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Find out about roster situations around the NBA

Find out about roster situations around the NBA

As expected, the majority of NBA teams made their roster cuts on Saturday and did not wait until Monday’s deadline to finalize their regular season rosters.

Completing these moves on Saturday will ensure that players on non-guaranteed contracts will receive clear waivers on the Monday before the regular season begins. If a team had waited until Monday to waive a player on a non-guaranteed contract, he would not have cleared waivers until Wednesday and the team would have had to pay two days’ salary.

After Saturday’s flurry of roster moves, here’s the state of play around the NBA…

Teams whose rosters fall within regular season limits

Of the 30 NBA teams, 29 have rosters that meet the league’s regular roster restrictions. These state that clubs cannot promote more than 15 players on standard contracts or three on two-way contracts.

The following 14 teams are right at the limit with 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way contracts:

  • Atlanta Hawks
  • Brooklyn Nets
  • Chicago Bulls
  • Dallas Mavericks
  • Denver Nuggets
  • Los Angeles Clippers
  • Los Angeles Lakers
  • Milwaukee Bucks
  • Oklahoma City Thunder
  • Portland Trail Blazers
  • San Antonio Spurs
  • Toronto Raptors
  • Utah Jazz
  • Washington Wizards

Just because these rosters appear ready for the regular season doesn’t mean they’re completely set. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see one or more of these teams make a small change before Monday’s regular-season roster deadline. This could be as simple as swapping one two-way player for another.

The following 11 teams are promoting 14 players on standard contracts and three on two-way contracts:

  • Boston Celtics
  • Cleveland Cavaliers
  • Golden State Warriors
  • Houston Rockets
  • Indiana Pacers
  • Memphis Grizzlies
  • Miami Heat
  • New Orleans Pelicans
  • Philadelphia 76ers
  • Phoenix Suns
  • Sacramento Kings

Some of these teams are in luxury tax jurisdictions or have minimal flexibility below the tax threshold. Therefore, they will open the season with an open roster spot to either keep their projected tax bill under control or maintain some financial flexibility. However, this is not the case for everyone. The Rockets For example, they are completely exempt from taxes and could easily expand their squad if they wanted.

Four other teams are within the regular season limits. These teams are as follows:

  • Charlotte Hornets: 15 players on standard contracts and two on two-way contracts.
  • Detroit Pistons: 14 players on standard contracts and one on a two-way contract.
  • New York Knicks: 12 players on standard contracts and three on two-way contracts.
  • Orlando magic: 15 players on standard contracts and two on two-way contracts.

The Hornets, PistonsAnd magic will likely fill their open two-way slots sooner rather than later. In fact, Detroit already has its eye on two players – Alones Williams And Cole Swider – for his openings. There is no cap savings created by keeping a two-way slot open, so I would bet on Charlotte and Orlando adding another two-way player in the coming days.

The Pistons also have an open spot on their 15-man roster, and it’s perhaps no coincidence that they’re also the only team in the NBA that still has cap room. Bringing in a 15th player, even if he is on a non-guaranteed contract, would slowly eat away at that cap space, a scenario they would likely want to avoid in order to maximize their ability to take salary cuts during the season.

The Curtsy face one of the most restrictive hard cap situations in the NBA, with just $3.58 million in cap space below the second cap threshold, which they cannot exceed at any point in the 2024-25 season. They can’t even promote two more veterans at minimum salary, so they’re expected to sign a veteran to a minimum contract and promote a two-way rookie to the standard roster – Ariel Hukporti is the leading candidate and would count against the rookie minimum cap ($1,157,153) instead of the veteran minimum ($2,087,519), allowing the Knicks to stay under the hard cap.

The Knicks are permitted to carry only 12 players on standard contracts for up to 14 days each and up to 28 days total during the regular season. It looks like they’ll likely use those first 14 days in the first two weeks of the season, meaning they won’t have to add the 13th and 14th teams until the first week of November.

Teams that still need to take action before Monday’s deadline

Only one NBA team still needs to make the necessary cuts to stay within regular-season roster limits:

Minnesota Timberwolves: 16 players on standard contracts and three on two-way contracts.

As a result of the Karl Anthony cities trade, the Timberwolves carry 15 players with fully guaranteed contracts and one (PJ Dozier) to a partially guaranteed deal. Dozier is guaranteed to receive at least $1 million of his minimum salary contract, which is valued at about $2.09 million on Minnesota’s books.

It sounds like the Wolves would like to keep Dozier, who will likely become a veteran forward Keita Bates Diop the strange man out. Bates-Diop was a throw-in in the Towns trade and was not at practice on Saturday.

If they waive Bates-Diop, Minnesota will have to pay his full guaranteed salary of $2,654,644, along with associated tax penalties, allowing the front office to continue exploring the trade market to find a taker for him (or a separate one). to find deal) to avoid this scenario. The Wolves must reduce the number of players on standard contracts to 15 and finalize their regular season roster by 4:00 p.m. local time on Monday.

10 contract signings were reported, but they never materialized

A few weeks ago, we looked at the reported deals in Exhibit 10 that had not yet closed and found that most of them would become official before opening night.

As expected, that was indeed the case. Of the 11 players we highlighted, nine ended up signing Exhibit 10 contracts as reported and were subsequently released. A tenth player, Boo Buiedid not complete his expected contract with the Suns, but instead signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Knicks.

That leaves only one reported agreement (Exhibit 10) that was not finalized – a former security guard from Missouri Sean East II I never signed with him Lakers.

East and the Lakers could technically complete this deal as late as Sunday or Monday, but that seems unlikely since the team would face a cap hit if East were signed and waived this late in the offseason. With just $45,000 of headroom below the second tax threshold, it’s unlikely the Lakers will be cavalier enough to make even a small increase in their team salary.

Squad Resources from Hoops Rumors

We continually maintain and update a series of lists and trackers designed to help you stay on top of NBA rosters. They’re all up to date after Saturday’s cuts.

These resources, which can be found in the right sidebar of our desktop site or on the Features page in our mobile menu, include: