Checking out the roster situations around the NBA

As expected, most NBA teams cut their rosters Saturday and didn’t wait until Monday’s deadline to set their regular season rosters.

Completing those moves Saturday will guarantee players on non-guaranteed contracts clear waivers Monday, before the regular season begins. If a team had waited until Monday to waive a player on a non-guaranteed deal, it wouldn’t clear waivers until Wednesday and the team would be on the hook for two days of his salary.

After Saturday’s flurry of roster moves, here’s where things stand in the NBA…

Teams whose rosters are within the regular season limits

Of the NBA’s 30 teams, 29 have rosters that meet the league’s regular-season roster limits, which state that clubs can carry no more than 15 players on standard contracts or three on two-way contracts.

The following 14 teams are right on the edge, 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 look ready for the regular season doesn’t mean they’re completely locked in. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one or more of these teams make a small tweak before Monday’s regular-season roster deadline. This could be as simple as swapping out one two-way player for another.

The following 11 teams carry 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

Several of these teams are in luxury tax territory or have minimal flexibility below the tax line, so they’ll open the season with an open roster spot to keep their projected tax bill in check or maintain a certain financial flexibility. This, however, is not the case for all. The rockets they are well off the tax for example and could comfortably add to the list if they wanted to.

Four more teams are within the regular season limits. These teams are the following:

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

The Hornets, pistonsi magic they will likely fill their open two-way slots sooner rather than later. In fact, Detroit already has its eye on a couple of players: Alonso Williams i Cole Swider – for its openings. There’s no cap savings generated by keeping a two-way slot open, so I’d bet on Charlotte and Orlando adding one more two-way player in the coming days.

The Pistons also have an open spot on their 15-man roster, and it may not be a coincidence that they’re also the only NBA team still with cap space. Bringing in a 15th man, even on a non-guaranteed contract, would go slow in this cap room, which is a scenario they likely want to avoid in order to maximize their ability to adapt to dump operations. salaries during the season.

The knicks they face one of the most restrictive hard cap situations in the NBA, with just $3.58 million in cap space below that second-string threshold, which they can’t exceed at any point during the season 2024/25. They can’t even bring in two more veterans on minimum salary, so the expectation is that they sign a veteran to a minimum deal and promote a two-way rookie to the standard roster: Ariel Hukporti is the top candidate, and would count against the rookie minimum ($1,157,153) rather than the veteran minimum ($2,087,519), allowing the Knicks to stay under the hard cap.

The Knicks can carry only 12 players on a standard contract for up to 14 days at a time and for up to 28 days during the regular season. It looks like they will likely use those first 14 days in the first two weeks of the season, meaning they won’t have to add the 13 and 14 men until the first week of November.

Teams that still have moves to make before Monday’s deadline

Only one NBA team has yet to make the necessary cuts to get within the regular season roster limit:

Minnesota Timberwolves: 16 players with standard contract and three with two-way agreements.

As a result of the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, the Timberwolves they have 15 players with fully guaranteed contracts and one (PJ Dozier) in a partially secured arrangement. Dozier is guaranteed at least $1 million of his minimum salary contract, which is on Minnesota’s books for about $2.09 million.

It appears as though the Wolves would like to keep Dozier, which will likely bring a veteran forward Keita Bates-Diop the strange man outside. Bates-Diop was a release in the Towns trade and was not at practice Saturday.

If they waive Bates-Diop, Minnesota will be on the hook for his full guaranteed salary of $2,654,644, along with the accompanying tax penalties, so the front office can continue to scour the trade market to try to find a buyer for him (or other arrangement) to avoid this scenario. The Wolves will need to reach 15 players on standard contracts and finalize their regular season roster by Monday at 4:00 PM Central Time.

10 signings that never materialized have been reported

A couple of weeks ago, we checked out the reported Annex 10 deals that had yet to be finalized, noting that most of them would still be made official before opening night.

As expected, it really was. Of the 11 players we highlighted, nine ultimately signed Schedule 10 contracts as reported and were subsequently waived. A tenth player, Boo Boohe did not complete his planned deal with the Suns, but signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Knicks.

That leaves just one Exhibit 10 deal that didn’t go through: Missouri’s old guard Sean East II never ended up signing with him lakers.

East and the Lakers could still technically finalize that deal on Sunday or Monday, but that doesn’t seem likely since the team would be taking on a head position by signing and waiving East at the end of the offseason. With only $45,000 of breathing space below the second tax apron, it’s unlikely the Lakers will be so brazen as to make even a small addition to their team salary.

Hoops Rumors List Resources

We maintain and constantly update a number of lists and trackers designed to help you monitor NBA rosters. They are all up to speed after Saturday’s cuts.

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