The buzz around this year's NBA offseason is that the action could happen earlier than usual, so I'm just going to start my annual tracker now. This way I can list any players under contract that get traded during the draft here instead of having those in my separate post about every team's picks.
The Rockets got things started already with the first extension reached right in the middle of the Finals, so I may as well get started now! As usual, players already under contract have their figures listed based on Keith Smith's work at Spotrac.com while salaries in bold italics are my own estimates based on reported numbers and the standard 5% or 8% raises that teams could give. Salaries are also color coded if they are a player option, a team option, not fully guaranteed, or mutual option. Since this post will be constantly updated throughout the summer, I'll be adding the latest news at the top to be readily available upon revisiting this page. Or if you want to go in chronological order, start at the bottom.
6/30 Update: The NBA officially announced that this year's salary cap is set at $154,647,000 with the tax line at $187,895,000, which is right at the expected 10% growth from last year. That means the the full Mid-Level Exception can have a starting salary of $14,104,000 and can top out at 4 years, $60,647,200; the Taxpayer MLE can start at $5,685,000 and go to 2 years, $11,654,250; the Room MLE can start at $8,781,000 and go to 3 years, $27,660,150; and the Bi-Annual Exception can start at $5,134,000 and go to 2 years, $10,524,700. Notably, Marks reports that the salary cap is only projected to go up by 7% raises instead of the maximum of 10% like this year, which could throw a wrench into team's budgets.
Bridges to extend with the Knicks: 4 years, $150 million (Shams 7/31)
| Mikal Bridges | $24,900,000 | $33,482,143 | $36,160,714 | $38,839,286 | $41,517,857 |
The most that Bridges could have extended for was $156.17 million ($34,860,000/$37,648,800/$40,437,600/$43,226,400), so New York got him to take a slight haircut to secure his future, with the last year being a player option as a consolation. A long-term deal was always likely with this pairing after the Knicks gave up five 1st round picks, a 1st round swap, and what turned out to be a high 2nd rounder for the 3+D wing last summer, and now they'll look to make at least the Conference Finals together again.
Butler to sign with the Suns: 1 year deal (Shams 7/23)
Phoenix could be using the MLE or BAE to make a signing, but this is likely for the minimum. Gerald Bourguet even reported prior to this that if a deal is made with Butler, it might be a non-guaranteed deal to compete in training camp with the newly claimed Goodwin.
Butler really showed last year that he could play, though, especially after Philadelphia traded a late 2026 1st for him and four 2nd rounders in the Reggie Jackson salary dump. I was surprised when they declined his $2,349,578 team option after converting his Two-Way following that trade, but I guess there wasn't a huge market for him with so many guards available this summer.
Waters to sign with the Spurs: 1 year deal (Shams 7/23)
| Lindy Waters III | $2,296,274 |
I'm projecting the minimum here, and with four years of experience, Waters would earn almost $2.5 million with the subsidized cap hit above. He can be streaky as a shooter but has a solid career 3-point percentage of 36.6% on 10.1 attempts per 36 minutes, and with good length on the wing, the 3+D potential has always been interesting. Turning 28 next week, there may not be a ton of upside, but it's a fine addition for this type of role off the bench as insurance for Carter Bryant and Julian Champagnie.
7/25 Update: Scotto reports that the deal is only partially guaranteed for $500,000, so I changed the salary to red.
Okogie to sign with the Rockets: 1 year minimum contract (Shams 7/22)
As a veteran with 7 years of experience, Okogie will still earn $3.08 million with this subsidized cap hit. I thought that Houston would add a backup guard with a little more playmaking potential for their last bench spot, but another defender as good as Okogie on that end is a solid value for the minimum. Now he's reunited with Durant from their time in Phoenix, and there was a stretch in their first year together when Okogie was knocking down shots at a consistent rate to be an actual 3+D wing to a higher extent than most of his career.
Wesley to sign with the Trail Blazers: 1 year deal (Scotto 7/22)
This is most likely for the minimum, and with three years of experience, Wesley would earn $2,378,870 with the subsidized cap hit. Smith reported yesterday that Washington saved $1.4 million in his buyout, so the young guard comes out a bit ahead here.
McDermott to re-sign with the Kings: 1 year, minimum contract (Shams 7/21)
As a veteran with 10+ years of experience, McDermott will still earn $3.6 million with this subsidized cap hit. He only played in 42 games with just 342 total minutes with them last year but can still knock down a shot (43.6% on threes last year, 41.1% for his career) in a pinch.
Paul to sign (back) with the Clippers: 1 year, minimum contract (Shams 7/21)
As a veteran with 10+ years of experience, Paul will still earn $3.6 million with this subsidized cap hit on the one year deal that takes the Clips close enough to the First Apron that they'll likely stick with only 14 players for a good portion of the season. This is expected to be the 40 year old's final season, and a return to LA had been discussed as a possibility for a while since he's kept it as the home base for his family from his first Clippers stint.
The future Hall of Famer still has a lot to offer on the court and incredibly played all 82 games last season for just the second time in his 20 year career, so this is tremendous value for a minimum signing. Hopefully for Paul's sake that will be a harbinger of things to come given his history of injuries late in the season, even if it means reducing his playing even lower than the 28 minutes that he averaged. Between him, Beal, and Lopez, LA got even older around Leonard and Harden, but they are going to be impressively deep with a ton of different potential lineup combinations.
CP3 and the Beard of course started together with great success in Houston, and although Harden has leaned more towards playmaker than scorer since then, they can clearly mesh their strengths together. With Harden's size to guard some wings, smaller lineups of Paul, Beal, Harden, Leonard, and Zubac could present a lot of threats, though defenders like Dunn, Batum, and/or Derrick Jones Jr might take some of the starting spots to stagger minutes. A bigger lineup with Collins and Lopez off the bench should fit well together thanks to the spacing either could provide for the other, with the former likely being the rim runner for Harden or Paul. And there's still Bogdanovic to provide more offensive punch for reserve units along with younger players like Cam Christie, Kobe Brown, and rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser that will try to earn some kind of role. Suffice it to say there are a lot of options if healthy and some insolation for when the older players need to sit out.
One last, random note: it's funny that Paul and Beal will now play together after they were traded for each other two years ago. I wonder if Beal will take his college number, 23, from Patrick Baldwin Jr, who is only on a Two-Way contract, so that CP3 can retake the #3 that gave him the nickname. The #13 that Paul has worn for Team USA is also available if needed.
Smart to sign with the Lakers: 2 years, $11 million (Stein, Shams with the details 7/19)
| Marcus Smart | $5,134,000 | $5,390,700 |
With this almost certainly being the BAE on a 1+1 deal, it'll really be just over $10.5 million for Smart after reaching a buyout out of nowhere with Washington. I haven't an amount given up reported yet, but it makes sense that the Wizards would want to save some money and clear minutes for their younger players. There just hadn't been much talk about that actually happening yet with Smart, Middleton, or McCollum prior to this.
LA will need to waive at least one of their non-guaranteed contracts, likely Milton, along with maybe another move in order to stay under the First Apron. Smart is in theory a good fit for their roster to both play next to and back up Doncic and Austin Reaves as a defensive specialist and secondary playmaker to warrant such a move and use of the BAE that he could opt out of next year for more money. However, the 31 year old has played a total of 54 games the past two years since being traded by Boston and has always been a questionable shooter (38.8% from the field and 32.4% from deep for his career), so we'll see how much the former Celtics fan favorite can contribute to the rival Lakers.
7/20 Update: Shams reports that not only was Milton's non-guaranteed $3 million waived but so was Goodwin, who had only $25,000 guaranteed of his $2,349,578 contract. That is an unfortunate side effect of this Smart signing since Goodwin carved out a nice role as a tough guard off the bench by the end of last season. It wouldn't be surprising if his minimum contract is claimed by someone and saves the Lakers that $25K.
7/23 Update: The Suns did indeed claim his minimum contract to save the Lakers that small cap hit, per Shams. Funnily enough, they had Goodwin in the '23-24 season when he seemed like a nice addition to the Beal trade, but he wasn't able to maintain his rotation role at the time before being traded at the deadline.
Lillard to sign (back) with the Trail Blazers: 3 years, $42 million (Lowe, Shams with the details 7/17)
| Damian Lillard | $13,333,333 | $14,000,000 | $14,666,667 |
A reunion with Portland had been mentioned as a possibility for arguably the greatest player in franchise history, but it's pretty stunning to see him get this great of a deal considering the circumstances. I think most people expected Lillard to only take a 1+1 minimum type of deal due to the $112.6 million that he's already owed by Milwaukee, the fact that there will be some set-off relief for that money, and the little issue of the Achilles tear suffered in the playoffs that will likely lead him to miss most of if not all of next season.
Not only are the Blazers using most of/all of their MLE to give him about $27 million for pretty much one guaranteed season ('26-27) before he can opt out, but he is also getting a rare No Trade Clause on top of it. I mentioned in Beal's write up below how both of these guards from the 2012 draft are having similarly huge cap hits stretched out this offseason, and now Lillard is replacing Beal as the only player other than LeBron James. to own a NTC. There were hardly any teams under the First Apron who could offer the full MLE like this, so I'm not exactly sure who they were bidding against with this package.
Having just turned 35 this week, we'll see what Lillard can still contribute coming off of a major injury, and Portland already added another 35 year old guard this summer in Holiday...who hilariously traded for Lillard two years ago. It'll be interesting to see what happens with their young incumbent guards, Henderson and Sharpe, a year from now when theoretically everyone will be available, especially with Sharpe currently eligible for a rookie extension going into the last year of his contract.
Houstan to sign with the Hawks: 1 year deal (Scotto 7/17)
The former high school star hasn't been able to establish himself yet after a nondescript year at Michigan and falling to the top of the 2nd round, so I'm just projecting the minimum here. With three years in the league so far, he's set to earn about $2.4 million if this is a guaranteed deal, which is actually more than the $2,187,699 team option that Orlando declined.
Livingston to re-sign with the Bucks: 1 year, minimum contract (Shams 7/16)
| Chris Livingston | $2,296,274 |
Milwaukee had to waive Livingston as part of their series of moves to sign Turner, but they didn't really have to risk him being claimed considering how he fell to the last pick of the 2023 draft and played only 196 total minutes the past two seasons. This actually works out for him since the two-year minimum is now higher than the $2,221,677 that he was set to make, and he could reach restricted free agency a year sooner without the team option that they held on his original deal.
Beal to sign with Clippers: 2 years, $11 million (Shams 7/16)
| Bradley Beal | $5,354,000 | $5,621,700 |
This has been rumored for a while, particularly since LA's Powell trade. Beal getting what's left of their MLE after using $8.75 million of it on Lopez almost makes him whole since he has to give up about $13.9 million of the $110,794,880 that Phoenix still owed him. That was the amount needed in order for them to legally be able to use the stretch provision since they already have $3.8 million in dead cap hits for Nassir Little and EJ Liddell, and a team can only have 15% of the salary cap in stretched money.
Now the Suns will likely have about $19.38 million in dead money for Beal over the next five years, similar to what the Bucks have with another 2012 draft member in Lillard. You could argue that they'd be better off just taking the bigger cap hits for these next two years (even though it means staying in the luxury tax) as long as they could slip under the Second Apron, but either way it's a lot of salary that they're eating. That will be to the benefit of their division rivals, and the Clippers made a lot of sense since Beal has talked about not wanting to uproot his family too much after moving from Washington to Phoenix. Now the 32 year old could potentially do the reverse of what Chris Paul did when he traveled back and forth to LA as a former Clipper who later became a Sun.
Beal already got a good chunk of his buyout money back and in theory could make it all up next year while still having the player option as a fallback plan. It'll be interesting to see how the rotation works out with him potentially starting next to Harden with Kris Dunn and Bogdan Bogdanovic off the bench since they seemed to find something with Dunn's defensive presence starting next to Harden. I would guess that a starting role was discussed in the recruitment process and that lineups will be staggered, but in any case, this is a good value to add another player at a position of need.
Anthony to sign with Bucks: 1 year deal (Shams 7/12)
I'm very curious about the lack of details around this situation so far on two fronts. First, it hasn't been reported yet how much Anthony gave up of his $13.1 million salary in his buyout with Memphis. As I mentioned below after the Grizzlies' Huff trade, they're about $4 million away from having the necessary cap space to give Jackson his renegotiation-and-extension at the reported number.
Second, the only details about Anthony's Milwaukee deal is that it's for one year. That's usually an indicator that the player is taking the minimum, which I put as a placeholder here for now, and that would only net him about $2.7 million as a five year veteran. They still have $3,647,000 left of the Room MLE to sign him with, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he ends up getting and how much he gave back to Memphis since that's usually how these buyout situations go once a new team is identified.
7/14 Update: Gozlan reports that Anthony only had to give up $2 million in his buyout with Memphis, which likely means that he's only getting the minimum from Milwaukee and coming out ahead overall. It's also confirmed that the Grizzlies are stretching the remaining $11.1 million, which seemed like the last possible move with the Spencer update below. JJJ's new cap numbers are finally in now thanks to this, so I updated his section below, as well.
