It doesn’t always go this way, but sometimes the eye test matches the statistical analysis of a player. Sometimes you look at the stats, check out the film and it all just makes sense.

That’s De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings this season.

The numbers show improvement all over the floor for Fox. Watching him play matches those numbers. The seventh-year guard isn’t a drastically different player in terms of look or style. But subtle changes are there, and they’ve made all the difference in Fox going from a good player to an All-Star to an All-NBA level of player over the last few seasons.

2022-23 was the first season that Fox finished the year above 50% from the field (he shot 51.2% overall). Working an expertly-crafted two-man game with Domantas Sabonis, Fox took 42.2% of his shots in and around the paint. That was down a bit from the prior season, when the Kentucky product was at 46.6% of his shots in the same area.

Where did those four percentage points go from 2021-22 to 2022-23? To three-pointers. Fox took 27.6% of his shots from behind the arc last season, up from 22.8% the prior season.

This season, Fox’s shot profile has changed even more dramatically. And it’s made all the difference.

Fox is still in the same range in and around the paint, as he’s at 41.2% of his shots coming from that area. This season though, Fox is at a whopping (for him) 36.2% of his shots coming from behind the arc.

How did he get there? The Kings point guard has limited his mid-range attempts to 17.5% of his shot diet (his lowest mark in the last three seasons). More importantly, Fox has all but eliminated the long two-point shot from his profile. This season, just 0.5% of his shots are long twos. That’s the lowest mark of his career.

Essentially, Fox has turned a few less shots near the basket and a lot fewer mid-range and long-twos into three-pointers. And he’s done so with the best three-point shooting of his career, in terms of volume plus efficiency. Fox is hitting 36.9% of his 8.1 three-point attempts per game. That easily tops his previous high of 5.5 triples attempted per game.

When you watch Fox, he remains arguably the fastest player in the NBA with the ball in his hands. He’s still a blur, but it’s a bit more selective now. The Kings no longer race up and down the floor with a “we’ll figure it out when we get there” attitude. Everything is a lot more calculated and that’s keyed by Fox and Sabonis.

Sabonis is one of the league’s best rebounders. It’s common for a possession to start with Sabonis pulling a board off the glass and outlet passing it to Fox, like one would pluck an apple off the tree and toss it to a companion. What doesn’t happen as much anymore is Fox then turning on the jets and attacking the rim while two or three teammates are still making it over halfcourt.

Those pell-mell drives have been replaced with Fox letting Sabonis get to his spot at the top of the key. From there, the two work opponents into submission with traditional pick-and-roll and dribble-hand-off plays. Press up too much to take those actions away, and the Kings back cut and flare into layups and open jumpers.

Sacramento’s offense isn’t as destructive as last season. There are a lot of reasons for this. They aren’t catching anyone by surprise anymore. Teams know the Kings are good and respect them as such. They aren’t making as many shots and the free throws are down a bit. That’s probably related to the lack of surprise from opponents. Everything is a little harder, but the Kings are still making it work.

And that’s largely because of Fox. We talked about the change in his shooting profile, but he’s also moving the ball well and getting on the glass more than ever. His defense is also more engaged, as he’s harnessed his speed and quickness for more than just beating people on the other end. He’s also attempting more free throws than ever, which signifies he’s gotten the respect from officials, as well as opponents.

If you add it all up, De’Aaron Fox is a star. And he’s going to get paid like one.

Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes reported that Fox turned down a two-year, $105 million extension from the Kings this past summer. (Depending on the cap projection you use, Fox could have gotten slightly more at just over $107 million.) It was reported that Fox did so in hopes of earning an even bigger extension from Sacramento down the line.

Fox is in Year 3 of the five-year rookie scale extension he signed with Sacramento in November of 2020. (Note: the NBA was working on an adjusted calendar in 2020, due to the COVID-19 impacted seasons) He has two seasons and nearly $72 million (fully guaranteed) left on that extension after this one.

That deal, plus Fox’s improved play, give him all kinds of options on his next deal. Let’s dive in!

The Veteran Extension

Let’s start by saying Fox can’t extend right now. His window to sign any sort of extension closed when this season started. He’ll have to wait until the 2024 offseason to ink any kind of extension.

Fox could sign a Veteran Extension this coming summer that looks like this:

• 2024-25: $34,848,340 (Year 4 of current contract)
• 2025-26: $37,096,620 (Year 5 of current contract)
• 2026-27: $51,546,000 (Year 1 of a Veteran Extension)
• 2027-28: $55,669,680 (Year 2 of a Veteran Extension)
• 2028-29: $59,793,360 (Year 3 of a Veteran Extension)
• Total: three years, $167,009,040 in new money via a Veteran Extension

This one is a bit complicated, so hang with us here. Fox is in Year 7 of his career right now. When his current contract ends, he’ll have nine years of service. That qualifies, and caps, him for an extension that starts at 30% of the cap. For now, that projects to be $51,546,000 for the 2026-27 season.

Fox could technically sign an extension for 140% of the final year of his current contract. That would be for $51,935,268 in first-year salary. As that number is above Fox’s currently projected max salary for the 2026-27 season, he’d end up capped at the 30% of the cap amount and $51,546,000.

In reality, how this would likely work is that Fox would extend for 140% amount, and if the cap doesn’t go up enough, his salary would force back down to the 30% of the cap maximum.

In this case, we’re using the projected $51,546,000 maximum amount, plus 8% raises, to determine the Fox’s Veteran Extension number.

The potentially bigger challenges? If Fox extended as early as this summer via the Veteran Extension, he’d only be allowed to add three new years to his contract. Contracts extended via the Veteran Extension can only total five years in length, including years remaining on the current contract. And he’d be capped at the 30% of the cap maximum.

That leaves Fox waiting and playing for more. Let’s take a look what’s potentially at stake.

The Designated Veteran Extension signed in 2024

In order to qualify to sign a Designated Veteran Extension in 2024, which would allow for Fox to jump to the 35% of the cap maximum salary tier and to add an additional year, he would have to achieve one of the following this season:

• Win MVP
• Win Defensive Player of the Year
• Make an All-NBA Team

As much as Fox has improved, he’s probably not going to win MVP. We can also safely take DPOY of the table too. But an All-NBA nod is very much in play.

If Fox qualified for a Designated Veteran Extension and signed it this summer, that deal would look like this:

• 2024-25: $34,848,340 (Year 4 of current contract)
• 2025-26: $37,096,620 (Year 5 of current contract)
• 2026-27: $60,137,000 (Year 1 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2027-28: $64,947,960 (Year 2 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2028-29: $69,758,920 (Year 3 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2029-30: $74,569,880 (Year 4 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• Total: four years, $269,413,760 in new money via a Designated Veteran Extension

In this scenario, Fox could add four years of new money on his deal. The contract would start at the projected 35% of the cap maximum of $60,137,000 and would include 8% raises.

Comparing new money in a Designated Veteran Extension to new money in a Veteran Extension, you can see Fox stands to add more than $100 million in new money.

It’s easy to see why Fox is betting on himself. There’s one more scenario worth exploring though.

The Designated Veteran Extension signed in 2025

Let’s say De’Aaron Fox doesn’t choose the path chosen by fellow Kentucky products Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns, who both signed four-year Designated Veteran Extensions as soon as they were able. Fox could choose to delay signing his extension by a year to add even more money, but it comes at a risk.

For one, Fox would have to be certain he could make All-NBA for the 2024-25 season (or win MVP or DPOY). If he misses out for 2024-25, Fox would no longer be eligible to sign a Designated Veteran Extension in 2025.

But let’s say he either doesn’t qualify for Designated Veteran Extension status this season, or he chooses to wait, but does qualify next season, here’s what Fox would be looking at extending for in the summer of 2025:

• 2025-26: $37,096,620 (Year 5 of current contract)
• 2026-27: $60,137,000 (Year 1 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2027-28: $64,947,960 (Year 2 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2028-29: $69,758,920 (Year 3 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2029-30: $74,569,880 (Year 4 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• 2030-31: $79,380,840 (Year 5 of a Designated Veteran Extension)
• Total: five years, $348,794,600 in new money via a Designated Veteran Extension

Whew boy!

Those numbers are staggering, even more so than the four-year Designated Veteran Extension. Nearly $350 million in total money, and approaching $80 million in the final year of the deal. For perspective, Years 4 and 5 would be worth more than the $70 million per season that Shohei Ohtani just got from the Los Angeles Dodgers in Major League Baseball.

To recap: This is the 35% of the cap maximum salary in 2026-27 with 8% raises, but with the addition of a fifth year.

The Designated Veteran Contract

Let’s say De’Aaron Fox missed out on All-NBA in 2023-24 AND 2024-25. He’ll have one more chance to qualify for big money by making All-NBA in 2025-26 (or, of course, winning MVP or DPOY).

If Fox were to make All-NBA in the final year of his current contract in 2025-26, he’d be eligible for the exact same deal listed out as above. However, this would not be as an extension, but as a new contract. The salaries and years would be the same, starting at 35% of the cap maximum in 2026-27 with 8% raises over a five-year contract.

Summary

De’Aaron Fox has established himself as an All-Star. His play, through the eye test and the stats, supports that. And, just as importantly, the Sacramento Kings are winning.

Sacramento has been aggressive in extending their own players, as seen with Fox’s rookie scale extension. He got the max he could, when some were questioning if that was too much. Clearly, the Kings front office got that one right.

Sacramento was equally as proactive in extending Domantas Sabonis. They used cap space to renegotiate Sabonis’ contract for this season to then give him four years and $186 million in new money.

Expect the Kings to be similarly aggressive with Fox. Clearly, from Chris Haynes’ reporting for Bleacher Report, Sacramento already tried to extend the All-Star guard. This relationship isn’t breaking up anytime soon. Both sides want it to continue. It’s just about timing things out for the right deal for both sides.

Fox was right to decline that extension offer. Yes, more than $100 million for two new seasons is incredible money for a guy who has earned about $115 million in his career to date. But Fox is in position to cash in even more.

If Fox makes All-NBA this season, expect him to ink a four-year Designated Veteran Extension that currently projects at $269.4 million in new salary. That’s the path that both Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns took with the Designated Veteran Extensions. It’s the smart one, as the player both capitalizes on what they’ve earned, while removing the risk of having to do it again the next season.

But it’s that second part that is also key. Let’s say Fox’s play falls off and he doesn’t make All-NBA this season. He’ll still have two more cracks at making it in either 2024-25 or 2025-26. And if he does it then, he’ll be able to sign for five years on his next deal, instead of being capped at four years.

It’s also fair to speculate if either the four- or five-year option, should Fox qualify, will come with a player option on the final season. Fox will be 28 years old, and in the frontend of his prime, when his current contract extends. His next deal, no matter what fashion it comes in, will see him wrap it up in his early-30s. An option on the final season, could be in play. Towns got one in his deal, while Booker didn’t. Jaylen Brown didn’t get one in his five-year Designated Veteran Extension, but Bradley Beal did (along with a trade bonus and the coveted and infamous no-trade clause!) in his recent max deal.

It’s looking likely that a player option may be the only source of real negotiation for De’Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings. Everything points to Fox making the All-NBA leap over the next year or two. At that point, a “supermax” deal is coming. It’s just a matter of when, not if.

NBA Expansion is coming. On Tuesday, December 5 in an interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio, NBA commissioner Adam Silver all but confirmed the NBA will expand. Silver didn’t make any commitments, but he again referenced Las Vegas and Seattle as potential cities and reaffirmed a post-new media rights deal timeline.

In Part 1 of our NBA Expansion series we talked how NBA expansion works, including potential timelines and how the bid process will work.

Now, we’ll cover the rules for an Expansion Draft and how Protected Player Lists actually work. The goal here is to educate anyone who is inclined to write about expansion or to undertake a mock expansion draft. This will hopefully serve as a guide to making those exercises as accurate as possible, while also providing some history behind previous Expansion Drafts.

(Note: This is assuming that the NBA follows the same rules that they have for previous expansion drafts. There is no indication that the league will change any of the rules or processes ahead of a new round of expansion.)

Timing of an Expansion Draft

Following past practices, the NBA will approve the addition of Expansion Teams a year or more ahead of them beginning play. Once teams are approved, the league will set a date for the Expansion Draft. This will take place in advance of that year’s NBA Draft.

In an ideal world, the NBA would likely want to schedule an Expansion Draft to take place in between the end of that year’s NBA Finals and the NBA Draft. This will allow for the Expansion Draft to take place without distracting from the Finals, but in advance of the Draft. With news that the league is considering a two-night NBA Draft, timing of each event can be sequenced to allow for maximum prep time.

(In 2004, the Expansion Draft was scheduled to be held on June 22, with a one-day pushback to June 23 if the 2004 NBA Finals went to a seventh game. That year’s NBA Draft was held on June 24. As the 2004 NBA Finals did not go to a seventh game, the Expansion Draft was held on June 22, with the NBA Draft on June 24.)

NBA teams would be given a deadline to submit Protected Player Lists in advance of the Expansion Draft, likely somewhere in the range of a week ahead of the Expansion Draft. To the best of our exhaustive research and knowledge, this information, both the deadlines and the lists themselves, have not been made public. Some partial lists exist, but the NBA has never made them publicly available.

Protected Player Lists

Each of the NBA’s existing 30 teams will be allowed to protect players ahead of an expansion draft. Teams are allowed to protect players who fit one of the following categories:

• Players under contract

• Players who are restricted free agents (there is a quirk to this that we will cover next)

• Players who have a player or team option for the following season

• Any player who is a pending unrestricted free agent cannot be protected

There are some more rules related to protecting players:

• Each team can protect up to eight players (but can choose to protect less)

• Each team must expose at least one player (but can choose to expose more) that can’t become an unrestricted free agent

• If a restricted free agent is drafted, they automatically become an unrestricted free agent (if selected, the former restricted free agent can not re-sign with their original team)

• Player status is as of the day of the draft (this pertains to players with player or team options)

Expansion Draft Order

As for the draft process itself, it’s fairly simply. In past expansions that featured more than one team, the NBA held a coin flip between the two teams. The winning team was given the option to select either the higher pick in that year’s NBA Draft or the higher selection in the Expansion Draft.

