TRADES

Each flavour, teams may trade or sell to i another actor contracts, typhoon rights to a role player, or draft choices. (The league's Constitution and By-Laws prohibit any team from using loaned players, similar international soccer.) While all trades must comply with the CBA, many of the procedures associated with trades are determined by the league's Constitution and By-Laws, not the CBA. This page breaks downwardly trade procedures, but the traded player exception to the bacon cap (discussed in the salary cap exceptions folio) has a significant bear on on what trades teams can actually make.

TIMING and PROCEDURES

Teams tin make trades between the commencement of the regular season up to the NBA'southward trade deadline — 3pm (eastern) on the seventeenth Th of the flavor. (The trade borderline for the 2018-nineteen flavor was Feb 7, 2019.) For teams that do non brand the playoffs, they tin can starting time making trades again on the day afterward their last regular season game. Playoff teams can get-go making trades once they're eliminated from the playoffs. However, no trades can take place during the moratorium period.

To finalize a merchandise, teams have to participate in a trade call with the league where they confirm the trade'south details. Teams must disclose all relevant information they have about a role player during this phone call. (And this is why the New York Knicks disclosed the sexual assault allegations surrounding Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks during their trade call; if they had non disclosed this information, the league could have rescinded the merchandise, fined the Knicks upwardly to $1 million, taken away future draft picks, or a combination of these punishments.)

(Notation, the league's By-Laws foreclose a squad from trading or selling its kickoff round draft picks if the result of that merchandise leaves the team without a first round pick in whatsoever two sequent future drafts.)

SIGN-AND-Trades

A team may sign a contract with its own player and simultaneously merchandise that player. These sign-and-trade transactions are by and large subject to these rules:

  • For a veteran gratuitous amanuensis, a sign-and-trade is allowed if (i) the player to be signed and traded finished the prior flavour on his prior team'due south roster, (2) the contract covers between iii (excluding any option year) or 4 seasons, (iii) the contract is not signed using the non-taxpayer mid-level salary exception or the taxpayer mid-level salary exception, (iv) the commencement year of the contract includes 100% compensation protection, (v) the contract is signed before the beginning day of the regular flavour, (vi) for whatsoever "5th Twelvemonth Eligible Player" that met the max performance-based criteria, the contract does not provide for bounty of more 25% of the bacon cap at the time the contract was signed, and (seven) the team acquiring the player has room for the traded player's salary (including unlikely bonuses) for the first season of the contract. Note, a team may only larn a veteran free amanuensis through a sign-and-trade if, after the transaction is completed (and at all times thereafter for that salary cap year), the team's team salary is less than the tax level plus the revenue enhancement apron.

  • For a thespian and his current team, a sign-and-trade is allowed if (i) they are amending the contract to do so (but not past renegotiating the contract, i.due east., by increasing the thespian's bacon), (ii) the amendment is not made betwixt the last solar day of the concluding regular season covered by the contract and June 30, and (iii) the contract, if also being extended, meets the extension-and-trade rules described below.

  • The maximum annual salary increases for any sign-and-trade are 5% of the first season covered by the contract.

extension-and-trades

A team may extend and trade a player within these rules. An extension-and-trade is immune if (i) the contract covers no more than 3 seasons (including any years remaining in the original contract), (ii) the salary in the first year of the extended term is no more than 105% of the salary in the last twelvemonth of the original term, and (iii) the annual salary increases are no more 5% of the bacon in the first season covered by the extended term.

  • To prevent teams from getting effectually these limitations, teams cannot merchandise any role player that signs an extension covering more than than 3 seasons, a higher salary, or with larger almanac increases for the next 6 months.

  • Similarly, if a team receives a player in a trade, and then for the side by side half-dozen months post-obit that trade the squad cannot sign the player to an extension that would violate the limitations for an extension-and-trade transaction.

limits on cash transfers

Instead of trading a player for another player or a draft pick, teams can also include cash in the transaction (including as salary reimbursement for a actor they're trading away). The amass amount of cash teams tin pay or receive is express in each salary cap twelvemonth. The aggregate greenbacks limit in the 2019-20 season is $5.617 one thousand thousand, and the limit increases (or decreases) each flavor at the same rate as the salary cap.

  • Cash that a team pays during that season's trades is not netted against greenbacks received in that season's trades.

  • For example, in the 2019-20 season, a team could pay out $5.617 million in an October trade and also receive $5.617 million from another team in a November trade. However, they could not pay or receive any cash in any trade for the rest of the bacon cap year.

WAITING PERIODS

  • No Re-Acquisitions — Once a squad trades a player, it cannot reacquire that histrion during the aforementioned season. If the team trades a actor between seasons, information technology cannot reacquire that role player until the end of the next season. The only exceptions to these rules are if the actor is waived and no other team claims the role player.

  • "Bird" & "Early Bird" One-Year Contracts — A player on a one-twelvemonth contract (excluding whatever option year) that will be a qualifying veteran gratuitous agent (i.east., a "Bird" rights thespian) or an early qualifying veteran free agent (i.e., an "Early Bird" rights thespian) at the end of the contract can only be traded with the player's consent. If the player consents to the merchandise, he loses his "Bird" or "Early Bird" rights.

    • No-Trade Example — In 2018-xix, the Aureate State Warriors could not trade Kevin Durant without his consent, given that he was on a 1-year bargain (with a player pick for the second year) and was a "Bird" rights actor at the finish of the flavor. As NBA salary cap expert Eric Pincus notes in this helpful 5-minute video, this is the same reason why the Los Angeles Lakers cannot trade Kentavious Caldwell-Pope during the 2019-20 flavour without his consent.

    • Consent Example — In 2018-nineteen, Wayne Ellington consented to the Miami Heat trading him to the Phoenix Suns. While this meant Ellington lost his "Bird" rights, he consented to the trade so that the Suns would waive him and he could join a contender. One time waived, Ellington signed with the Detroit Pistons on a balance-of-season contract for merely under $ii.4 million, with the Pistons using the remaining residual of the non-taxpayer mid-level salary exception to close the deal. The Pistons then made the playoffs.

  • New Contracts —

    • Any draft rookie (whether drafted in the first or 2d round) that signs a standard NBA contract and any thespian that signs a ii-way contract may not exist traded for thirty days after they sign.

    • Any free agent playing on a standard NBA contract (or if they are converted to i) may not be traded until the later on of iii months later they sign or Dec fifteen. (For sign-and-merchandise deals, this rule only applies to any subsequent trade and non the initial sign-and-trade.)

    • If the signing of a new contract with a "Bird" or "Early Bird" free amanuensis causes a team's team salary to exceed the bacon cap and the player'southward first-year salary in that new contract is more 120% to a higher place the actor's salary in the prior season, and then the player may not be traded until the later of 3 months after they sign or January 15.

No-Trade Clauses

With 1 exception, no contracts can prohibit or limit a team'south right to trade the player to some other team. The only players who can prohibit or limit their team'southward trade rights are those players (one) with 8 years of service and (2) who have already played for iv or more years with the team that has agreed to the merchandise prohibition or limitation.

Annotation, the CBA allows trade bonuses, and does not care for those bonuses as prohibiting or limiting a team's merchandise rights.