The NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement will tweak the rules for free agency, allowing teams to begin negotiating with their own free agents one day after the NBA Finals conclude, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Under the 2017 CBA, teams technically weren’t allowed to negotiate with any free agents – including their own – until the moratorium period begins on July 1. That rule was adjusted in 2019 to move the start of the negotiating period up to June 30. Up until that point, a club couldn’t discuss a new contract with its own free-agent-to-be unless the player was still extension-eligible.
Obviously, given how many contract agreements are reported during the first few hours – or even the first few minutes – of free agency, teams haven’t strictly adhered over the years to the rules prohibiting early negotiations with players and agents.
Still, creating a rule permitting teams to begin negotiating with their own free agents before rival suitors can talk to them will theoretically give incumbent teams an added edge in those negotiations.
It’s unclear if this rule will apply this summer, since the new CBA won’t technically go into effect until the 2023-24 league year, which begins on July 1. If this change isn’t being implemented immediately, we’ll have to wait until 2024 to see what sort of effect – if any – it will have on free agency.
Presumably, teams that reach early agreements with their own free agents will still have to wait until after the July moratorium to finalize those signings, but the rule change could result in contract agreements being reported well in advance of July 1, taking some free agents off the market earlier than usual.
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