Note: Expansion teams are often saddled with conditions on how high they can select in a draft. Here are some examples:

• 2004: The Charlotte Bobcats were given the fourth overall pick in the 2004 draft

• 1995: The Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies were given the sixth and seventh overall picks and were restricted from picking first overall for their first four years in the NBA

• 1989: The Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic were given the 10th and 11th overall picks

• 1988: The Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat were given the eighth and ninth overall picks

In 1995, when the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies joined the league, the Grizzlies won the coin flip. They chose to have the higher pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, which gave Toronto the first pick in the 1995 Expansion Draft.

In 1989, when the Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic joined the NBA, the Magic won the coin flip. They chose to have the first pick in the 1989 Expansion Draft. That gave the Timberwolves the higher pick in the 1989 NBA Draft.

In the prior year in 1988, when the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat joined the NBA, the Hornets won the coin toss and selected to have the higher pick in the 1988 NBA Draft. That gave the Miami Heat the first pick in the 1988 Expansion Draft.

The Expansion Draft

Once the draft order is set, the teams are set for the draft. This is done in a back-and-forth order, not in a snake draft format. Here are some of the rules for the Expansion Draft:

• Each NBA team can only lose one player from their unprotected list. Once a player has been selected, the remaining players from that team are removed from eligibility to be selected.

• If a team is over the cap and has a player selected, they receive a Traded Player Exception (TPE) for the exact value of that team’s salary. (Note: This does not apply to restricted free agents. It must be a player who is under contract for the over-the-cap team to receive a TPE.)

• The teams then alternate selections until one player has been selected from each team. In the case of the Charlotte Bobcats in the 2004 Expansion Draft, they selected 19 players and the draft was then ended. Charlotte could have selected between 14 and 29 players, but chose to stop at 19 selections.

• Morbid as it may be, the NBA reserves the right to conduct a similar process in what they call a “restocking draft”. This process would be undertaken should a team suffer a tragedy that permanently prevents five or more players from being able to play (death, dismemberment or permanent disability).

You might be wondering what happens if a team has more than eight players that they want to keep. If that is the case, the existing team can work a deal with one, or both, of the expansion teams to select or not select certain players.

How this has worked in the past is the team has made a trade with one of the Expansion Teams to select a certain player, or to not select certain players. Here’s a brief example of pre-Expansion Draft trades that teams have made with this in mind:

• 2004: The Bobcats acquired the second overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft from the LA Clippers in exchange for the fourth overall pick and the 33rd overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. As part of the deal, the Bobcats agreed to select Predrag Drobnjak in the draft. (The Bobcats drafted Emeka Okafor and the Clippers selected Shaun Livingston and Lionel Chalmers.)

• 2004: The Bobcats agreed to select Jahidi White from the Phoenix Suns in exchange for a future first-round pick. (That pick conveyed in 2005 and Charlotte drafted Sean May.)

• 1995: The Grizzlies agreed to select Rodney Dent from the Orlando Magic in exchange for a future second-round pick. (That pick conveyed in 1996 and Vancouver drafted Randy Livingston.)

In addition, teams will sometimes make selections during the Expansion Draft with future trades in mind. The Charlotte Bobcats made two such select-and-trade deals in 2004:

• The Bobcats selected Zaza Pachulia from the Orlando Magic. Pachulia was then traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for the 45th overall pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. (Charlotte drafted Bernard Robinson.)

• The Bobcats selected Sasha Pavlovic from the Utah Jazz. Pavlovic was then traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a future first-round pick. (That pick conveyed in 2007 and Charlotte drafted Jared Dudley.)

On the flip side, existing teams will often leave players unprotected in an Expansion Draft that are have an undesirable contract. A team could attempt to incentivize an Expansion Team to select that player by offering a draft pick or another player in a trade. If that happens, the existing team removes the salary from their books and, if over the cap, creates a TPE for the amount of the selected player’s salary.

Post-Expansion Draft

Once the Expansion Draft is complete, the Expansion Teams more or less run like every other NBA team. Expansion Teams do work under a reduced salary cap (as well as a salary floor that is 90% of the Expansion Team’s cap) for their first two years of existence. In Year 1, Expansion Teams are limited to 66.6% of the league-wide salary cap. In Year 2, that goes up to 80% of the league-wide salary cap. In Year 3, everything normalizes, and Expansion Teams are treated the same as the rest of the league.

(Note: The above is a change from the previous of a Year 1 cap of 80% of the league-wide salary cap and a Year 2 cap of 90% of the league-wide salary cap for Expansion Teams.)

As noted above, if a team selects a restricted free agent, that player becomes an unrestricted free agent. That player cannot re-sign with the team they were with pre-Expansion Draft. The Expansion Team would have their unrestricted free agent rights (Bird, Early Bird or Non-Bird) as appropriate, and a corresponding cap hold.

If a team selects a player with a player or team option, that player or team can still choose for the player to become a free agent by not exercising their option. The Expansion Team would then have their unrestricted free agent rights (Bird, Early Bird or Non-Bird) as appropriate, and a corresponding cap hold.

If an Expansion Team waives a player they selected in the Expansion Draft prior to the beginning of the season, that player’s salary is removed from their cap sheet. The player is still paid, and the salary still counts towards the team’s salary floor, but the team no longer has a cap hit for the waived player.

What’s Next

Now that we’ve covered the timeline and process for expansion, as well as the rules for an Expansion Draft, we’ll move into some of the strategy components in future articles in the series.

In the next installment, we’ll cover what the cap sheet for an Expansion Team would look like in Year 1 and Year 2. We’ll do a couple of mock examples to explain how an Expansion Team might handle their cap in Year 1 and Year 2. We’ll do these examples as if Expansion was happening this coming year, ahead of the 2024-25 season. That way, we can use real world examples as far as players and salaries go.

After that, we’re going to dive deep into the history and strategy of the past couple of rounds of expansion. We’ll cover protected lists (to the extent we are able, as this information is not publicly available) and the Expansion Draft strategies themselves. We’ll look at this both for the Expansion Teams, as well as the existing teams.

Then we’ll look at the post-Expansion Draft work that teams did and what their inaugural rosters looked like. From there, we’ll examine how long it took Expansion Teams to become competitive: How long before the playoffs are a reality? How long before the team won a playoff series? And when did they become a real contender?

Then, we’ll start the Mock Expansion Draft process. We’ll put together some Mock Protected Player Lists (based off current rosters) and the strategy behind them. And then we’ll run a Mock Expansion Draft, and explain the strategy that we took for each team involved. We’ll do several versions of this, right up until we have Expansion for real!

The Chicago Bulls were 27-13 on January 14, 2022. The Bulls got crushed by the Golden State Warriors that day, to drop a second game in what would become a four-game losing streak.

From that point forward, Chicago has gone 64-79. That’s a .448 winning percentage. Not bad enough to be in great draft position, and certainly not good enough to be a real playoff contender. That’s squarely in the NBA purgatory that’s so hard to escape.

January 14, 2022 also happens to be the last time Lonzo Ball appeared in a game for the Bulls. Ball is in Year 3 of the four-year, $80 million contract he signed as a part of a sign-and-trade to Chicago ahead of 2021-22 season.

Ball has appeared in 35 of 183 total regular season games while on that contract.

This isn’t to put blame for Chicago’s failures on Ball and the series of knee surgeries he’s had over the past two years. It’s more to point out that there is a clear delineation point of where things went wrong for the Bulls. It’s rare that you can pinpoint where things turned sour, but it’s very clear in Chicago’s case.

Now, here we are. A team that has gone from briefly good to decidedly average to bad in a three-season span. The worst part? The Bulls are currently bad without hope.

Now, it’s fair to note here that the Bulls have very, very rarely bottomed out under Jerry Reinsdorf’s reign as the team’s owner. Even when Chicago got the first overall pick to draft Derrick Rose in 2008, that involved a considerable amount of lottery luck.

Under Reinsdorf, Chicago has preferred to stay competitive, even when everything else screams going in the other direction. For about a 15-year period, John Paxson and Gar Forman had the Bulls in the playoffs every year, even if only one of those seasons saw the team considered a real title contender.

At the end of the “GarPax” run leading the front office, the Bulls were a mess. They didn’t bottom out, as much as years of bad decisions pushed Chicago to the bottom of the standings. Enter Arturas Karnisovas.

After a predictably messy first season, which was spent resetting things, Karnisovas made his big splash in the summer of 2021. Karnisovas added Ball and DeMar DeRozan in a pair of sign-and-trade deals and signed Alex Caruso as a free agent. That threesome alongside Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic propelled Chicago that impressive start in 2021-22.

Almost two years later, all five players are still on the Bulls. And Chicago is no longer that fun team that’s full of potential. Instead, the team stinks, the cap sheet is a mess and they’re mostly devoid of young talent.

It’s time to break up the Bulls.

We’re going to present some sensible trade ideas that could get Chicago turned in the right direction. It’s important to note that we’re going to present trades as if Karnisovas has the buy-in from ownership to tear things down. Mostly, this is what we would do, and what we think the Bulls should do, as opposed to what Chicago will actually do.

Trade Assets

High-value

Alex Caruso: two years, $19,350,000 ($16,350,000 guaranteed)

DeMar DeRozan: one year, $26,800,000

Zach LaVine: four years, $178,063,200

Nikola Vucevic: three years, $60,000,000

Mid-range

Jevon Carter: three years, $19,500,000

Torrey Craig: two years, $5,373,575 (veteran minimum contract)

Ayo Dosunmu: three years, $21,000,000

Andre Drummond: one year, $3,600,000

Coby White: three years, $36,000,000

Patrick Williams: one year, $9,835,881

Minimum-value

Lonzo Ball: two years, $41,860,465

Julian Phillips: four years, $8,119,739

Terry Taylor: two years, $4,216,676 (veteran minimum contract, $700,000 guaranteed)

Dalen Terry: three years, $12,260,358

Draft Pick Situation

The Bulls first-round picks are a bit messy. They own their own pick in 2024. They owe a pick with sliding protections to the San Antonio Spurs (top-10 protected in 2025, top-8 protected in 2026 and 2027). Chicago then owns their own first-round pick from 2028 to 2030. The Bulls are also owed a first-round pick from the Portland Trail Blazers. That pick is lottery-protected from 2024 through 2028.

In the second round, the Bulls have traded their picks from 2024 through 2027, That means the earliest Chicago can have selection would be in 2028, and that’s only if they’ve conveyed a first-round pick to the Spurs by then. They’ll get an additional pick in the second round in 2028 if Portland hasn’t conveyed them a first-rounder by then. The Bulls then own their own second-round picks in 2029 and 2030.

Essentially: Chicago is doing ok on first-round picks, but could use more. They are pretty light on second-round selections.

The Cap and Tax Situation

The Bulls are a tick below the luxury tax for this current season. Given that they’ve paid the tax just twice in franchise history, that’s a marker they’ll be looking to stay under.

Going into the 2024 offseason, Chicago projects to be roughly $37 million under the tax. That sounds good, but that’s with four open roster spots and without new contracts for DeMar DeRozan, Patrick Williams, Torrey Craig and Andre Drummond.

Re-signing simply the first two players, and then filling out the roster with minimums, would put the Bulls at or over the tax line.

In the summer of 2025, pending moves between now and then, the Bulls could be a cap space team. Lonzo Ball’s contract will have expired by then, and that’s a major stumbling block for Chicago having some cap flexibility.

The Trades

We’re getting to the good stuff now! Remember, the idea here is to reset things for the Bulls in a major way. Is this team going to be bad the rest of this season? They sure are! But they are probably going to be bad anyway. Our goal here is to give Chicago some hope for the future. We’re hoping to achieve that by adding some additional draft capital, young talent and resetting the cap sheet.

Trade 1

Chicago Bulls receive:

Ivica Zubac (two years, $22,676,543), Russell Westbrook (two years, $7,863,263), Amir Coffey (two years, $7,604,938)

LA Clippers receive:

Nikola Vucevic (three years, $60,000,000), Terry Taylor (two years, $4,216,676 – veteran minimum)

Rationale:

This trade is about clearing out the short- and long-term money owed to Nikola Vucevic. The Bulls save about $2 million this season, but they end up saving roughly $21.8 million over the next three seasons. And Ivica Zubac’s, Amir Coffey’s and Russell Westbrook’s deals all expire after the 2024-25 season. That gets Chicago out of the final year of Vucevic’s deal.

The assumption is that Chicago would either straight waive Westbrook or would buy him out. Because he makes far less than the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Westbrook would be free to join any team that needs a point guard for the stretch run.

On the Clippers side, they add Vucevic, who gives them a better offensive fit alongside their star trio of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden. The Clippers also clear out a bit of backcourt logjam this way, without having to waive Westbrook.

Trade 2

Chicago Bulls receive:

Bennedict Mathurin (three years, $23,349,373 – rookie scale), Jordan Nwora (one year, $3,000,000), Jalen Smith (two years, $10,461,159), Marcus Morris (one year, $17,116,279), first-round pick from Indiana, first-round pick from Philadelphia

Indiana Pacers receive:

Zach LaVine (four years, $178,063,200), Torrey Craig (two years, $5,373,575 – veteran minimum), Mo Bamba (one year, $2,009,706 – veteran minimum)

Philadelphia 76ers receive:

Buddy Hield (one-year, $19,279,841), Andre Drummond (one-year, $3,360,000)

Rationale:

Chicago isn’t likely to turn Zach LaVine into a better package than this. He’s good, but not great. In this deal, the Bulls get a young wing with upside in Bennedict Mathurin and two first-round picks. Jordan Nwora and Jalen Smith are both flyers. Maybe they pop, maybe they don’t. The assumption is that Morris would either be waived, take a buyout or the Bulls would bench him until his contract expires.

As for the picks, Indiana owns all of their owns picks. Chicago could negotiate for something more immediate or something down the line. Philadelphia is now armed with the ability to trade a pick, likely one of the ones they got in the James Harden deal.

As for finances, the Bulls achieve massive savings here. They send out roughly $46 million in salary for this season. They bring back about $32 million. That’s nearly $14 million in savings for this season. The long-term savings are even greater, as they clear out nearly $138 million owed to Zach LaVine beyond this season, while adding only $22 million.

