th

• The Spurs get Austin Daye.
• The Raptors get Nando De Colo.

February 20th

• The Hawks get Antawn Jamison and cash.
• The Clippers get the draft rights to Cenk Akyol.

February 20th

• The Nuggets get Aaron Brooks.
• The Rockets get Jordan Hamilton.

February 20th

• The Wizards get Andre Miller.
• The Nuggets get Jan Vesely.
• The Sixers get Eric Maynor, the Pelicans’ 2015 second-round pick (from the Wizards), and the Nuggets’ 2016 second-round pick.

February 20th

• The Bobcats get Gary Neal and Luke Ridnour.
• The Bucks get Ramon Sessions and Jeff Adrien.

February 20th

• The Cavaliers get Spencer Hawes.
• The Sixers get Earl Clark, Henry Sims, the Grizzlies’ 2014 second-round pick (from the Cavs), and the Cavs’ 2014 second-round pick.

February 20th

• The Kings get Roger Mason Jr. and cash.
• The Heat get the Kings’ 2015 second-round pick (31-49 and 56-60 protected).

February 19th

• The Warriors get Steve Blake.
• The Lakers get Kent Bazemore and MarShon Brooks.

February 19th

• The Nets get Marcus Thornton.
• The Kings get Jason Terry and Reggie Evans.

January 21st

• The Nets get Marquis Teague.
• The Bulls get Tornike Shengelia.

January 21st

• The Pelicans get Tyshawn Taylor and cash.
• The Nets get the draft rights to Edin Bavcic.

January 15th

• The Warriors get Jordan Crawford and MarShon Brooks.
• The Heat get Toney Douglas.
• The Celtics get Joel Anthony, the Sixers’ 2014 first-round pick (from the Heat; top-14 protected), a 2016 second-round pick (from the Heat), and $1MM cash (from the Heat).

January 7th

• The Grizzlies get Courtney Lee, the Celtics’ 2016 second-round pick, and $1.1MM cash (from the Thunder).
• The Celtics get Jerryd Bayless, Ryan Gomes, and cash (from the Thunder).
• The Thunder get the Sixers’ 2014 second-round pick (from the Grizzlies; 31-50 and 56-60 protected) and the Grizzlies’ 2017 second-round pick (31-55 protected).

January 7th

• The Cavaliers get Luol Deng.
• The Bulls get Andrew Bynum, the Kings’ 2014 first-round pick (top-12 protected), the right to swap 2015 first-round picks with the Cavaliers (top-14 protected), the Trail Blazers’ 2015 second-round pick and the Trail Blazers’ 2016 second-round pick.

December 9th

• The Kings get Rudy Gay, Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy.
• The Raptors get Greivis Vasquez, John Salmons, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes.

November 26th

• The Kings get Derrick Williams.
  
• The Timberwolves get Luc Mbah a Moute.

We’re not even a full month into the 2013/14 season, but already trade rumors have been swirling around several teams for weeks, with the first swap of the season having been finalized yesterday. Derrick Williams may be off the market, but big-name trade candidates like Omer Asik and Iman Shumpert remain available, and it looks as if we may see more deals than usual completed well in advance of February’s trade deadline.

However, as has been noted several times on Hoops Rumors and elsewhere, many teams won’t start seriously discussing trades until after December 15th. That’s the day when most players who signed free agent deals this offseason become eligible to be traded. The Mavericks, for instance, signed nine players as free agents this summer, so they’re currently unable to trade more than half the players on their roster. That doesn’t mean they can’t make a move in the next couple weeks, but they’ll certainly have more flexibility to do so after December 15th.

Not all players in the league will be trade-eligible even after December 15th though. The rules for trading recent signees state that the player can be dealt after three months or after December 15th, whichever comes later. That means players signed between September 16th and today will have to wait the required three months before becoming eligible for a trade.

Additionally, if a player entered the 2013 offseason as an Early Bird or Bird free agent, and his over-the-cap team re-signed him to a raise of 20% or more, the player can’t be moved until after January 15th.

Here’s the full list of players who fall under one of these two categories, and are therefore ineligible to be traded until the date indicated in parentheses:

• 76ers: Hollis Thompson (Dec. 24th), Daniel Orton (Jan. 15th), Brandon Davies (Jan. 27th), Lorenzo Brown (Feb. 20th), Elliot Williams (Feb. 20th)
• Bulls: Mike James (Dec. 23rd)
• Cavaliers: Henry Sims (Dec. 30th)
• Grizzlies: Tony Allen (Jan. 15th)
• Hawks: Cartier Martin (Jan. 15th)
• Heat: Roger Mason (Dec. 27th)
• Jazz: Mike Harris (Dec. 30th), Diante Garrett (Feb. 13th)
• Knicks: Cole Aldrich (Dec. 23rd), J.R. Smith (Jan. 15th)
• Magic: Solomon Jones (Dec. 27th)
• Mavericks: Brandan Wright (Jan. 15th)
• Nuggets: Timofey Mozgov (Jan. 15th)
• Pacers: Rasual Butler (Dec. 25th)
• Pelicans: Louis Amundson (Feb. 12th), Josh Childress (Feb. 12th)
• Raptors: Julyan Stone (Dec. 18th)
• Spurs: Tiago Splitter (Jan. 15th)
• Timberwolves: Robbie Hummel (Dec. 23rd), A.J. Price (Dec. 30th), Chase Budinger (Jan. 15th), Nikola Pekovic (Jan. 15th)
• Warriors: Dewayne Dedmon (Feb. 18th)

ShamSports and RealGM were used in the creation of this post.

