What is an NBA Hardship Exception?

Keith Smith
Keith Smith, Resident NBA ExpertDecember 26, 2021
© USA TODAY Sports

There are some key buzzwords floating around the NBA right now, as the league continues to battle COVID.

The first set of words are "health and safety protocols". The protocols are the mysterious netherworld that players, coaches and staff enter when they have a positive COVID test. In reality, it’s not that mysterious. Essentially, anyone from a team who tests positive has to leave the team for a period of two to ten days. If they can return two negative tests at least 24 hours apart, the individual can exit the protocols and rejoin the team. If they don’t, they’re out for a minimum of 10 days, at which point a single negative test can free them from the protocols.

(As of this writing, the NBA and NBPA are negotiating a change that would reduce that 10-day absence to just six days for asymptomatic players who are also vaccinated.)

The second set of words are “hardship exception” and that’s become an increasingly important term for NBA teams in recent days.

Hardship exception are roster exceptions where teams are allowed to exceed the maximum of 15 standard contracts. They’ve existed for years, but up until the last two weeks, usage of a hardship exception was fairly rare. In fact, here’s the total number of hardship exceptions utilized in the past five seasons:

  • 2016-17 – 7
  • 2017-18 – 8
  • 2018-19 – 9
  • 2019-20 – 2
  • 2020-21 – 9

That’s 35 total hardship exception signings over a five-year period.

As of this writing, NBA teams have used a whopping 55 hardship exceptions (53 total players have signed via hardship, with two players signing two deals) in the first two months of the 2021-22 season.

Up until this season, in order to petition the league for an additional roster spot via hardship a team had to have at least four players out for a period of three or more games, with the absences projected to continue.

In addition, in years past, before January 5 or each season, teams were in ineligible to sign players to a 10-Day contract via hardship. Teams would work around this by signing a player to a non-guaranteed contract and then waiving them when the hardship period has passed. On January 5 and beyond, the vast majority of hardship signings were accomplished via a 10-Day contract.

This year, while facing down unprecedented absences due to the health and safety protocols, the NBA and NBPA agreed to tweak both the hardship and 10-Day rules.

Now, teams can sign a player to a 10-Day contract via hardship as soon as they have a player enter the protocols. They don’t even need to petition the league for the additional roster spot.

Not only can teams sign a player to a 10-Day via hardship, but if they are below 13 available players due to health and safety protocols, teams must sign a player to a 10-Day via hardship, until they get back up to 13 available players.

The NBA and NBPA also made an additional tweak to the hardship rules to help teams. In years past, all contracts counted against the cap and tax. (The only exception here were Replacement Player contracts due to opt outs prior to the Walt Disney World bubble to complete the 2019-20 season.) With several teams already facing hefty luxury tax bills, and several others pushing closer to the hard cap line, the league and player’s association agreed that these hardship signings would not count against the cap nor tax.

There is a push from many within front offices around the NBA that hardship signings should never count towards the cap nor tax. The idea being that if you are in a hardship position, you run the risk of not being able to suit up enough players to practice or play. If you are up against, or even at, the hard cap, you would be unable to add a player in this scenario. If that situation was to occur after the trade deadline, you’d have no way to create the space necessary to sign players. It’s expected that making this change permanent will be addressed during the 2022 offseason.

10-Day hardship exception signings have resulted in the return to league of some notable veteran players like Joe Johnson and Lance Stephenson. They’ve also given an opportunity to players who may have never gotten an NBA call-up, like Hassani Gravett, who started a game for the Orlando Magic.

Get used to the hardship rules, but hopefully not too used to them. Ideally, this will go back to being a seldom-used roster exception that only happens when a team has an extraordinarily unlucky season with injuries.

Notable NBA Links


Top