For the Pacers, this is how they can add an All-Star-level player. Indiana isn’t attracting stars in free agency, so they have to trade for or develop them. Buddy Hield doesn’t seem long for the Pacers, so the real give-ups here are Mathurin and the first-round pick. LaVine would be an upgrade alongside Haliburton and would make the Pacers offense even more unstoppable than it already is.

Torrey Craig would also be a nice defensive-minded addition for the wing rotation. And Mo Bamba becomes the third center, behind Myles Turner and Isaiah Jackson.

As for the Sixers, they get the shooter they need. The real cost for acquiring Hield is the first-round pick. Marcus Morris and Mo Bamba are end-of-the-bench guys at this point. Hield and Andre Drummond are major upgrades over both players. And, as an added bonus, Philadelphia doesn’t take on any salary beyond this season. They still have all the same cap flexibility that they previously had.

Trade 3

Chicago Bulls receive:

Brandon Clarke (four years, $50,000,000), Luke Kennard (two years, $29,527,272 – second-year team option), first-round pick from Memphis

Memphis Grizzlies receive:

DeMar DeRozan (one year, $28,600,000), Jevon Carter (three years, $19,500,000)

Rationale:

This is about doing right by DeRozan and sending him to a team he can help. Yes, the Grizzlies are currently worse than the Bulls, but they have some hope of righting the ship when they get Ja Morant back and some others return from injury.

Clarke is owed a decent chunk of change, so Chicago is actually adding some long-term salary in this deal. But Clarke could be a starting big when he returns in 2024-25. At $12.5 million per season, that’s a value deal. Kennard will likely play out the season providing some shooting to a roster that is somewhat light on it. Then, the Bulls can either decline his option, or pick it up and look to trade him in a deal next summer. And, like in the previous trades, getting an additional first-round pick is huge for the rebuilding Bulls.

Memphis gets the scoring punch they desperately need in DeRozan. And Carter gives them some continued insurance at point guard. For a first-round pick, of which the Grizzlies own all of their picks, you can’t ask for more than this return.

Trade 4

Chicago Bulls receive:

Dyson Daniels (three years, $19,551,349 – rookie scale), Kira Lewis Jr. (one year, $5,722,116), first-round pick from Milwaukee (via New Orleans)

New Orleans Pelicans receive:

Alex Caruso (two years, $19,350,000 – second season $3 million guaranteed)

Rationale:

The Bulls get yet another first-round pick, plus they get a young guard/wing with some upside in Dyson Daniels. He fits in nicely in the new rebuilding group of young players Chicago has. The Bulls can also take a look at Kira Lewis Jr. before making a decision on his free agency in the summer.

Financially, the Bulls take on some money, but it’s in the form of Daniels’ rookie scale deal. That’s a win.

The Pelicans add a veteran guard/wing to the rotation. Alex Caruso is a top-tier defender and a combination of him and Herb Jones would be very hard to score on. Caruso can also play alongside any of the Pelicans stars, as he’s a good off-ball player. For Daniels and an extra pick, New Orleans can’t do much better. Bonus: this deal has them within one minor salary-dump of getting out of the luxury tax.

Trade 5

Chicago Bulls receive:

Isaac Okoro (one year, $8,920,795)

Cleveland Cavaliers receive:

Ayo Dosunmu (three years, $21,000,000), Dalen Terry (three years, $12,260,358 – rookie scale)

Rationale:

This one is about the Bulls getting out of the long-term money owed to Ayo Dosunmu and Dalen Terry. After this series of deals, Chicago has better options at lead guard, making Dosunmu a luxury. Isaac Okoro is a guy who could still pop with increased playing time, and then the Bulls can make a decision on his free agency this summer.

The Cavaliers could use another guard behind Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. Dosunmu can give them some solid backup play at either spot. Okoro had fallen out of the rotation, as Cleveland added some additional wing depth this past summer. Terry is a flyer for a Cavs team that is going to be around the luxury tax line. If he develops, they’ll have a cost-controlled player as the roster gets expensive.

Overall

Making five trades, especially ones of this scale is highly unlikely for any team. For the notably change-resistant Chicago Bulls, it’s almost unfathomable. But these are the kinds of moves the Bulls should consider making. It would constitute a nearly full teardown. Only Lonzo Ball would remain of the players owed significant money, and he becomes an expiring contract in the 2024-25 season.

We won’t attempt to make the claim that this end-result Bulls would be good. They’d likely be among the worst teams in the NBA. But that’s not exactly a bad result.

Chicago could have a great pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. They’d have a bunch of interesting young players, and some vets on tradable contracts. And they’d have picked up four additional first-round picks as they rebuild.

The cap sheet would also be incredibly clean. For 2024-25, the Bulls could be looking at north of $75 million in cap space. If they kept their powder dry and slow-played things for one more season, they could easily have more than $100 million in cap space in the summer of 2025.

Blowing up a team is never easy. At best, it’s a signal of moving away from some great years (see: Boston Celtics in 2013). At worst, it’s an admission of failure. Much like a summer abroad, the Bulls had a great couple of months. It’s time to move on and let them be fun memories to return to on a dreary Chicago day.

The way forward isn’t to keep chasing after that short window of being really good team. That’s over. It’s not happening for this group. The best path now is one that involves taking things down to the very foundation and starting to build back up again. These trades, or ones like them, could put the Bulls on a path to being something better than the middling-to-bad team they are now.

For a year or so, the off-court priority for the NBA was on hammering out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. That’s now in the rearview mirror.

Now, the NBA’s focus has turned to negotiating new media rights deals. That’s on both a national and a local level. The national rights deals that are currently with Disney (ESPN, ABC) and Turner (TNT, NBA TV) are up after the 2024-25 season. That means negotiations are already underway, with more potential partners entering the fold when the exclusive window for Disney and Turner ends.

On the local level, Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy is impacting the regional Bally Sports networks coverage of the league. The NBA and Diamond Sports Group reached an intermediate agreement for coverage this season, but it looks like season’s games could be handled differently for roughly half of the league’s teams.

Right behind the new CBA and the new TV deal, the NBA has expansion pushing in. Gone are the days of NBA commissioner Adam Silver saying the league isn’t looking at expansion. He’s not even saying things like “We might dust that off at some point”, as Silver did during the pandemic.

Silver has said for a while that the league “could” look at expansion after the CBA negotiations and the media rights deals were complete. That’s now turned into multiple times when Silver has said the NBA “will” look into expansion after the media rights deal is complete, now that the CBA is finished.

That doesn’t mean expansion is coming in the next year or so. But NBA expansion is coming. That much is clear.

Roughly a year-and-a-half ago, we wrote it's time for the NBA to expand. Everything in that article holds up today. There is labor peace, the league is deep in talent, interest in the league is high and Seattle and Las Vegas still loom as suitors for the NBA.

With all of that said, let’s take a look at how NBA Expansion would work. This is the first in a series related to NBA Expansion that we’ll run over the next several years, until the league actually does expand. Today, we’re going to outline the timeline and the process. After that, we’ll get into the fun stuff of how an Expansion Draft actually works.

The Expansion Timeline

Whenever the NBA does decide it’s time to expand, it won’t be an overly quick process. When the original Charlotte Hornets relocated to New Orleans, it happened at the end of the 2001-2002 season. The NBA underwent an expedited process to expand and to get a team back into Charlotte as quickly as possible.

The league began taking bids almost immediately (mostly to avoid a lawsuit related to the relocation of the original Hornets), and in mid-December of 2002 they picked Robert Johnson’s bid as the winner. In January of 2003, the NBA Board of Governors approved Johnson and the new team.

In June of 2003, the team was named the Bobcats. Approximately a year later, on June 22, 2004, the 2004 Expansion Draft was held. And the team took the floor at the start of the 2004-2005 season.

That was a quicker turnround than the previous time the league had expanded. When the original Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic joined the league, there were three-year (for the Hornets and Heat) and four-year (for the Timberwolves and Magic) gaps between the league announcing expansion and the start of play.

(The NBA staggered the introduction of the four new teams to avoid diluting the state of play by bringing four new teams in all at once.)

Charlotte and Miami both started play with the 1988-89 season. Minnesota and Orlando joined the fray for the 1989-90 season.

When the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA, there was roughly a two-and-a-half-year gap between the start of the process and the teams starting play. The league was known to be considering expansion in late-1992. In September of 1993, they awarded Toronto a franchise. In February of 1994, Vancouver was given the second Canadian franchise. In late-June of 1995, the Raptors and Grizzlies took part in the 1995 NBA Expansion Draft. The teams then started play in the 1995-96 season.

So, let’s say the league wraps up their media rights deal as quickly as possible, and everything is set sometime in 2024. If we take Adam Silver at his word, we can expect the expansion process to start after that.

Now, let’s say the league wants to move quickly on expansion too. If we use the two-year window, that would mean the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons are played as normal. Then, with the start of the 2026-27 season, we’d likely have two new teams in place. If anything is delayed, those debuts could be pushed to the 2027-28 season or possibly even the 2028-29 season.

That means somewhere between the 2026-27 and 2028-29 seasons are the most likely seasons when we’ll see new teams join the NBA.

The Expansion Process

When the NBA decides it’s time to expand, they’ll start the process by allowing cities and ownership groups to bid for teams. Yes, we can all assume that Seattle and Las Vegas are probably the most likely cities to get teams. But that’s an assumption, and nothing more.

Several other cities will be in the mix. Adam Silver himself recently mentioned a return to Vancouver as being on the table. He said Montreal has reached out the NBA on being a potential expansion city. Silver also talked about Mexico City being an area that the league is partnering with, with the current G League team potentially being a precursor to an NBA team at some point.

Stateside, there are a lot of cities that have expressed interest in having their own NBA team. Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Virginia Beach and San Diego have all been in the mix at various points.

So, even if Seattle and Las Vegas are the heavy favorites, the NBA isn’t going to discard the other suitors. The reasons for this are two-fold.

First, by encouraging more cities to bid for teams, the cost of each expansion team will go up considerably. As of now, the league is expected to get somewhere between $3 and $4 billion for each team. And that’s being somewhat conservative in projecting how much money comes in. Considering the expansion fees go directly to the ownership groups of the existing 30 teams, they want those figures to be as high as possible.

Because of this, expect the league to entertain bids from non-Seattle and non-Las Vegas groups. But there’s a secondary motivation to that, as well.

By taking in as many bids as possible, the NBA can find out who is really serious about adding a team. For example, if a city comes in with a bid worth “only” $2 billion, they’ll be almost immediately out of the mix. Now, let’s say four cities come in with bids approaching or surpassing the $4 billion mark, now the league has options.

Even if the primary option is to initially expand to Seattle and Las Vegas, the league would have serious suitors in other cities. And it’s clear that the NBA remains committed to expanding their global reach, likely by furthering their presence in Canada first. If there are more than just Seattle and Las Vegas on the table, the NBA can push the expansion fees higher, while also keeping a couple of cities in their back pocket.

Let’s go back to when the league added the Heat, Timberwolves, Magic and original Hornets. There is some mixed reporting on whether or not the league wanted to add four team. Some say the NBA was committed to two new cities, but found two more suitable candidates that they felt they couldn’t pass up.

Could history repeat itself? It’s certainly possible. Adding roughly $16 billion in expansion fees for four teams (and, again, that’s potentially a conservative figure) would mean each of the existing 30 teams will pocket over $500 million. And that’s money that doesn’t go to the players.

The downside? The existing 30 teams would eventually have to split the hoped-for $75 billion from the media rights deal more than planned for. But $500 million goes a long way towards offsetting any potential loss in TV revenue. Agan again, that’s money straight into the owners’ pockets.

What’s Next

We’ll touch on the actual Expansion Draft process in the next installment. When the NBA is in a bit of a dead period, it’s a popular exercise to do a mock Expansion Draft. However, a lot of these are done in a somewhat sloppy way. They seem to be hit-or-miss on following the actual Expansion Draft rules and processes.

We’re going to lay out all of the rules in our next installment of the NBA Expansion Series. The goal is to make everything as understandable as possible, as well as to provide a guide for any would-be mock Expansions Drafts. We’ll also cover how the salary cap works for these teams, and what the NBA has done as far as draft picks for expansion teams, as well.

After that, we’ll explore the history of past Expansion Drafts. We’ll look at protected lists, strategies (for both incumbent and expansion teams) and the actual draft results themselves. From there, we’ll explore what teams did with their inaugural rosters, as far as trades and signing free agents.

We’ll also look at the history of how long it’s taken an expansion team to become a good team. How long before the playoffs are a reality? How long before the team won a playoff series? And when did they become a real contender?

Then, with all of rules and history behind us, we’ll start the fun process of some mock Expansion Drafts ourselves. We’ll do protected lists and draft lists (for both two- and four-team Expansion Drafts). And we’ll continually tweak and track the progress of these lists as we build toward an inevitable actual Expansion Draft.

We’re going to have some fun with this and look forward to having you join us on the ride!

The 2023-24 season is less than a month old, but Tyrese Maxey of the Philadelphia 76ers is already one of the league’s breakout stars. When things could have gotten messy for the Sixers, as the James Harden drama swirled, Maxey stepped up to give Joel Embiid a new star-level running mate.

There’s little thought that Maxey might be a flash in the pan. He’s shown the ability to more than a third- or fourth-banana previously. It’s only now that Maxey is getting the usage to show he can be an All-Star (and maybe more!) himself.

That leaves the 76ers in an interesting spot. Daryl Morey delayed signing Maxey to a lucrative rookie scale contract extension this past offseason. The reason for that made sense. Philadelphia will still control the summertime process, by making Maxey a restricted free agent. And the team can use his smallish cap hold to maximize their cap space, while still giving Maxey the contract he earns.

All of that makes sense. Maxey transferred a bit of risk to himself by playing out his rookie scale deal, but he’d be set to cash in even bigger if he had a great year.

And having a great year is exactly what Maxey is poised to do.

Now, some of that risk (but not too much) has flipped back towards Philadelphia. Let’s break it all down!

Signing a Rookie Scale Extension this season

We’re only including this to note that Tyrese Maxey is no longer extension-eligible. The deadline for players to sign rookie scale extension was back on October 23.

