LAS VEGAS — Money underlines NBA Summer League. Money underlines the NBA, really, the true green code of this 30-team Matrix — from the restrictions of the league’s collective bargaining agreement to the spending power of NIL collectives possibly keeping talent from the league. This week, this annual gathering when everyone from All-Stars to general managers to the college world’s most connected flock to the dry heat of this desert, that code blinks and flickers from the Thomas & Mack center to the hallways of the Wynn. Which swankiest hotel of the swankiest hotel does your team stay at? What lavish dinner, charged to some company card, are you attending? Look who’s holding court at the $100 tables.
The fact business is still being conducted here — veteran minimum signings, completed rookie contracts, dismissed coaches and front office staffers searching for their next gigs — underscores every event, every catch-up conversation at the top of the Cox Pavilion stands. This summer, the first offseason governed by rules of the league’s new second-apron CBA, has brought plenty of chatter among NBA personnel around Summer League about a relatively quick and quiet free agency and what looks to be the early shaping of a new era of the league’s business.
The harsher penalties and limitations that come when a team’s total cap sheet surpasses the second apron, an additional luxury tax line beginning with this 2024-25 campaign — $188.931 million for 2024-25 compared to a first apron of $178.132 million — were the Clippers’ main reasons for not competing with Philadelphia’s offer for Paul George. While fans of the Miami Heat, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Denver Nuggets have shared frustration about their all-in, supposed-to-be contending teams’ lack of significant movement this summer, there are simply limited opportunities for the Bucks, who are already locked into the second apron, while Denver is hard-capped at the second apron and Miami is tip-toeing that line by $1.6 million.
There isn’t much of a free-agency landscape to work through, anyhow, if several cap space teams like Charlotte, Detroit and San Antonio are willing to absorb veteran salaries for draft capital. There’s never seemed to be an easier path for front offices to find a third team willing to facilitate a move that makes one contender stronger and improves a rebuilding club’s war chest. But agents and team strategists alike have certainly agreed the new second-apron challenges — the inability to aggregate players into trades perhaps posing the most difficult hurdle for teams — and other new aspects of the CBA made transactions harder to complete this cycle.
Mid-level market
There were plenty of signs to suggest the NBA’s middle class was going to get a bit squeezed this summer, with teams now capable of retaining the full mid-level exception available to non-tax players as a valuable traded-player exception. A majority of teams with access to the full MLE were planning to not spend that entire amount either, sources said, and save somewhere around $6 million to bring in another helpful piece via midseason trade. Indeed, only one player signed for the full $12.8 million MLE: De’Anthony Melton, and even he only landed a one-year agreement with Golden State.
Outside of George and two-time champion wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the only other major beneficiaries on the open market who changed teams was Tobias Harris — whom Detroit, sources said, believes can serve as a foundational leader for the Pistons’ rebuild from the NBA cellar — and Isaiah Hartenstein, who departed New York for an absolute bag from Oklahoma City. Malik Monk stayed in Sacramento. Nic Claxton stayed in Brooklyn, much to the chagrin of the interested New Orleans Pelicans. Patrick Williams re-upped with Chicago.
DeMar DeRozan and Klay Thompson found new homes in Sacramento and Dallas, respectively, but both veterans needed to find sign-and-trade avenues to receive the above mid-level paydays they desired. Other wings, from Caleb Martin to Gary Trent Jr., who originally sought deals above $15 million in average annual value, sources said, can surely argue their play and production have been and are worth that and more. But if there are no teams with spending power above the MLE, it’s hard to find what a player deserves if there’s no true opportunity to negotiate it. Maybe over the next few years this trend continues and more players than ever are holding minimum salary contracts and a doomsday truly arrives. Or maybe this was simply the first year of business under these new rules. A number of guys from Martin to Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson in Golden State, or Malik Beasley netting $6 million from the Pistons, were still able to surpass that worst outcome by a good margin. How the mid-level market truly develops over the coming years will be a central piece of free agency for the majority of the league’s rotation players.
Return of the sign-and-trade
The sign-and-trade, such as those aforementioned deals for DeRozan and Thompson, came back in vogue this summer, and team strategists believe a greater frequency of those moves will only continue. The Warriors, as another example, landed Hield in a sign-and-trade. Yet for players who demand a significant salary and are unrestricted free agents, yet want to join competitive teams, those front offices have pretty typically already spent past the salary cap. Once George was a done deal to Philadelphia — as he was always the Sixers’ preference, to be clear, and DeRozan never billed as a high priority target for Philly, sources said — there was no possible playoff team that could have awarded DeRozan his $24.6 million average annual value.
The Clippers will still work to bring Kris Dunn to Los Angeles by way of sign-and-trade, sources said, while they still navigate the trade landscape for Russell Westbrook.
Two aprons, no bonuses
Several front office figures this week have noted a perceived decline in unlikely bonuses included into players’ contracts this summer, which appears to be another clear side effect of the new league rules. A few team strategists went so far as suggesting that it may also become harder for NBA teams to trade existing deals from recent free-agency periods that are loaded with unlikely incentives.
Take Jordan Poole, as the contract he once inked with Golden State features $17 million in unlikely bonuses over his four-year, $128 million deal. Example: If Poole, a saucy scorer by trade, was to somehow be named Defensive Player of the Year, he’d receive a $1 million bonus. Hey, that could be sold as encouragement for improvement on that end of the floor. It adds some sticker shock to the total dollar figure first reported and now listed in the sentences above. But now, under this new CBA, that $1 million counts against Washington’s cap sheet. Which doesn’t necessarily matter for the rebuilding Wizards, who won’t be paying exorbitant tax anyway, but could present a challenge for any team if they want to acquire someone like Poole.
It could pose an added roadblock to Miami ever parting ways with Tyler Herro, too. The Heat’s combo guard has an unlikely bonus of $1.5 million for his own very unlikely Defensive Player of the Year honor, among several other clauses in the deal that was signed the same 2022 offseason as Poole’s. For Herro’s contract, his scoring ability, age and potential he flashed as a playmaker last season, the 24-year-old still stands as the proverbial centerpiece to any package Miami would have to send out the door to acquire a talent like the Heat once hoped for in Damian Lillard. Although, to be clear, there’s been no trade chatter of substance on Herro to note at this time.
Cam Johnson, a trade candidate in Brooklyn, has roughly $3 million in unlikely bonuses each season of his four-year, $94 million agreement with the Nets that begins this season.
Friday — the first official day of Vegas Summer League competition — news also broke of Jalen Brunson effectively taking a $113 million pay cut on a new four-year extension with the Knicks, compared to a richer five-year deal the All-Star guard could have been eligible for next summer. The Brunson extension headlined much of the NBA conversation in Sin City. There are plenty of naysayers in front offices and rival agencies, shaking their heads at that staggering number. But Brunson’s willingness to take less, and therefore help ease New York’s financial burden that includes O.G. Anunoby’s $212 million deal and Mikal Bridges’ salary, was definitely expected in many corners of the league.
The question really now becomes if Brunson’s team-friendly business can provoke any similar sacrifices from other All-Stars around the league. That has not been the recent order of operations. Ever since LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh resumed commanding their maximum contracts — following a few years of Miami discounts to win two titles with the Heat — players have universally taken the max when the max is made available. Now this summer, James himself was even willing to take a lower salary if that would have allowed the Lakers to have wooed Thompson from Golden State. James still took a few million off his total number to allow Los Angeles to avoid the second apron.
Maybe we’re already seeing some reluctance from teams to hand out max contracts, too. Not for MVP candidates like James and Brunson. But there is great fear these days among team personnel of signing the next All-Star talent to an unmovable contract — the next Zach LaVine situation that continues in Chicago, or even Harris’ $180 million that hampered the Sixers for five years. The Pelicans, league sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports, have not presented Brandon Ingram with an offer near his full maximum contract, and there does not appear to be a true option for Ingram to find that figure around the league now that Sacramento landed DeRozan.
Michael Porter Jr.’s big payday in Denver might not have been as big under this new CBA. While Porter helped the Nuggets clinch the 2023 championship, Denver already was flirting with the concept of including Porter in a trade to land Paul George this summer, sources said, although his cap number likely would have been too daunting for the CBA-conscious Clippers to have truly considered if George had opted in to be traded.
Lucky few
Is there a glitch in the system, or will this become another trend? Phoenix and Philadelphia signed Josh Okogie and KJ Martin, respectively, to identical two-year, $16 million contracts, allowing both teams with expensive rosters an $8 million salary to use as a potential match for future trades. All this, even though both Okogie and Martin, for all their athleticism, have not proven necessarily worth above a veteran’s minimum.
This glitch already has a bit of a label. Some cap figures around the league are referring to these respective contracts as “human-trade exceptions.” The Wizards have a similar situation with Richaun Holmes, as the journeyman veteran center declined his $12.8 million option for this season to re-sign a two-year, $26 million deal in which the second season is almost entirely non-guaranteed. Paul Reed’s $8 million non-guaranteed salary could function similarly in Detroit, although the Pistons should also have real minutes available for the former Sixers big man they claimed off waivers. We’ve already seen similar concepts in Houston as well, dating back to the Rockets’ non-guaranteed deals for Jeff Green and Jock Landale last summer.
Source Agencies