Trades are a part of NBA reality for players, who sign their contracts knowing that their teams can send them elsewhere just about any time, usually without their consent. Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are the only four players with no-trade clauses written into their contracts, though the Celtics received Garnett’s OK to send him to the Nets this summer. Players who re-sign with a team on a one-year contract also have veto power over trades, through a quirk in the collective bargaining agreement, though sometimes those guys consent to trades, too, as Marreese Speights did last season.

Still, few if any players would be on board with getting traded for a second time in a year, as Luc Mbah a Moute was today. He’s the ninth player to endure more than one trade since the start of the 2012/13 season. Malcolm Lee has gone through three trades, though he wasn’t with the Warriors long, since Golden State acquired him and shipped him out on the same night. Those trades happened at the draft, and unless a veteran like Lee was involved, draft-night trades aren’t accounted for on this list, since they happen before any of the incoming rookies have signed their contracts. I also didn’t count J.J. Redick, because the second swap he was involved in was a sign-and-trade transaction that facilitated his new deal with the Clippers, and the trade wouldn’t have happened without his approval.

Here are the well-traveled nine:

• Luc Mbah a Moute (Bucks trade him to Kings on July 12th; Kings trade him to Timberwolves on November 26th)
• Malcolm Lee (Timberwolves trade him to Warriors on June 27th; Warriors trade him to Suns on June 27th; Suns trade him to Wizards on October 25th)
• Caron Butler (Clippers trade him to Suns on July 10th; Suns trade him to Bucks on August 29th)
• Viacheslav Kravtsov (Pistons trade him to Bucks on July 31st; Bucks trade him to Suns on August 29th)
• Ish Smith (Magic trade him to Bucks on February 21st; Bucks trade him to Suns on August 29th
• Thomas Robinson (Kings trade him to Rockets on February 20th; Rockets trade him to Trail Blazers on July 10th)
• Hamed Haddadi (Grizzlies trade him to Raptors on January 30th; Raptors trade him to Suns on February 21st)
• Hakim Warrick (Pelicans trade him to Bobcats on November 13th, 2012; Bobcats trade him to Magic on February 21st)

Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren’t the only updates you’ll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you’ll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here’s a rundown of a few of them:

• You can follow all our updates about your favorite teams or players on your iPhone or iPad using the Hoops Rumors app.
• We’re still keeping a close eye on free agency with the help of our list of 2013 free agents. If you want to look ahead to the summer of 2014 or 2015, we’ve rounded up those free agents as well. All of these FA lists will continue to be modified as needed.
• Our NBA Free Agent Tracker and our International Player Movement Tracker are no longer being updated, but they include offseason moves through the end of October.
• Not all the players currently on NBA rosters have guaranteed deals. We’ve provided a schedule of contract guarantee dates so you can keep track of when teams will have to make decisions on those non-guaranteed players. We also have them broken down by team.
• Our list of 2013/14 roster counts is a convenient tool for keeping tabs on how many players your favorite NBA team is carrying, and how many guaranteed contracts are on each club’s books.
• If your favorite team has a better chance at Andrew Wiggins than at a playoff berth, be sure to follow our reverse standings, which are updated daily to reflect the projected 2014 draft order.
• We’re keeping tabs on this season’s D-League assignments right here.
• Our agency database is a handy reference point for determining the representation for virtually every NBA player.
• Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed since 2007, sorting by player, team, year, and other variables.
• On Mondays at 4:00pm CT, I answer readers’ questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of our past live discussions here.
• Our list of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is created, is used, or expires.
• We’re tracking teams’ amnesty provisions — using our complete list, you can check to see which clubs have used the amnesty clause and which will have it available next summer.
• The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere every Sunday in his weekly Hoops Links feature.
• If you’re looking to catch up on a few days worth of content, our Week in Review posts round up the week’s news and rumors, while our Hoops Rumors Originals posts recap the site’s original content for the week. Both round-ups are published every Sunday.
• Be sure to check out the Featured Posts section on the right sidebar for more original pieces from the Hoops Rumors writing team. Recently, we explored the cost of traded 2014 first-round picks, recapped the players who signed rookie scale extensions this year, and submitted our predictions for the 2013/14 season.

The number of teams paying the luxury tax has been six the past two seasons, and again half a dozen teams are lined up for the penalty this year. The bill only comes due for clubs that cross the $71.748MM team salary threshold at the end of the season, so that means trades and other roster moves could either spare a front office from the tax or force another into shelling out extra cash.

Three of the franchises with team salaries that currently exceed the tax line wouldn’t make the playoffs if they started today, including the Nets and Knicks, who have the two highest payrolls in the league. The Bulls are in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, but their record is just 6-5 and they just lost Derrick Rose to another injury. The New York teams would have to pull off drastic salary dumps to avoid the tax, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bulls try to shed some salary via trade if Rose is to miss the season. The same goes for the Lakers if Kobe Bryant can’t return to right the ship. Both Chicago and the Lakers are about $7.5MM above tax line.

There are several teams below the tax line but close enough to it that it’s likely to come into play as they plan their in-season moves. The Celtics and Raptors are within a million dollars of tax territory, which might make it hard for them to add any intriguing free agents who come available or take on even the slightest salary bump in a trade.

Team salary figures may also change if players achieve unlikely bonuses, which would be added to the books, or fall short of likely bonuses, which would be subtracted. Some of the totals listed below for the projected tax teams include non-guaranteed contracts, though in each case, the team wouldn’t escape the tax merely by waiving those players.

Here are all six teams in line for the tax, with their team salaries in parentheses.

• Nets ($102,211,009)
• Knicks ($88,249,065)
• Heat ($83,528,143)
• Bulls ($79,288,428)
• Lakers ($79,186,502)
• Clippers ($73,325,353)

HoopsWorld was used in the creation of this post.