That means Maxey is now destined for free agency this coming summer. Barring some unforeseen disaster, Philadelphia will issue Maxey a qualifying offer worth $8,486,620. That’s a bump up from the $6,259,588 qualifying offer Maxey was set to get. The reason for this is that Maxey will assuredly meet starter criteria and will earn the larger qualifying offer.

In reality, none of that really matters, beyond the Sixers tendering Maxey a qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent. He’s not signing the qualifying offer.

What does matter is Maxey’s cap hold. That figure will be $13,031,760. That’s what will sit on the Sixers books and that’s what will drive Philadelphia’s offseason.

Finally, for what’s it now worth, before 2023 free agency/extension season opened we projected Maxey to sign a five-year, 25% of the cap maximum extension. Nothing has changed to make anyone believe Maxey will make less than that amount, so let’s use that as our starting point.

Re-signing with the 76ers on a 25% Maximum Contract

As we said above, we projected Tyrese Maxey would sign a five-year rookie scale extension worth 25% of the cap. This was before Daryl Morey unveiled his cap space plan. But that deal should still be on the table, once Philadelphia uses up their cap space. Here’s what that contract projects to look like for Maxey:

• 2024-25: $35,500,000
• 2025-26: $38,340,000
• 2026-27: $41,180,000
• 2027-28: $44,020,000
• 2028-29: $46,860,000
• Total: five years, $205,900,000

That’s a five-year max deal at 25% of the projected $142 million cap for 2024-25. It includes the maximum 8% raises for Maxey, as well.

That’s right at where we projected Maxey on an extension (with a minor adjustment, as the projected cap has come in lower than originally anticipated).

But…Maxey might be poised to cash in even bigger, if he keeps up his torrid pace.

Re-signing with the 76ers on a 30% Maximum Contract

If Tyrese Maxey makes an All-NBA team, he would qualify for Designated Player status. That would make him eligible to jump to a 30% of the cap maximum. That would look like this:

• 2024-25: $42,600,000
• 2025-26: $46,008,000
• 2026-27: $49,416,000
• 2027-28: $52,824,000
• 2028-29: $56,232,000
• Total: five years, $247,080,000

That’s a 30% of the cap maximum contract with 8% raises. That’s a difference of $7.1 million in first-year salary and about $41 million in total salary over the life of the deal.

This is big, because Maxey likely would never have received Designated Player language in a rookie scale extension. He hadn’t sniffed an All-Star selection, let alone All-NBA selection. Now? Maxey looks like an All-Star lock, and there aren’t six guards playing better than he is in the NBA through the first few weeks of the season.

Note: If Maxey qualifies for Designated Player status by making All-NBA this season (he could also qualify by winning MVP or Defensive Player of the Year, but neither are likely), he doesn’t have to automatically get the full 30%. He’s simply eligible to get up to that much. Maxey and Philadelphia could negotiate for anything up to 30%. But history tells us that if a player is eligible for it, they’re going to get the 30% max.

Signing with another team as a free agent

If things were to get sideways between Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia 76ers, he could choose to leave town. In that case, it doesn’t matter if Maxey qualifies for Designated Player status or not. You can only get a Designated Player deal from the team that drafts you, or if you were acquired while still on your rookie contract.

Here’s the maximum deal Maxey could fetch from a rival team as a free agent:

• 2024-25: $35,500,000
• 2025-26: $37,275,000
• 2026-27: $39,050,000
• 2027-28: $40,825,000
• Total: four years, $190,848,000

That’s a four-year, 25% of the cap max with the max allowable 5% raises. As you can see, Maxey would make about $6.4 million less by leaving the 76ers, even on the comparable 25% starting salaries over four years. Adding in the fifth year, which Maxey can only get from Philadelphia, is where the real difference in total salary comes in.

The Philadelphia 76ers Cap Situation

As we’ve noted several times, Philadelphia didn’t extend Tyrese Maxey, because they plan to use cap space this summer. There are a few paths the Sixers can take with their cap flexibility:

Clearing the decks

In this scenario, the 76ers go about as scorched earth as they can with the roster and leave only Joel Embiid’s contract and Tyrese Maxey’s cap holds on the books:

• Joel Embiid: $51,415,938
• Tyrese Maxey (cap hold): $13,031,760
• Total cap space available: $65,864,062

This would mean Philadelphia would salary-dump Jaden Springer’s contract onto someone, waive Paul Reed (or salary-dump him, should his contract become fully guaranteed), renounce all of their free agents and trade away their 2024 first-round draft pick (or select a draft-and-stash player).

In this situation, the 76ers would have enough cap space to sign a 10+ Years of Service free agent at the projected max of $49,700,000, with just over $16 million in remaining cap space. Philadelphia would also have the Room Exception available, which projects to be just over $8 million.

So, let’s say the 76ers use all of their available cap space, and then they re-sign Maxey to a 30% of the cap max, they could be looking at the following:

• Joel Embiid: $51,415,938
• Max Free Agent: $49,700,000
• Tyrese Maxey: $42,600,000
• Leftover Cap Space Free Agent: $16,164,062
• Room Exception Free Agent: $8,063,000
• Nine Veteran Minimum Free Agents: $18,977,157
• Total salary: $186,920,157

That would leave the 76ers over the Luxury Tax by $14,353,157 and over the Tax Apron by $6,991,157.

As incredible (and rare!) as it would be, that’s how a team can go from using cap space to deep into the luxury tax in the same summer.

Retaining some talent

In this scenario, the 76ers don’t clear the decks. They keep the following on the books:

• Joel Embiid: $51,415,938
• De’Anthony Melton (cap hold): $15,200,000
• Tyrese Maxey (cap hold): $13,031,760
• Paul Reed: $7,723,000
• Jaden Springer: $4,018,363
• 2024 First Round Pick (projected at 28): $2,668,715
• Total cap space available: $40,929,280

This seems a bit more realistic. Philadelphia retains the ability to re-sign Maxey and Melton, while keeping Reed and Springer (a regular rotation guy and someone Nick Nurse seems to like) in the fold. And they use their draft pick to add some cost-controlled back-end roster talent.

Let’s say Philadelphia uses every bit of that cap space to sign one player, here’s what their books could look like:

• Joel Embiid: $51,415,938
• Tyrese Maxey: $42,600,000
• Free Agent Signing: $40,929,280
• De’Anthony Melton: $15,200,000 (same as his cap hold for simplicity’s sake)
• Room Exception Free Agent: $8,063,000
• Paul Reed: $7,723,000
• Jaden Springer: $4,018,363
• 2024 First Round Pick (projected at 28): $2,668,715
• Six Veteran Minimum Free Agents: $12,651,438
• Total salary: $185,269,734

This would result in the 76ers being $12,702,734 over the Luxury Tax and $5,340,734 over the Tax Apron.

Of course, in both scenarios presented above, if Tyrese Maxey doesn’t qualify for the 30% max salary, he’ll come in at $35.5 million vs $46.7 million. That lops off $7.1 million off either tax bill. Even then, Philadelphia still goes from being a cap space team to a tax team in the same summer.

Now, the Sixers could further cut the tax bill down by signing their two 2024 second-round picks to a deal that would start at about $1.2 million. That would shave roughly $2 million more off the tax bill.

Summary

Tyrese Maxey is going to get paid this summer. He’s either getting a 25% of the cap maximum contract or a 30% of the cap maximum contract. ESPN’s Bobby Marks noted that Maxey would be the first player in history to qualify for a Designated Player deal when coming off their rookie scale contract that didn’t sign an extension. That’s pretty remarkable, even considering the Sixers cap space aspirations.

Normally, we predict what a player will sign for, or suggest an alternative structure, at that point of a Next Contract analysis. There’s no need here. Maxey is going to re-sign with Philadelphia, and it will either be for the projected $35.5 million first-year salary or the $42.6 million first-year salary.

The real difference will come with how deep into the tax the 76ers go. It’s extremely rare for a team to use both cap space and end up as a taxpayer in the same season. You have to have a player with a small enough cap hold to use cap space, while also knowing that same player is also going to sign a max deal.

And that’s exactly where the Sixers are.

Even if Daryl Morey uses some of next season’s flexibility in a form of “pre-agency”, the math doesn’t really change. Maxey is still getting a max deal, whether the Philadelphia 76ers use their cap space now, or in July. And, if they use that space now, they could stay over the cap to retain some additional free agents.

Almost any path leaves the Sixers as a very expensive, somewhat top-heavy team. But they should have enough depth to remain title contenders for the remainder of Joel Embiid’s contract, and into the years when Philadelphia transitions to become Tyrese Maxey’s team.

The 2023 NBA offseason is long behind us. Extension season wrapped up over a week ago. Early trade season doesn’t open for over a month, with full trade season opening in mid-January.

That means it’s time to take an initial look at where each of the NBA’s 30 teams project to land as far as spending power for the 2024 offseason. Of course, these projections will change as teams make trades, sign extensions and the like throughout this season. However, it’s still good to have a grounding of where teams stand today.

A few notes:

• We are using the NBA’s official projections for the salary cap and tax lines. Some are projecting greater growth than the 4.4% represented here, but we will always use the official projections from the league.

• Salary Cap of $142,000,000

• Luxury Tax of $172,567,000

• Tax Apron of $179,929,000

• Second Apron of $190,837,000

• Max salary tiers grow with the cap. They are as follows:

• 0-6 Years of Service: $35,500,000

• 7-9 Years of Service: $42,600,000

• 10+ Years of Service: $49,700,000

• A projection has been made on all 2024-25 player and team options. Similarly, a projection was made on all partial and non-guaranteed contracts. And, finally, a projection made on renounce free agents has also been made for cap space teams.

• 2024 NBA Draft picks were based on ESPN’s BPI forecast for expected final record. All conditions on picks owned and owed were then reflected to determine the draft order and the subsequent cap holds.

• No trades, extensions or signings have been projected. Essentially, rosters are as they stand at the time of publication.

With the advent of the new CBA, the landscape has changed around the NBA. There used to be three basic categories of teams each summer: Cap Space teams, Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception teams and Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception teams. Each season there would also be a handful of “swing” teams that could fall in one bucket or another.

In this new world, we have a fourth category: Second Apron teams. These are the NBA’s most expensive teams that the new CBA was largely designed to punish.

Under the new CBA, if you are at or over the Second Apron, you lose access to the Taxpayer MLE. In addition, the trade rules tighten up for these teams. Salary-matching in trades is limited to 100%, they aren’t allowed to aggregate salaries together in trades, they can’t sign-and-trade a player way (in addition to being unable to acquire a player via sign-and-trade) and they won’t be able to use TPEs.

Essentially, Second Apron teams are going to limited to making 1-for-1 trades where they take back the same money as they send out (or less), signing their own draft picks and signing players to minimum salaries.

With all that said, here is the projected spending power for each NBA team in 2024 free agency!

Cap Space Teams (3)

1. Orlando Magic: $40.6 million

2. Philadelphia 76ers: $39.8 million

3. Detroit Pistons: $38.5 million

This is the smallest group of teams we can confidently project to have cap space in a decade of doing this exercise. As more and more teams prioritize extensions and trades, cap space (and the number of impact free agents) has dried up. Still, as we write every time we talk about cap space, having this kind of room doesn’t just mean signing free agents. Cap space can also be used to facilitate trades, either for yourself or others.

Orlando tops our projections by virtue of having a roster full of players on rookie scale contracts and team-friendly extensions. This includes all of the Magic’s best players. In the recent past, Orlando has eschewed cap space to re-sign or extend their own players. That seems poised to change, as the Magic are finally in position to really push the rebuild forward with an impact addition or two. And they need to do that before they have to start extending players like Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero in coming years.

The Sixers have been bandied about as having double-max cap space and the like for months now, but that’s never really been a thing. Sure, Philadelphia could clear the decks and have only Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey (via his cap hold) on the books. That could create about $65.8 million in cap space, which is still well short of double-max space. Instead, a more conservative approach that sees the 76ers keeping De’Anthony Melton’s cap hold, along with Paul Reed, on the books seems likely. Also, Daryl Morey recently said he would like to spend some of this flexibility early, so don’t rule out Philadelphia taking on money in trades in this season in a form of “pre-agency”.

The Pistons have become an annual staple in this spot. Some years, Detroit has used space to chase veteran free agents. Other years, Troy Weaver has used his cap space to eat contracts and collect some assets. This year’s approach will probably be determined by how this season goes for the Pistons. If they show progress akin to Orlando, Detroit will probably look to add players. If not, another year of renting out cap space to pick up draft picks could be coming. One thing to keep in mind: 2024 is the final summer before a presumably max or near-max extension will be on the books for Cade Cunningham. We’re getting down to “spend it while you can” time for the Pistons.

Cap Space – Non-Taxpayer MLE Swing Teams (6)

1. Charlotte Hornets

2. Houston Rockets

3. Oklahoma City Thunder

4. San Antonio Spurs

5. Utah Jazz

6. Washington Wizards

This is a pretty large group of swing teams. Some of them are on their way up. Others are just starting the rebuilding process. For a handful, they can create meaningful cap space. For the rest, they are more likely to stay over the cap. It’s really a decision of creating spending power vs retaining your own players.

Charlotte is in a bit of a weird spot. They have some big money coming off the books for Gordon Hayward, which could create a good amount of cap space. Yet, for another season, the Miles Bridges question hangs over this team. He signed the qualifying offer, so Bridges will be an unrestricted free agent next summer. If the Hornets move on from all of their free agents, they can reasonably create about $21.8 million in cap space. If they re-sign Hayward or Bridges, they’ll be a Non-Taxpayer MLE team.

The Rockets spent a good deal of money in free agency last summer. Despite that, they could do the same this summer. A handful of the contracts Houston signed players to are non-guaranteed. That means the team could create up to $26 million in space. But that would mean moving on from several rotation players. That amount of cap space is right on the tipping point of being able to replace those players in a meaningful way. Because of that, we’re projecting the Rockets to stay over the cap for now.

The Thunder finally went under the cap last offseason. They used that space to act as a clearing house for some contracts, in exchange for even more draft picks. This summer could go differently. Oklahoma City could create in the range of $20 million of space. But that would mean moving on from a few valuable players the Thunder have been developing. Instead, look for OKC to stay over the cap and maybe use the Non-Taxpayer MLE to bring in a value signing.

