2024 NBA free-agency primer: CBA changes, players, dates and terms that matter

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

NBA free agency begins Sunday, and we’ll start to get an even better idea of which teams are positioning themselves for a run at the 2024-25 championship.

We’ll have signings, trades and maybe some sign-and-trade deals over the next few weeks, and the NBA’s landscape could change with a couple of moves. But a few changes to the league’s collective bargaining agreement might make this offseason’s transactions feel different, so that’s why we’re going to dive into the best ways to stay updated as things unfold.

Let’s get into what you need to know for this year’s free agency.

What is free agency? When does it start?

Free agency is the period when a player’s contract expires and makes him eligible to sign with a new team. Sometimes, players can freely sign wherever they want, depending on the money they’re willing to accept. On other occasions, they need permission to leave their incumbent team and then hope for the generosity of billionaire owners to allow them to sign elsewhere. In either case, free agency has been around for decades and can cause major shifts across the NBA once a big-name player wants a change of scenery.

Remember “The Decision” in 2010, with LeBron James taking his talents to South Beach? Does Kevin Durant writing a blog to announce he was joining the 73-win Warriors in 2016 come to mind? Those were free-agency moments. This year’s madness all begins at 6 p.m. ET on June 30. That’s when we finally see agreements announced. However, those deals can’t officially be signed until 12:01 p.m. ET on July 6. During that week between, the league is calculating revenue to set next season’s salary-cap number. Doing so determines the contracts’ value.

What channel or streaming service is free agency on?

You sweet, innocent fool. Free agency isn’t on TV or something like Paramount Plus. That’s how you watch old episodes of “Bar Rescue,” not free-agency signings. You can keep up by following all of our great reporters at The Athletic. You know how you’re constantly feeling like you’re trapped to your phone? Well, buckle up; it’s going to get even worse next week.

Do you know of any newsletters capable of helping me track this?

What a coincidence! I actually do! The Bounce is the newsletter I write with our senior NBA insider Shams Charania. We’ll have a great recap of everything you need to know each morning next week, if you want to feel less connected to your phone. We’ll email it to you, and it’s actually free. And don’t forget to sign up for The Pulse, our all encompassing sports newsletter. You should really sign up for Scoop City (NFL), Until Saturday (college football) and The Windup (MLB) too! I know nothing about soccer or F1 racing, but I learn so much from The Athletic FC (soccer), Prime Tire (F1), Full Time (more soccer!). This organic product plug is now over. Back to more questions!

Are there any changes to free agency in the new CBA?

Maybe the biggest, most obvious change is, once the NBA Finals were done, teams could officially start speaking to their own free agents to negotiate. You’ve seen the news about Pascal Siakam’s four-year, $189 million deal to stay with the Pacers. Malik Monk has agreed to a four-year, $79 million contract to stay in Sacramento. It’s no longer tampering to do this with your own players during this time.

Has the NBA solved its tampering issue?

You fool! Tampering is very much alive. Look at recent tampering penalties. It was deemed the Knicks tampered to get Jalen Brunson, which cost them a second-round pick. Does a second-round pick seem worth giving up for someone who finished fifth on the MVP ballot? The Heat tampered to get Kyle Lowry, lost a second-round pick and made the NBA Finals with him. I think tampering actually helps the league because it creates additional offseason storylines for coverage.

Did the new CBA correct salaries getting out of control?

It did and didn’t. You should expect reports about record-breaking deals. Rookie-scale extensions (deals signed when a first-round pick’s first contract is ending) will trend toward a quarter of a billion dollars or more as the league’s revenue grows, so max contracts are only going to look more and more ridiculous. Remember when Mike Conley signed the largest deal in history in 2016? Jaylen Brown’s current deal pretty much doubled that. Midlevel deals are where contracts have most stabilized. That market is for midlevel players who are supposed to earn big, four-year deals but can be signed for a respective discount. Those have been tamped down quite a bit.

Wait, I was scrolling TikTok when you started talking. Any player can sign with any team, right?

I know it’s 2024, but stick with me for a second. Any player whose contract expired can sign with any team, but not for any amount of money. The contract has to fit under that team’s salary cap. If a team is over the salary cap, there are potential exceptions to use to sign them. For example, if you’re not paying the luxury tax (more in a minute), the midlevel exception starts around $12.8 million per season. In theory, each team has a midlevel exception to use, although it can get taken away from you. In theory, unrestricted and restricted free agents can sign with any team. It just depends on whether they make the minimum, maximum or somewhere in between.

What’s the difference between restricted and unrestricted free agents?

Unrestricted free agents can sign with any team, depending on their potential salary fitting into the financials of said team. A restricted free agent agrees to an offer sheet with a new team, which gives their incumbent team a couple days to match that offer. If the incumbent team matches, the player has to play for them again. There’s no wiggle room.

I’m not a Spurs fan. How does my team get Wemby?

You can’t, really … at least not potentially for a while. The earliest he could be had as an unrestricted free agent is the summer of 2028, but even that would be extremely unlikely. More realistically, you’re probably looking at the summer of 2032 for when he could potentially leave San Antonio as a free agent, but even then, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

But I really want Wemby on my team.

Well, you should’ve tanked better in 2022-23. We tried to tell you he was generational and then some.

My team did tank, though! This isn’t fair. 

I’m sorry, Pistons fans. It was just bad luck.

I am a Spurs fan. How do I keep other teams away from Wemby?

Just keep doing what you’re doing! Aside from Kawhi Leonard, the Spurs generally have a great track record of keeping their franchise guys happy and winning. The Spurs and Wemby will probably be another one of those situations. Don’t listen to the talking heads bat this idea around. It’s just to get a reaction.

My team doesn’t have cap space. We can just trade for players we want easily, correct?

This is where the new CBA gets even more complicated and restrictive than before. The luxury tax was mostly a monetary penalty in past CBAs. If you were going to spend way over the salary cap (it’s a soft cap, kind of like the speed limit on a highway), then you were going to pay sometimes four dollars to every one dollar spent. The new CBA now has a first and second apron over the luxury tax. And the deeper you get into these aprons, the harder it is to keep your team together while adding talent to said team.

Former NBA GM and current ESPN analyst Bobby Marks recently shared a helpful graphic on how these restrictions exist. Here are the main takeaways:

Potential first apron teams (roughly $178.7 million in total roster salary): The Hawks, Lakers, Grizzlies, Blazers, Warriors, Heat and Knicks.

• Can’t acquire players in a sign-and-trade.
• If you had a trade exception already, it can’t be used in a deal.
• You have to send out more money or even money for the salary/salaries coming back in a deal.
• You can sign a player for the taxpayers’ midlevel exception, but it then triggers the second apron for your team.

Potential second apron teams (roughly $189.5 million in total roster salary): The Celtics, Wolves, Bucks, Nuggets, Warriors (again but this time depending on what they do with Chris Paul’s non-guaranteed salary and re-signing Klay Thompson), Suns and Clippers.

• Still not allowed to acquire players in a sign-and-trade, use existing trade exceptions or take back more money in a trade.
• Not allowed to send out your own free agent in a sign-and-trade deal for them if you’re still over the second apron with the trade package coming back.
• Can’t use a trade exception created from a sign-and-trade.
• Can’t send out multiple players to match the contract of an incoming player in a deal.

Also, if you’re a second apron team by the end of the 2024-25 season, your 2032 first-round pick will be frozen, meaning you can’t trade it. If you get under the second apron for the next three seasons (2025-26, 2026-27 and 2027-28), then you can trade that 2032 first after the 2027-28 season. If you don’t get under the second apron in the following years, your 2032 first-round pick will get dropped to the end of the first round, regardless of where it lands.

The new CBA with the first and second luxury tax apron rules essentially make adding talent to your roster the equivalent of trying to park your car on the street in the greater Los Angeles area.

This one really killed me though pic.twitter.com/kdwS0nJmVz

— babyape (@omgfkaname) September 14, 2017

Explain Bird rights to me one more time, please?

This is where the soft cap comes into play. You can go over the salary cap to re-sign your own players if they’ve been on your team for three or more years, or if you acquire them in a trade and they’ve been with that team for three or more years. You acquire their Bird rights, which was named after Larry Bird after the Celtics were allowed to exceed the salary cap in its inaugural implementation in 1983, when Bird was set to become a free agent. There are also Early Bird rights for a player who has been with you for two seasons, but there is a limitation of how much you can increase their previous salary to exceed the salary cap to re-sign them. If you do not have a player’s Bird rights, you must sign them into cap space or with a contract exception.

Who are the top free agents this year? Will any of them leave?

Here’s a list of some of the top restricted and unrestricted free agents potentially available this summer. And I’m going to slap an emoji meter on a scale of 1-5 (one being the least likely to leave in free agency and five being the most likely to leave) for each player. It’s named the Fled Meter, after the 1996 film Stephen Baldwin/Laurence Fishburne movie “Fled.” During the movie, there’s dialogue where they say, “Gotta fled,” in order to force the title of the movie into the script. Also, just to be clear, a player option is also referred to as a PO.

Unrestricted free agents:

• LeBron James, Lakers: $51.4M PO. Fled Meter: 😎😎
• DeMar DeRozan, Bulls: Fled Meter: 👀👀👀
• Paul George, Clippers: $48.7M PO. Fled Meter: 👀👀👀
• Klay Thompson, Warriors: Fled Meter: 🚚 🚚 🚚 🚚
• James Harden, Clippers: Fled Meter: 😎😎
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Nuggets: $15.4M PO. Fled Meter: 🧐🧐

Restricted free agents:

• Tyrese Maxey, 76ers: Fled Meter: 😎
• Immanuel Quickley, Raptors: Fled Meter: 😎
• Saddiq Bey, Hawks: Fled Meter: 😎😎
• Simone Fontecchio, Pistons: Fled Meter: 😎😎
• Obi Toppin, Pacers: Fled Meter: 😎😎
• Patrick Williams, Bulls: Fled Meter: 😎😎
• Isaac Okoro, Cavaliers: Fled Meter: 😎

Will free agency be exciting?

I guarantee it will! That’s the beauty of free agency: Anything can happen. As long as it’s within the strict parameters of the CBA.

(Top photo: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)