As of this writing, San Antonio projects to have the first overall pick in the draft. If Victor Wembanyama and the other young Spurs keep developing so rapidly, that projection will probably change. Running with it for now, that puts the Spurs in range of about $18-to-$20 million in cap space this summer. If they were to re-sign Doug McDermott, or even one of their lesser free agents, then San Antonio would stay over the cap.

Utah is in a fun spot. They could create up to $36 million in cap space. Or they could stay over the cap and retain a few of their own free agents. Given that their own free agents will probably command relatively reasonable contracts, look for the Jazz to go the cap space route…kind of. The guess here is that Utah will create cap space, but will end up using a large chunk of it to renegotiate-and-extend Lauri Markkanen’s contract. Then, whatever is left over, plus the Room Exception, can be used to re-sign their own free agents or to acquire other players.

The Wizards are in Year 1 of their teardown. They took on Jordan Poole’s contract, but that came through the chained-together transactions where they shed Bradley Beal’s contract. Washington also re-signed Kyle Kuzma and extended Deni Avdija, but those were value contracts. If the Wizards want, they can create about $24.6 million in cap space. That would mean seeing all of their free agents leave town, but those guys don’t seem long for D.C. anyway. If Washington chooses to keep Tyus Jones’ cap hold on the books, they’ll be over the cap.

Non-Taxpayer MLE Teams (4)

This is usually the largest group of teams we have, and it may well still end up that way. But for now, we can confidently project only four teams to be in range of using the full Non-Taxpayer MLE.

1. Brooklyn Nets

2. Indiana Pacers

3. New York Knicks

4. Sacramento Kings

All four of these teams have two things in common. They look to have only a few roster spots to fill and they have plenty of clearance under the Tax Apron. That puts all of these teams in range to use the full Non-Taxpayer MLE without tripping into any hard cap issues.

In addition, unlike the swing teams, there isn’t a reasonable path to cap space for any of these teams. Indiana would be the closest, but they’d be punting on some very valuable players to create cap space. That seems highly unlikely.

Non-Taxpayer MLE – Taxpayer MLE Swing Teams (6)

This group is close to tripping into the Luxury Tax, or even over the Tax Apron. Most of that is related to pending free agents that these teams could re-sign. And for a handful, they are close enough to the Tax Apron, that the hard cap would become an issue if they used the Non-Taxpayer MLE.

1. Atlanta Hawks

2. Chicago Bulls

3. Cleveland Cavaliers

4. Miami Heat

5. New Orleans Pelicans

6. Toronto Raptors

The Hawks, Bulls, Cavaliers, Heat and Pelicans are all going to have free agent decisions to make. If they re-sign, or extend, those players to expected-value contracts, they’ll be butting up against the tax or even the tax apron. That will take them out of range of using the Non-Taxpayer MLE.

The Raptors are in a very different spot. Toronto could conceivably hit a major reset and create up to a whopping $71 million in cap space. But that would mean seeing players like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr. walk away for nothing. That seems unlikely, but Toronto has lost Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet in free agency over the last few offseasons. We’re going to be conservative and suggest that if Masai Ujiri and the Raptors believe they are losing those guys this summer, they’ll trade them for other players (and some longer-term salary) before losing them for nothing.

Taxpayer MLE Teams (2)

The addition of the Second Apron has created a smaller-than-usual window for teams to be in position to use the Taxpayer MLE, but without creating issues against the Second Apron hard cap.

1. Dallas Mavericks

2. Portland Trail Blazers

The Mavericks project to be around $16 million under the Second Apron, but they also only have two roster spots to fill. That leaves enough room to use the Taxpayer MLE to add a player, with enough wiggle room to stay under the hard cap that would be created at the Second Apron.

It might be a surprise to see the rebuilding Trail Blazers in this spot, but they took on a good amount of salary in the Damian Lillard trade, and the subsequent Jrue Holiday trade. Portland also re-signed Jerami Grant to a big contract too. As it stands, the Blazers sit just over the Luxury Tax line. That won’t be a thing, as a rebuilding team can’t pay the tax. But it will limit what kind of spending power Portland has this summer. Instead of free agent signings, look for the Trail Blazers to keep retooling their roster through trades.

Second Apron Teams (9)

By far, this is our largest group of teams for 2024 offseason projections. This is a direct result of two things. First, the Second Apron exists now, and some teams are over or up against it. Second, several teams took the “gap year” (or maybe better put the “get your books in order year”) to load up. That’s got us in a spot where roughly one-third of the league will be unable to add a free agent for more than the minimum this summer.

1. Boston Celtics

2. Denver Nuggets

3. Golden State Warriors

4. LA Clippers

5. Los Angeles Lakers

6. Memphis Grizzlies

7. Milwaukee Bucks

8. Minnesota Timberwolves

9. Phoenix Suns

All nine of these teams are already over or right up against the Second Apron. Or they will be once they re-sign some key free agents. From there, this group of nine will be limited to making 1-for-1 trades where they take in similar (but not more) money, signing their own draft picks and signing players to minimum contracts.

The James Harden trade saga (the 3.0 version, at least), is finally over. After months of back-and-forth drama, Harden will land with his desired team in the LA Clippers. In exchange, the Philadelphia 76ers will acquire a package of expiring salary and draft picks.

Because they are seemingly always involved in a trade that features draft picks, the Oklahoma City Thunder will help clear the path for the Clippers to trade an additional pick to the 76ers. The Thunder will pick up 2027 first-round pick swap rights, in exchange for sending a protected version of the 2026 Clippers first-round pick they own to the Sixers. (This is likely to end up in a “last favorable” situation of the 2026 picks Oklahoma City owns.)

But the big parts here are Harden to the Clippers, and the 76ers cleaning up their cap sheet to make a 2024 free agency run. Let’s dive in!

The trade details:

LA Clippers acquire
James Harden, P.J. Tucker, Filip Petrusev

Oklahoma City Thunder acquire
2027 first-round pick swap rights with the LA Clippers

Philadelphia 76ers acquire 
Nicolas Batum, Robert Covington, Kenyon Martin Jr., Marcus Morris Sr., two first-round picks (protected 2026 Clippers (via Thunder), 2028 Clippers), two second-round picks (2024 Pacers, Jazz or Cavs (TBD), 2029 Clippers) and a 2029 first-round pick swap

LA Clippers

Incoming salary: 

James Harden: $35.6 million

Filip Petrusev: $1,119,563 ($559,782 guaranteed)

P.J. Tucker: $11 million for 2023-24, 11.5 million player option for 2024-25

Total incoming 2023-24 salary: $47,774,063

Outgoing salary: 

Nicolas Batum: $11.7 million

Robert Covington: $11.7 million

Kenyon Martin Jr.: $1.9 million

Marcus Morris Sr.: $17.1 million

Total outgoing 2023-24 salary: $42,450,086

First, let’s break down how this will functionally work! The Clippers will acquire James Harden and P.J. Tucker and their combined $46,654,500 salaries as one bundle. Petrusev will be acquired as a single salary via the Minimum Salary Exception.

LA will send out the four players at a combined amount of $46,695,095 (that’s the four salaries, plus the allowable 110% bump for salary matching).

That means this deal just squeaks in by $40,595 within the salary-matching rules. And it requires Harden to waive his 15% trade bonus. If Harden wants that 15% bonus, the Clippers will have to find about $5.1 million in salary. That seems unlikely to be a thing, given Harden is finally going where he wants to be.

(There is a version of this trade where the 76ers break the deal down further and use 125% salary-matching rules. That version would create a larger TPE for the Sixers, but it would hard cap them. And Philadelphia would be just $2.8M under the hard cap in the scenario. That’s probably tighter than they want to be, simply to create a TPE that will likely go unused. We’ll know when the trade is actually completed which path the 76ers chose.)

As far as the basketball side of this trade…wow! A Halloween blockbuster!

The Clippers are even more all in now. They’ll have a core of stars including Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. They sapped some of their depth, but recovered a bit by taking on Tucker. And LA was able to keep Terance Mann too.

Harden, for all of his off-court nonsense and recent injuries, has generally been pretty durable. He’ll give the Clippers some coverage if (when?) Leonard and/or George have to miss some time. Instead of the offense becoming the Russell Westbrook show, LA will have a guy who can still create offense all on his own.

When the team is fully healthy, they’ve got a lot of options on offense now. The Clippers will be small-ish (Leonard will effectively be the starting power forward), but they should be fine. Leonard can guard up, and if they need to go with more a traditional four, Ty Lue can go with Tucker. And, lest we forget, Harden has been at his best in recent years at guarding, bigger, less-mobile players. So, the options are actually fairly plentiful for Lue to choose from matchup-wise.

On offense, the Clippers become even more deadly. In theory, at least. There are some questions about putting Westbrook in even more of an off-ball role, but Lue should be able to stagger his lineups enough to make sure he has two of the main scoring engines out there at all times. That should allow everyone to get enough touches to keep them involved.

As for depth, LA will have Tucker and Mann in place, along with Norman Powell, Mason Plumlee and Bones Hyland. That’s pretty solid, as far as a 10-man depth chart goes.

Mostly, this trade lends more short-term certainty to the Clippers. They are covered if one of the stars has to miss some time. That should keep the offense afloat, instead of things falling apart as they did in the 2023 playoffs.

Long-term, there’s just as much uncertainty as ever. Harden can’t be extended, because he signed only a two-year deal as a free agent in 2022 (two-year contracts can’t be extended).

That makes this a one-year experiment. If everything works out great and the Clippers make that long-awaited NBA Finals run, they can re-up with Harden, as well as Leonard and George in free agency this summer. If it doesn’t work, the team is out some more draft capital, but there isn’t any additional long-term salary commitment, minus Tucker’s sure-to-be-picked-up player option for 2024-25.

The Clippers have strayed back into familiar, yet scary, territory as far as draft picks go. Effectively, they are right back where they were a couple of years ago. LA has no control over their first-round picks until 2030. That was the exact situation they were in when they acquired George from the Thunder back in 2019.

But LA is the type of team that can conceivably spend their way out of troubles down the line. And if things really go south, the Clippers can always trade away their stars to recoup some draft picks.

Philadelphia 76ers

Incoming salary: 

Nicolas Batum: $11.7 million

Robert Covington: $11.7 million

Kenyon Martin Jr.: $1.9 million

Marcus Morris Sr.: $17.1 million

Total incoming 2023-24 salary: $42,450,086

Outgoing salary: 

James Harden: $35.6 million

Filip Petrusev: $1,119,563 ($559,782 guaranteed)

P.J. Tucker: $11 million for 2023-24, 11.5 million player option for 2024-25

Total outgoing 2023-24 salary: $47,774,063

The Sixers don’t achieve a ton on-court with this trade…at least at the moment. It’s unclear how much, if anything, Nicolas Batum, Robert Covington and Marcus Morris Sr. will contribute to Philadelphia basketball-wise. At least one or two of them will probably play, because the Sixers did open up opportunities at the power forward spot in this trade.

Player-wise, K.J. Martin is the most interesting guy the 76ers acquired. He’s got that athletic bounciness that the Sixers otherwise lack. He could start, or become a really interesting bench guy. Martin is also the type of player Nick Nurse will love throwing into games at a bunch of different spots and just asking him to create chaos.

The real gets here for Philadelphia were the draft picks, and the cap flexibility. That’s what they were seemingly always after, and Daryl Morey pulled it off.

Philadelphia picked up two direct first-round picks in this deal, plus a far-out pick swap. By taking picks in 2026 (the protections/conditions the Thunder added to this pick are TBD as of this writing) and 2028, along with the 2029 swap, the 76ers can wait to see if the Clippers crater down the line. It’s unlikely that all of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden will still be playing at an All-Star level by the time the latter of those two picks are due. Heck, it’s unclear if they’ll even be at that level by the time the first pick comes due in 2026.

That’s more than a recouping of the draft capital Philadelphia spent to acquire Harden in the first place. That’s great work by Morey.

Beyond the picks, but of no less importance, the Sixers not only conserved their 2024 cap space in this deal, but they created even more. P.J. Tucker is a near-guarantee to pick up his player option for next season. That’s something Philadelphia would have had to deal with, as they dream of max cap space.

As it stands now, the 76ers will likely clear the decks almost as clean as they can approaching the summer of 2024. There are really two scenarios to consider.

Scenario A: Philadelphia goes for every dime they can get, while retaining Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.

In this scenario, the Sixers renounce all of their free agents (including De’Anthony Melton) who aren’t Maxey, and they waive Paul Reed (assuming his contract remains non-guaranteed). We’ll also assume they trade their 2024 first-round pick for some sort of future pick down the line. (Both scenarios assume Philadelphia does not pick up Jaden Springer’s rookie scale team option for 2024-25).

In that case, the 76ers would have only Embiid at $51.4 million and Maxey’s cap hold at $13 million on the books. When you add back the roster charges (10 of them at the league minimum), Philadelphia would have a projected $65.2 million in cap space. The 10-plus Years of Service maximum salary projects to be $49.7 million for 2024-25.

That’s enough to sign a maximum veteran, with about $15.5 million to spend leftover. In addition. Philadelphia would have the Room Exception, which projects to be just over $8 million.

Scenario B: Philadelphia retains a couple of key players, in addition to Embiid and Maxey.

In this scenario, the Sixers renounce everyone who isn’t Maxey and Melton, and they also keep Reed. We’ll also assume they keep their first-rounder too, just for comparison’s sake.

This scenario leaves Philadelphia with about $43.3 million in cap space. That’s not enough for a 10-plus Years of Service maximum, but it is enough for 7-to-9 Years of Service maximum (projects to be $42.6 million for 2024-25). And, again, the 76ers would have the $8 million Room Exception to spend.

So, it’s kind of choosing between $22 million in additional cap space, or retaining Melton’s free agent rights, Reed and the first-round pick. There are plusses and minuses to both approaches. The guess here is that Daryl Morey will have an understanding of who is in play in free agency, long before having to make decisions on renouncements and waivers. (No, this isn’t a cheap tampering joke! It’s just a reality of how these things work.)

There is one other scenario in play…and it’s the most interesting one of all.

Morey reportedly wanted players, or assets to add players, in any Harden deal. He accomplished the former in terms of salary-matching and the latter in terms of actual assets. If Morey is committed to being a title contender, the 76ers are just below that level. They are a solid playoff team, but shy of the true contender tier. But that could all change with another deal or two.

In a very real sense, Morey added $46 million in tradable salary in this deal, and he also has the draft picks necessary to juice any offers he wants to make. That’s enough to get in the conversation for just about whatever star comes available next. It’ll take 60 days before Philadelphia can re-aggregate the guys they just acquired, but that’s still well in advance of the trade deadline.

There’s a world where the Sixers do a little “pre-agency” work and acquire a player ahead of the trade deadline. That would give Philadelphia the player now, to aid in a playoff run this season, while also presumably giving them the leg up on keeping said player moving forward. It’s also possible, Morey could flip some of the newly-acquired players and draft assets for a better player who is also on an expiring contract. Then, if things don’t work out great, they can move on, without having harmed the 2024 cap space plan.

The main takeaway: Philadelphia now has options that they didn’t have before. They recouped draft assets, they added tradable salary that can be used in just about any combination imaginable, and they did nothing to hurt their future flexibility. That’s mission accomplished as far as Daryl Morey’s stated trade objectives.

Oklahoma City Thunder

We’ll keep this one relatively short and sweet. The Thunder kicked the can down the road as far as a draft pick goes…maybe. Oklahoma City will reportedly add some protections/conditions to the 2026 first-round pick they are now conveying to Philadelphia on behalf of LA. Likely, that means if that pick becomes really good (top-five, top-10, lottery?) the Thunder will keep it, and send another pick to Philadelphia. Otherwise, the Sixers get it.

In exchange, Oklahoma City gets control over yet another Clippers pick in 2027, via swap rights. There is a very real chance the Thunder could be a considerably better team than the Clippers in 2027. Oklahoma City is young and improving rapidly. In four years, the Clippers will have gone from old to ancient, and will likely be on a downswing.

This is Sam Presti at his best. This is why he’s kept control of so many picks, even while having to waive some former first-rounders recently, due to roster constraints. Presti can insert his team into almost any deal by offering to help things along, while rebalancing his draft assets down the line. No one does that better than Presti does.

The deadline has come and gone for extending rookie scale contracts for members of the 2020 NBA Draft class. In total, 14 players reached extensions worth more than $1.4 billion in total salaries. Both are records, according to our data on Spotrac.

There were a few themes, perhaps signs of impacts of the new CBA already being felt.

THEME #1

Teams are now allowed to offer non-maximum five-year deals. Under the previous CBA, any rookie scale extension of five years had to be a max contract. That was felt right away.

We still saw three Designated Player extensions (Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball and Tyrese Haliburton), but there were three other five-year deals reached. Desmond Bane got what we’ll refer to as a functional max, as he has bonus language putting him just below a guaranteed max deal. Devin Vassell and Jaden McDaniels both got less than the max, but each got five years. That’s a new thing, and the coming years will tell us if those deals set a precedent.

THEME #2

Zeke Nnaji got the only player option in the class. And his came in a deal that was pretty creative (more on that later).

Player options on rookie scale deals had previously been reserved for the guys who established themselves as stars in their first three seasons. Both Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell got player options on the rookie scale extensions they signed in 2020. Luka Doncic and Trae Young each followed with a player option on their five-year max extensions. Since then, no one else has gotten one until Nnaji.

This is a return to norm. Player options are again being reserved for special cases, either superstars or creative contract structures.

THEME #3

Three players (Aaron Nesmith, Zeke Nnaji and Payton Pritchard) signed contracts that will come in under the Non-Taxpayer MLE amount. An additional three players (Deni Avdija, Cole Anthony and Josh Green) signed deals that will be roughly equivalent to the Non-Taxpayer MLE.

It used to be that to get a player to sign an extension, you had to beat the MLE amount. Otherwise, players would bet on themselves and enter restricted free agency. And deals far below the MLE equivalent were very rare.

That’s changing on both the player and team sides. Teams like Boston, Denver and Dallas are going to be dancing around the luxury tax and both tax aprons for the foreseeable future. Locking up their players now is good business. It keeps the player in the fold, while also giving the team some tradable salary down the line.

For Nesmith, Avdija and Anthony, this was a chance to lock in some guaranteed money in what could have been an uncertain season leading into an uncertain summer. None are locks to play a big enough role to have that true breakout season it would take to really cash in as restricted free agents. And their teams could all choose to go the cap space route, which might have taken any of the three out of the mix for a new deal.

For Nesmith, Anthony and Green, all took three-year deals (Anthony’s deal actually as a team option on the third season). In exchange for signing team-friendly extensions, all three players will be able to get back on the market while entering the prime years of their careers.

It’s also a reading of the landscape. The cap for 2024-25 doesn’t project to jump the full 10% possible, as of now. If the cap growth is less than some think, it could depress the market some. And restricted free agency is already far more team-friendly than player-friendly, as players like Austin Reaves and P.J. Washington discovered this past summer.

Now, for an accountability check, we’re going to go back through each player from the 2020 Draft class (plus Chuma Okeke from the 2019 Draft class) to see how our predictions measured up against what actually happened.

(Note: Max deals are currently slightly under what was projected, as the cap 2024-25 cap projections came in lower than expected)

2020 Draft Class

#1 Anthony Edwards – Minnesota Timberwolves

Prediction: Five years, $207,350,000 (25% of the cap), no options; Designated Rookie language to bump the extension to five years, $248,820,000, no options

Actual: Five-year, Designated Rookie extension

We aren’t going to spend time crowing here. This was one of the bigger no-brainers on the board.

#2 James Wiseman – Detroit Pistons

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

Wiseman will have a chance to show he’s worth spending on in free agency. The tricky part now? If Detroit has cap space aspirations, Wiseman’s $30.3 million cap hold probably has to go.

#3 LaMelo Ball – Charlotte Hornets

Prediction: Five years, $207,350,000 (25% of the cap), no options; Designated Rookie language to bump the extension to five years, $248,820,000, no options

Actual: Five-year, Designated Rookie extension

Same as with Edwards, this one was a no-brainer. Ball is the only sure-thing player on the Hornets roster.

#4 Patrick Williams – Chicago Bulls

Prediction: Five years, $100 million, no options

Actual: No extension

This could be one the Bulls regret not getting done. Williams may have wanted more money, especially after seeing what Devin Vassell and Jaden McDaniels got, and that’s likely why Chicago backed off. But if Williams has a big year, he’ll be an interesting restricted free agent this summer.

#5 Isaac Okoro – Cleveland Cavaliers

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

No surprise here. Cleveland already signed Okoro’s theoretical replacement in Max Strus. That leaves Okoro playing for his next deal this season.

#6 Onyeka Okongwu – Atlanta Hawks

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Four years, $62 million

We wrote this in the prediction piece: “Normally, we’d say the Hawks should lock up Okongwu. But this team has so much long-term salary already committed for a middle-of-the-pack roster. Because of that, Atlanta may need to rebalance the roster a bit before taking care of Okongwu.” So much for that!

As it stands, Okongwu got one of the best deals from the team side. $15.5 million AAV for a guy who will probably be a good starting center in a year or two is tremendous value for an increasingly expensive Hawks team. And it frees up Atlanta to trade Clint Capela down the line to eventually rebalance the roster.

#7 Killian Hayes – Detroit Pistons

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

No real surprise here. Hayes has looked good this preseason, and Monty Williams seems to be a fan. But there hasn’t been enough real production to warrant an extension.

#8 Obi Toppin – Indiana Pacers

Prediction: No extension, unless he’s traded. Then, four years and $70 million seems like a worthy gamble as an upside bet.

Actual: No extension

Despite being traded from the New York Knicks to the Indiana Pacers, Toppin didn’t get an extension. That’s fine. The Pacers are taking a wait-and-see approach. If Toppin breaks out, Indiana can control the process in restricted free agency.

#9 Deni Avdija – Washington Wizards

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Four years, $55 million

This one was a bit of a surprise. The Wizards committed MLE-equivalent money to Avdija, but structured the deal as a declining contract. He’s the best defender on the roster, even if he’s in a crowded perimeter forward mix. If nothing else, this is a very tradable deal for Washington down the line.

#10 Jalen Smith – Indiana Pacers

Smith had his third- and fourth-year options declined by the Phoenix Suns. He was traded to Indiana during the 2021-22 season. Smith then signed a three-year, $15.1 million with the Pacers in the summer of 2022.

#11 Devin Vassell – San Antonio Spurs 

Prediction: Five years, $115 million, no options

Actual: Five years, $135 million to $146 million

We wrote this in the original piece: “This is another one where the five-year allowance for non-max deals in the CBA could be big.”

That’s exactly how this played out, even if Vassell got more than we expected at the time. One key to the deal: The Spurs structured this deal to decline the maximum amount possible, to coincide with the season Victor Wembanyama’s already-presumed Designated Player rookie scale extension starts. Vassell’s contract then goes back up for the final season, which could aid in the next round of extension negotiations.

#12 Tyrese Haliburton – Indiana Pacers

Prediction: Five years, $207,350,000 (25% of the cap), no options; Designated Rookie language to bump the extension to five years, $248,820,000, no options

Actual: Five-year, Designated Rookie extension

Another no-brainer. Haliburton is a star.

#13 Kira Lewis Jr. – New Orleans Pelicans

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

Lewis is more likely to get moved in a trade to avoid the luxury tax than he was to extend. New Orleans is about $2.9 million over the tax line. They won’t finish the year as a tax team.

#14 Aaron Nesmith – Indiana Pacers

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Three years, $33 million

This one was a real surprise. Nesmith was healthy and a nice fit with the Pacers last season. He makes sense in a lot of different lineup constructions. As we talked about in the opening, it used to be rare for a player to take less than the Non-Taxpayer MLE equivalent. In Nesmith’s case, given his health issues in his first two seasons, as well as his final college season, it makes sense to lock in the money now.

#15 Cole Anthony – Orlando Magic

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Three years, $39.1 million, team option on the final season

We said the Magic would probably let this play out, unless Anthony agreed to something team-friendly. Both sides sort of split the difference. Anthony gets a deal for roughly the equivalent of the MLE, but the Magic got a team option on Year 3. That’s smart business by both sides, given the Magic’s unsettled backcourt, Anthony’s talent and Orlando’s potential as a cap space team.

#16 Isaiah Stewart – Detroit Pistons

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Four years, $60 to $64 million, team option on the final season

This one was a surprise in both the timing and that it got done. Stewart signed this extension in early-July, which is usually a part of the calendar reserved for max extensions. The amount was a bit surprising too, but Stewart is the most-proven player among Detroit’s big men. He’s worth locking up for slightly more than the Non-Taxpayer MLE amount.

#17 Aleksej Pokusevski – Oklahoma City Thunder

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

Pokusevski is again hurt and will miss the start of the regular season. There are still far too many unknowns for the Thunder to commit any kind of reasonable money to Pokusevski.

#18 Josh Green – Dallas Mavericks

Prediction: Four years, $70 million

Actual: Three years, $41 million

We were in range, but Green took less than we thought he’d get. This is another deal that looks pretty favorable towards the team. In exchange for taking less money, Green gets to get back on the market ahead of his age-27 season. That puts Green in line for a lucrative contract, should he keep developing.

#19 Saddiq Bey – Atlanta Hawks

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

We thought the Hawks tax situation would make it tough for them to extend both Bey and Onyeka Okongwu. Instead, it seems to have been a “one or the other” situation, and Atlanta went with the big man. The Hawks also seem to be letting the forward situation play out a bit here, with Bey battling De’Andre Hunter and Jalen Johnson for minutes in a John Collins-less frontcourt.

#20 Precious Achiuwa – Toronto Raptors

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

No surprise here, as things are too unsettled in Toronto to lock into a deal for a player who could eventually be traded. The Raptors have a lot to figure out this season, and Achiuwa’s development is another item on a long list.

#21 Tyrese Maxey – Philadelphia 76ers

Prediction: Five years, $207,350,000 (25% of the cap), no options

Actual: No extension

We’re still calling this one a win. Philadelphia didn’t extend Maxey, but not because he hasn’t earned it. They didn’t extend him because they are using his small-ish cap hold to try and maximize their cap space in the summer of 2024. Maxey is still going to get a max deal, it’ll just come a year later than it could have.

#22 Zeke Nnaji – Denver Nuggets

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Four years, $32 million, player option on the final season

This is another deal where we’re having to reframe our thinking. Nnaji locked in pretty solid money, given he’s been in and out of Denver’s rotation for his entire career. And he got the only player option in the class. In addition, Nnaji’s contract starts high and declines. That helps Denver, when they eventually extend Jamal Murray and the payroll is bumping against the second apron. If he breaks out during this deal, Nnaji can get back on the market of his own choosing in a few years.

#23 Leandro Bolmaro – out of the NBA

Bolmaro is out of the NBA after two non-descript seasons. He returned to Spain after a midseason waiver from the Utah Jazz. Bolmaro also signed a year late, so he would haven’t been extension-eligible anyway.

#24 R.J. Hampton – Detroit Pistons

Hampton was waived by the Orlando Magic before finishing the season with the Pistons. He’s got a non-guaranteed contract for next season with Detroit. Hampton also had his fourth-year option declined, which would have rendered him unable to extend, had he stayed with Orlando. (Hampton is now on a two-way contract with the Miami Heat.)

#25 Immanuel Quickley – New York Knicks

Prediction: Four years, $84 million with incentives that could bring it up to $90 million, no options

Actual: No extension

This is the most dangerous non-extension of them all. Quickley is good and other teams know it. He’s the kind of guy who makes sense as a restricted free agent target for just about everyone. That could put the Knicks in a tricky spot to match an offer sheet, or risk losing Quickley for nothing. Maybe a trade comes before then, or maybe New York feels confident in what is a pretty crowded guard group. But there’s a lot of risk on the Knicks side in not extending Quickley.

#26 Payton Pritchard – Boston Celtics

Prediction: No extension

Actual: Four years, $30 million

This one was a surprise, in that it’s another under-MLE extension, and it looked like Pritchard might get traded at the end of the season. Instead, he’s the backup point guard on a title contender, and Pritchard is paid fairly for that role for the next four seasons. If nothing else, Boston avoids bleeding more talent, when it’s hard for them to backfill due to the second apron. And, stop us if you’ve heard this before, it’s a tradable contract down the line.

#27 Udoka Azubuike – Utah Jazz

Azubuike had his fourth-year team option declined by the Jazz. Given the presence of Walker Kessler on the roster, it’s likely Azubuike will be playing elsewhere next season. (Azubuike is now on a two-way deal with the Phoenix Suns.)

#28 Jaden McDaniels – Minnesota Timberwolves

Prediction: four years, $100 million, no options

Actual: Five years, $131 to $136 million

McDaniels cashed in even more than we thought. Going the full five years is a win for the Timberwolves, which might have led to McDaniels getting more in terms of AAV than we predicted. This is still a really good deal for Minnesota and McDaniels both. The Wolves now have some cover if (when?) they trade either Karl-Anthony Towns or Rudy Gobert, between the extensions for McDaniels and Naz Reid. But in the short-term, the Wolves are going to be very expensive for a middle-of-the-pack team. That means moves are coming…eventually.

#29 Malachi Flynn – Toronto Raptors

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

It’s more surprising that Flynn had both of his rookie scale options picked up than him not getting extended. This is approaching Last Chance Saloon time for Flynn, as far as saving his NBA career.

#30 Desmond Bane – Memphis Grizzlies

Prediction: Five years, $207,350,000 (25% of the cap), no options

Actual: Five years, $197 million to $206 million

Bane didn’t get the max deal we predicted, but he more or less did. If he hits his incentives, Bane will make the max. Given he’s the surest thing for Memphis this season (and possibly beyond), this is a terrific contract for both the Grizzlies and Bane.

2019 Draft Class

Chuma Okeke – Orlando Magic

Prediction: No extension

Actual: No extension

Okeke signed a year later, after being drafted in 2019. Even with the extra year, he hasn’t shown enough to land an extension. The Magic also have a ton of talent stockpiled at Okeke’s positions. He’s more of a trade candidate now than he ever was an extension candidate.

Klay Thompson has spent all 12 seasons of his NBA career with the Golden State Warriors. That includes the two seasons when Thompson painstakingly rehabbed from first a torn ACL and then a torn Achilles’ tendon. Given all Thompson and the Warriors have been through together, including winning four titles, it’s hard to imagine Thompson wearing another uniform.

Yet, Thompson and Golden State having seemingly made little progress in extension talks. That leaves Thompson potentially playing out an expiring deal and his future a little unsettled.

Before we get into what Thompson’s next contract could look like, let’s do a little background.

Thompson was drafted by the Warriors at the 2011 NBA Draft. He played out his rookie scale deal, and inked a four-year, $69 million extension. Thompson played that deal out, and then signed a new five-year, $190 million maximum contract in the summer of 2019.

That max deal is the one that is wrapping up now. Golden State signed Thompson to that contract, knowing he’d miss the first season, after he tore his ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals. After two missed seasons, Thompson return to help the Warriors win the 2022 NBA Finals. Now, he’s wrapping up the deal on a $43.2 million expiring contract for the 2023-24 season.

Thompson is 33 years old. He’ll be 34 when his next contract starts, whether it’s an extension or a new contract. Because Thompson is turning 34 ahead of next season, he’ll avoid bumping into the Over-38 rule by one season. That keeps things much simpler, when we consider the absolute max deal Thompson could ink.

Let’s dive into the various options Thompson and the Warriors have, now and this coming offseason. 

Signing a Veteran Extension this season

Thompson is extension-eligible right now. There’s no waiting period for him to extend with the Warriors. Because he’s on an expiring deal, Thompson will remain extension-eligible through June 30, 2024 (the eve of free agency). Extension-eligible players that are on expiring deals (or have an option for the 2024-25 season) can sign an extension through the end of the league year. Extension-eligible players will multiple years left on their contract can only extend through October 23.

For the Warriors and Thompson, that gives them plenty of time to hammer out a new deal. A max extension for Thompson would look like this:

• • 2024-25: $49,700,000
  • 2025-26: $53,676,000
  • 2026-27: $57,652,000
  • 2027-28: $61,628,000
  • Total: four years, $222,656,000

Thompson is eligible to extend for up to four total season and for 140% of his current salary. That 140% would take Thompson past his max salary, so he would be capped at $49.7 million for the 2024-25 season. That’s the projected 10-plus years of service maximum at 35% of the projected $142 million salary cap. If the cap goes up more than projected, the contract would adjust accordingly.

It’s important to note that this is the maximum amount that Thompson is eligible to extend for right now. It’s not likely he would get quite that much. We’re just setting the parameters here.

Re-signing with the Warriors as a free agent in 2024

If Golden State and Thompson can’t reach agreement on an extension, but they aren’t quite ready to part ways, he’ll be eligible to add a fifth season in a new max contract. The first four seasons would look the same as above, but there would be a fifth season tacked on:

• • 2024-25: $49,700,000
  • 2025-26: $53,676,000
  • 2026-27: $57,652,000
  • 2027-28: $61,628,000
  • 2028-29: $65,604,000
  • Total: five years, $288,260,000

This is a five-year, maximum salary, starting at the projected 35% of the cap max with 8% raises. Being able to add that fifth year makes a major difference, even if it’s unlikely that this contract would end up at that level.

One important note: If Thompson were to sign a new contract, as opposed to an extension, he’d be eligible to add a rare negotiated no-trade clause into his new deal. To date, only Bradley Beal (now of the Phoenix Suns) has a negotiated no-trade clause. Thompson would not be able to add a no-trade in an extension, because his current contract does not include a no-trade clause.

Signing with another team as a free agent in 2024

If things get really sideways and Thompson leaves the Warriors, here’s what a max deal with another team would look like:

• • 2024-25: $49,700,000
  • 2025-26: $52,185,000
  • 2026-27: $54,670,000
  • 2027-28: $57,155,000
  • Total: four years, $213,710,000

That’s a 35% of the cap maximum contract, but limited to four years and 5% raises. In comparison to the extension Thompson could sign, he’d be leaving almost $9 million total on the table. And, of course, Thompson could only get a fifth year from the Warriors in a new contract.

Summary

As we said before, it’s really hard to imagine Klay Thompson playing out his career in anything but a Golden State Warriors jersey. The Warriors took care of Draymond Green this summer, despite rumors that a separation could happen. And, of course, Stephen Curry is signed through the 2025-26 season.

Curry is Curry, but Green’s new contract could be a possible signpost for where Thompson’s next deal ends up.

Even as he’s aged, Green has remained a productive player. He no longer brings that Defensive Player of the Year impact every game, but he summons it when necessary. And he’s still a good playmaker, rebounder and leader.

Thompson bounced back with a pretty solid season in his return year in 2022. He averaged 20.4 points per game on 43/39/90 shooting splits. That was good enough to be a big part of the Warriors winning the 2022 NBA Finals.

Last season, Thompson was even better. He averaged 21.9 points on 44/41/88 shooting splits. Most importantly, Thompson played in 69 regular season games and held up physically through the team’s second-round playoff exit.

That last part is important, as that’s what should give the Warriors (or, less likely, another team) confidence in giving Thompson a new contract. However, despite us laying out the max terms, Thompson isn’t getting a max deal. Instead, his current $43.2 million contract probably represents a good starting point for an extension.

In recent years, we’ve seen a handful of veteran players do an in-season extension that took their salary down from the prior season. The best example was Al Horford last season. Horford was on an expiring $26.5 million contract with the Boston Celtics. He signed a two-year, $19.5 million extension that runs through this season and next.

Thompson is younger than Horford, and better positioned to not have to take such a drastic pay cut. As laid out above, he’s still extremely productive, and he has a long, championship history with Golden State.

That brings us back to Green and his new contract. He made $25.8 million in 2022-23, before declining a $27.6 million player option for 2023-24. Despite rumors that Green could look to leave the Warriors, he pretty quickly agreed to a four-year, $100 million contract. That deal sees Green make $22.3 million this season, before topping out with a $27.7 million player option in 2026-27.

While Green hasn’t missed seasons like Thompson has, last year’s 73 games were the most he’s played in a single season since 2017. He’s regularly become a guy who will miss 20-30 games a year. Thompson, despite the two missed season, has been a relative ironman. And again, his nightly production is always there. He’s one of the more consistent performers in the NBA from game to game.

Adding it all up, and given the Warriors ever-present massive tax bill, an extension like this seems to make sense for both sides:

• • 2024-25: $35,000,000
  • 2025-26: $32,200,000
  • 2026-27: $29,400,000
  • 2027-28: $26,600,000
  • Total: four years, $123,200,000

That’s the max allowable of four years, but it includes the max allowable 8% declines each season. As this extension would run through Thompson’s age-34 through age-37 seasons, it’s fair to expect some drop-off in his play. Having the contract mirror that makes sense. If Thompson wants a player option on that final season, that’s fair. Green got one on his new deal, and Andrew Wiggins got one in the extension he signed last summer. If that's the case, the final season would need to be for the same amount as the preceding season. This is because a player option can't be for less salary than the prior season was for. That would boost Thompson's contract to a slight bit more.

For Thompson, this locks in more money than Green got, which seems fair, given his durability and overall impact. It also aligns the team to have Thompson, Curry, Green and Wiggins all signed through at least the 2025-26 seasons.

If it’s more important for the Warriors to keep the tax bill in check right now, especially given the new second apron restrictions, they could structure a traditional deal that looks like this:

• • 2024-25: $27,500,000
  • 2025-26: $29,700,000
  • 2026-27: $31,900,000
  • 2027-28: $34,100,000
  • Total: four years, $123,200,000

The overall money is exactly the same, but the contract starts lower and goes up the max allowed 8% per year. Again, a player option on the final season is a fair concession by Golden State.

This type of structure would help the Warriors lower their overall team salary into a range where getting under the second apron entirely is possible.

In reality, Golden State and Thompson will likely agree to a total salary number, and then the Warriors can structure the deal in whatever way they deem most beneficial. There are plusses and minuses to both approaches. A lot depends on how much the team cares about dodging the second apron in the immediate, balanced against creating some flexibility further down the line.

In the end, an extension makes the most sense for both Thompson and the Warriors. There’s no reason to make him play out the season in limbo, and possibly creating unnecessary drama approaching free agency in July. For Thompson, sacrificing making the most possible money to lock in security for the remainder of his career makes sense too. Look for both sides to eventually find that middle ground and to get a deal done before the end of the season.

The NBA preseason is here! Between the short training camp (compared to NFL or MLB) and the preseason games, it’s a chance for coaches and front offices to sort through their rotations and rosters. While the NBA features much smaller rosters than NFL or MLB, there are still decisions to be made. We’re going to go through the biggest rotation and roster decisions each team has ahead of them over the next week or so. We’ve already covered the Atlantic Division, Central Division, Southeast Division, Southwest Division and Pacific Division teams.

Denver Nuggets

Is backup point guard a problem? 

The Nuggets starting five is right up there with the best in the NBA. All five players complement each other well and there’s a good mix of offense and defense. Behind them, things get a little shakier. No more so than at backup point guard.

After Denver traded away Monte Morris, this spot was messy last year. Bones Hyland got the primary opportunity, and he was dealt away at the trade deadline, in part because he wasn’t meshing as hoped for. The Nuggets added Reggie Jackson after he worked a buyout, and he re-signed with the team this past offseason, but is Jackson really the answer behind Jamal Murray?

Jackson played in 16 regular season games with Denver last year and he struggled. Jackson couldn’t make shots and wasn’t very good on defense. By the time the playoffs rolled around, the 12-year veteran was only getting garbage time minutes.

The Nuggets gave Jackson the entirety of their $5 million Taxpayer MLE in free agency. That qualified as one of the summer’s more surprising signings. Most had Jackson pegged as a veteran minimum guy. It’s possible that Denver plussed up Jackson’s contract, in exchange for him waiving his ability to block a trade. If so, that makes a lot of sense. His contract could allow Denver to do some things they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise in trades.

On the court, Jackson could bounce back. 16 games and 319 minutes is hardly a big sample size. And the prior couple of seasons, Jackson was pretty solid in a much bigger role than anyone could have predicted with the LA Clippers.

If Jackson can’t turn it around, Denver is pretty thin at the position. Rookie guard Jalen Pickett could probably give Denver some minutes. Pickett has good size for the position and he’s a solid playmaker. He was a very streaky shooter in college, and rookies are rarely ready defensively. But Pickett comes in as a five-year college player. So, he should be more ready than most rookies to play NBA minutes.

Collin Gillespie is back on a two-way deal, after missing his entire first year with an injury. But he shot it terribly at Summer League and hasn’t hit much better in the preseason. Gillespie’s college profile was that of a good shooter though, so we aren’t going to write him off yet.

In reality, Denver’s offense is different from any other in the NBA. Their primary playmaker is their center. Murray is a point guard in name only, as he makes most of his impact as a scorer and shooter. That lessens the needs for a high-end backup ballhandler. But if Murray needs rest, either in-game or for a night off, someone has to step up. Jackson will get the first opportunity, but don’t be surprised if Pickett ultimately snags the role as Murray’s backup.

What about the rest of the bench? 

Denver lost Bruce Brown, who was a key contributor to their title run. They also lost Jeff Green to the Houston Rockets, and Vlatko Cancar will miss this season after a torn ACL over the summer.

Christian Braun will step in as the replacement for Brown. Denver is high on Braun, and he got a lot of experience as a rotation guy on last season’s title team. He looks ready for a bigger role this year.

We covered the backup point guard spot above, but that leaves another forward spot open and a backup big man spot available. The Nuggets are poised to rely on younger players to fill both roles.

Peyton Watson has been the talk of the offseason, and he seems like he’ll get a shot at rotation minutes at the perimeter forward spot. Rookie first-rounder Julian Strawther has been terrific in the preseason, following a strong Summer League. Strawther is going to factor into the rotation sooner, rather than later. Those two will probably wage a head-to-head battle for minutes. Let the best defender, cutter and shooter win.

Behind Nikola Jokic, things are a lot more in question. DeAndre Jordan re-signed for another run, but he’s more of a locker room presence than an on-court one. If pressed into action, Jordan will provide some rugged defense, rebounding and solid screening. But Jordan’s career is closer to the end than his productive prime years.

The Nuggets would love for Zeke Nnaji to seize the backup five role. His shooting ability would be a nice fit on the second unit. But last season was a mess for Nnaji. He battled injuries and some really shaky shooting. Denver needs to see him return to the form of his first two seasons before they can feel good about running him out on the floor for 15 minutes a night.

Justin Holiday was signed to provide some veteran depth, and a shooting presence. He’ll step in if one of the younger wings isn’t quite ready for their role. The Nuggets are also high on Hunter Tyson, who was drafted in the second round. He might see some minutes too, akin to the situations that Strawther and Jalen Pickett are in.

Mostly, if no one steps forward, look for Calvin Booth to swing a trade to fill a hole. It might mean moving on from a younger player or two, but such is life when you’re on top and everyone is trying to take you down.

Minnesota Timberwolves

How will the perimeter rotation shake out? 

The Wolves starting group is set with Anthony Edwards and Mike Conley in the backcourt and Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels up front. Behind them, Minnesota has talent, but it might take a bit for roles to become defined. Nowhere is that truer than on the perimeter.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker is back, and he’ll grab one wing/guard spot. Newcomers Troy Brown Jr. and Shake Milton will be in the mix too. Given teams generally start with an expanded rotation, it’s likely all three will play minutes in the early part of the season. Naz Reid and Kyle Anderson are entrenched as the frontcourt backups.

The real question is if Jordan McLaughlin (in and out of the rotation in his four seasons in Minnesota) or Wendell Moore (coming off a forgettable rookie season) can steal rotation roles. McLaughlin is more of a pure point guard than either Alexander-Walker or Milton. Moore needs to make shots to have a chance at seeing some wing minutes. Finally, keep an eye on Josh Minott. He’s got a really intriguing mix of skill and size. He did some things on the G League level that could project to NBA production. He’s a sleeper rotation candidate to watch.

Who is the backup point guard? 

We touched on this above, but we’ll expand on it here. This is basically a three-way, and really a two-way, battle between Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Shake Milton and Jordan McLaughlin.

Alexander-Walker spent the first few seasons of his career as a theoretical big point guard. He never quite fit that mold though, and it took until last season for him to really find a foothold in the league. Alexander-Walker leaned into being a 3&D player, who could also do some secondary ballhandling. The Wolves seem to see him more in that role, so we’ll take Alexander-Walker out of the mix behind Mike Conley.

Jordan McLaughlin is the holdover. After flashing late in his pandemic-shortened rookie season, McLaughlin snagged a rotation role in his second year. Unfortunately, each of the last two seasons have seen him backslide some. McLaughlin stopped making his outside shots, in addition to battling a midseason injury last season. If he starts making jumpers again, McLaughlin will use his combination of playmaking ability and pesky defense to force his way back on the floor.

Milton is kind of an opposite of McLaughlin. He’s got more size and he’s a better shooter. But he’s only a so-so playmaker and his defense has never really been more than passable. Milton brings the added benefit of being able to play on the wing, where McLaughlin is more of an on-ball guard.

The guess here is that Milton gets sort of the first crack, as his shooting ability can help open up the floor Anthony Edwards and the Wolves big man. But McLaughlin will crack the rotation at some point. He just makes thing happen. And if McLaughlin makes shots, he’ll be hard to take out of the mix.

Oklahoma City Thunder

What is the rotation going to look like? 

Mark Daigneault used his first two seasons as Oklahoma City head coach perfectly. He experimented with lineups and player combinations relentlessly. Even last year, when the Thunder were ahead of schedule as far as being a competitive team, Daigneault kept testing and adjusting his rotation and groupings.

Now, Oklahoma City is here (but hot HERE here just yet) and there are some expectations for this group. That likely means there isn’t as much room for experimentation. But that’s not really a problem. Daigneault knows what talent he has now.

The starting five appears set. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a star, Jalen Williams (the wing one) is headed in that direction. Josh Giddey’s funky slashing, do-a-little-of-everything game just fits, while Lu Dort is the team’s perimeter stopper. Chet Holmgren joins them for his delayed rookie season. If preseason is any example, he’s the fifth finger in a pretty well-fit glove.

Behind those five, things are more unsettled. Jaylin Williams (the big one) will be Holmgren’s backup when he gets back from a what seems to be a minor injury. Kenrich Williams is going to find his way on the floor, because he’s too impactful not to. Presumably, Vasilije Micic didn’t come over to sit on the bench, so he’ll snag a backup guard role. And Isaiah Joe brings deadeye shooting to a roster short on that skill.

Maybe it’s that simple. That’s Daigneault’s nine-man rotation. But something says that’s shortsighted. Too many other guys are simply too good to just be completely out of the mix

Ousmane Dieng is all limbs and potential. He’s going to factor in, if for no other reason so OKC can see what they have him. Dieng had some nice games over the final quarter of his rookie season, and the Thunder will want to see if that carries over.

Aaron Wiggins might not jump out at you right away, but if you take a deeper look, you’ll find a lot to like. Wiggins will unleash the occasional highlight jam, but he’s more than that. Wiggins is a good finisher around the rim, and he knocked down 39.3% of his threes last season. He’s also a competitive defender. It’s hard to see him getting completely shelved.

Tre Mann and rookie Cason Wallace are going to put pressure on Micic for backup guard minutes. Mann took a step back with a less consistent role in his second season than he had in his rookie year. But he can still score, and there’s a playmaker in there that’s ready to break out. Wallace is your typical Kentucky guard. He’s a little shaky on offense, but you get the feeling he can do more than he showed while in college. And you love the toughness, the defensive tenacity and the willingness to mix it up on the boards, despite a lack of size. He just screams that he’ll find his way on the floor eventually.

If we count in the top-nine guys and combine them with Dieng, Wiggins, Mann and Wallace, we’re already at 13 guys. And we haven’t even touched on Davis Bertans (a prototypical Thunder reclamation project) and Aleksej Pokusevski (currently injured and in danger of becoming an unrealized project).

In a very real sense, Oklahoma City has 15 guys who can play. That’s incredible considering this team was torn down to the studs just a couple of years ago. But the days of all 15 guys playing somewhat regularly, because the team was mixing and matching game to game, are over. Look for the top-nine we called out to be the regulars, with the others slotting in as matchups, injuries or ineffectiveness open up minutes.

That means Mark Daigneault might be having some difficult conversations, but he’s up for it. And, more importantly, minutes will be fully earned on this team moving forward. That’s an exciting place for a franchise to be in as they go from rebuilding to competing.

Who gets cut? 

The Thunder have taken care of this to some extent throughout the course of the offseason. They moved on from Usman Garuba and TyTy Washington, after acting as a clearinghouse for their contracts this summer. Both have potential, but the rest of the league wasn’t as all over either player as suggested, as both Garuba and Washington are on two-way deals now.

Oklahoma City further cleaned things up by trading Victor Oladipo (really his $9.45 million contract) and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl to the Houston Rockets. In exchange, the Thunder waive Kevin Porter Jr. and ate his contract, while picking up two more future second-round picks for Sam Presti’s stash. Oladipo might have been an easy cut, but Robinson-Earl has played real minutes for the Thunder and they might not wanted to have moved on simply by waiving him.

That leaves one tough cut to make. At this point, it looks like Jack White could be the one on the outside looking in. The Thunder thought highly enough of White to give him $600,000 in guaranteed money this summer. Maybe the thought was that something would open up to keep him around. As of this writing, that hasn’t happened. It’s hard to see the team waiving anyone else.

Maybe, and it’s a major maybe, the team is ready to move on from Aleksej Pokusevski. The developmental minutes that Pokusevski needs no longer seem available. He also doesn’t seem to be in line for a contract extension. If the Thunder are done waiting on his potential, Poku’s days could be numbered.

We’ll guess it’s White, which is somewhat unfortunate. His guarantee is too large for him to play for Oklahoma City’s G League affiliate. That means White will be off elsewhere for next season. But it just seems like the team won’t ties with Pokusevski…yet.

Portland Trail Blazers

Who is the fifth starter? 

Four starting spots are spoken for in Portland. Scoot Henderson and Anfernee Simons are going to start in the backcourt. Deandre Ayton and Jerami Grant are starting up front. That means the wing spot is up for grabs.

Shaedon Sharpe has the most long-term potential, but that would leave the Blazers starting three guards. That means they’ll be undersized and lacking some defense. A lineup of Henderson, Simons, Sharpe, Grant and Ayton will hopefully see lots of minutes, but it might not open games.

That means Matisse Thybulle is probably the best bet to start games. He’s easily the best defensive player on the roster. Yes, that’s a low bar to clear, but Thybulle leaps over it with ease anyway. And in 22 games with Portland, Thybulle shot 38.8% on 3.9 three-point attempts per game. That’s really, really intriguing.

The defense will probably get Thybulle the first crack at the starting spot, but the shooting will keep him in it. If he regresses as a shooter, and defenses start making things too hard on Ayton to work in the paint and to easy to collapse on Henderson drives, Sharpe might wedge his way in there.

There’s also a slight chance that Chauncy Billups might want to go big and will start Robert Williams next to Ayton, while pushing Grant to the three. That’s worth experimenting with, but probably not as a starting group. That would really shrink the floor a lot, and that makes life harder than it needs to be on Henderson and Simons to get the offensive moving. But for a few minutes here and there, it’s worth checking out.

One last thing to keep an eye on, but further down the line: Sharpe starting over Simons. There are some who believe that Simons best role on a winning team will be as a high-volume sixth man. Think Jamal Crawford or Lou Williams. This space isn’t going to tell you that Simons should go to the bench. We’re big fans of his. But if Portland wants to experiment late in a lottery season, they could give it a shot.

Could the bench be a strength? 

Either Shaedon Sharpe or Matisse Thybulle is going to come off the bench. We’re guessing Robert Williams will do the same. Malcolm Brogdon is going to play too, for however long he’s in Portland. Kris Murray has some potential as a ready-to-play rookie, and Jabari Walker flashed at times as a rookie.

Even if it’s just the Sharpe/Thybulle non-starter, Williams and Brogdon that contribute as reserves, that’s pretty good. That’s better than some playoff teams will feature. There’s even a chance that we could see Portland’s starting group bleed points, while the backups come in and cut into leads. Both lineups are built for that sort of potential.

If nothing else, on the nights when the Blazers starters do hand off a lead, the bench shouldn’t immediately hand it back. That’s always a positive on a young team, as it keeps from frustration creeping in. Frustration with holding leads often ends up in younger players taking on a Thanos-like approach of “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” And that never leads anywhere good, whether it be for young players or Thanos.

Utah Jazz

What does the guard rotation look like? 

The Utah Jazz have a lot of guys who can play. For a team in Year 2 of a rebuild, Utah is pretty well stocked. Most know the frontcourt is deep in options, but the guard group is actually even more of an open competition.

After Mike Conley was traded at the deadline, the most-common starting guards were Jordan Clarkson and Talen Horton-Tucker. They are both back, as is Collin Sexton, who suffered through an injury-plagued season. Kris Dunn, who experience a major career rejuvenation, is also returning. That’s already four-deep, but there’s more.

Ochai Agbaji is a pure wing, but most of his minutes came at the two, as part of jumbo-sized lineups. And Keyonte George looks like he’s going to make it very hard to keep him off the floor as a rookie.

If we take Agbaji out of the mix and assume he’ll see more minutes at the three this year, that’s still five guys for four spots. Injuries might open up minutes for someone, but this a delicate situation for Will Hardy to sort through.

Horton-Tucker is on an expiring deal, as is Dunn. They’re both going to want chances to show what they can do. Sexton has three years left on his contract, and Clarkson added two years to his deal too.  That makes them at least somewhat a part of the longer-term future in Utah. It’s also safe to assume the Jazz are going to want to see what they have in George at some point.

It’s been rumored that teams have called on Horton-Tucker. Moving him could add to Danny Ainge’s already overflowing treasure chest of draft picks, while opening up minutes in the backcourt. After four years, it’s clear that Horton-Tucker is a solid all-around player, but he’s a “jack of all trades, master of none” guy. And his lack of shooting won’t allow him to play the on-ball minutes he needs on a good team. If someone has to move out of the rotation, and Dunn’s offense from last season carries over, Horton-Tucker makes sense as the odd man out.

For now, Hardy can keep mixing and matching, while spotting guys rest days here and there. But that will wear thin relatively quickly. Figuring out which guards complement a talented frontcourt long-term is near the top of the to-do list for this season.

Will the rookies get to play? 

We touched on it above with Keyonte George, but it’s going to be just as hard for Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh to find minutes. It’s no longer a guarantee in the NBA that first-round-pick status means you get entitlement minutes. Teams don’t function that way anymore, unless they are really bad, or at the end of a lost season.

That means George, Hendricks and Sensabaugh will have earned any minutes they get. That’s not a bad thing, as you want to them to have to compete from Day 1. But young players, who have been stars or main cogs for their entire lives, can get frustrated if they are sitting game after game.

We already covered how George will have to fight his way through a crowded guard group. If Hendricks wants to play, he’ll have to show that he can do it at the three. Walker Kessler will play all of his minutes at the five, but the four will feature some combination of John Collins (in the big starting group), Lauri Markkanen (in smaller, more traditional lineups) and Kelly Olynyk (when he’s not backing up Kessler). That leaves very little room for Hendricks to play what looks like his natural position.

But if Hendricks can defend on the perimeter enough, shoot it well enough and do a little bit of ballhandler, he can find minutes behind Markkanen at the three. Because he missed Summer League with an injury, we’ve only seen some small preseason glimpses of Hendricks. He very much remains a mystery box.

As for Sensabaugh, it’s hard to see how he’ll see many minutes as a rookie. He’s played even less than Hendricks. Barring something unexpected, it’s a good bet that Sensabaugh sees more minutes in the G League than the NBA this season.

Again, it’s not a bad thing if the Jazz rookies aren’t gifted minutes right out of the gate. But if you were expecting to see immediate fruits from this draft class, you’re going to be disappointed. There’s a good deal of ripening that will need to happen, maybe even a full season’s worth. But it should pay off with three good players that can fill rotation holes as the roster evolves over the next few years.