Former Orlando Magic forward Bol Bol posted career-highs in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots as a promising seven-footer with guard-like skills last season.
Yet when it was time for the market to dictate his worth in contract negotiations, the 24-year-old Bol settled on a one-year veteran’s minimum deal with the Phoenix Suns worth just $2.165 million.
Such is the state of affairs for NBA players who don’t classify as franchise cornerstones but are looking to be paid fair market value in salary under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement.
While NBA teams dedicate an average of two-thirds of this season’s $136M salary cap to the top-three players on their roster, the league’s middle class suddenly finds itself squeezed thin.
Of the approximate $3.8B in player salaries signed away this summer, $2.5B, or 64%, is split among just 19 players, ranging from Boston’s Jaylen Brown — who just signed the richest contract in NBA history — to both Houston’s Dillon Brooks and Indiana’s Bruce Brown, each set to earn more than $20M annually.
Elsewhere in the NBA, however, quality veteran players with a history of production find themselves unemployed, and many of those who secured a job did so by taking a pay cut.
Malik Beasley, for example, averaged close to 13 points per game last season for both the Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz but opted to sign a one-year deal at the veteran’s minimum with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Former Knicks point guard Dennis Smith Jr. enjoyed a resurgent season with the Charlotte Hornets last year but ultimately signed a one-year, minimum deal with the Brooklyn Nets.
Yuta Watanabe shot 44.4% from downtown for the Nets last season but also took the veteran’s minimum to join the Phoenix Suns.
Approximately one out of every three NBA deals signed this summer were at the veteran’s minimum.
And while some continued a longtime trend of taking a pay cut to join a championship contender, others faced the NBA’s newest harsh reality: In a league generating more revenue than ever before, the new CBA significantly benefits face-of-the-franchise level players but leaves little for the remaining players on a team’s roster.
A month into free agency, notable impact players Will Barton, Kelly Oubre Jr., T.J. Warren, Terrence Ross and Christian Wood have yet to strike a deal. If they do, it will likely be at or near the minimum as most teams have already allocated their cap space and cap exceptions elsewhere.
It’s a situation longtime NBA role player Austin Rivers addressed on a recent episode of The Ringer podcast.
Rivers signed a three-year, $35.4M deal in 2016 but played on veteran’s minimum contracts every season thereafter. After playing last season on a minimum deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Rivers remains an unrestricted free agent garnering little interest on the market.
“Don’t even get me f—– started on that deal [the CBA] that we’ve got going ‘cause it’s top-heavy,” Rivers said in the July 21 show. “That’s why you see all these teams right now: You either make $50M or $2M. It’s the most lopsided contract. It’s a joke bro. I can’t tell you how any mid-level guys are signing for vet’s minimum around the NBA. It’s laughable.”
It’s a natural response by front offices, however, now that they’ve been met with the terms of the new CBA, terms that levy stiff penalties upon teams whose payroll far exceeds the luxury tax threshold.
The new CBA implements a second apron that sent teams into a salary-shedding frenzy this offseason. The Nets, for example, traded both Joe Harris and Patty Mills for no players in return to dump the combined $27M in salary this summer.
That’s because the second apron removes almost all roster-building flexibility. The Suns are the league’s most prominent example: Phoenix has committed $550M in guaranteed salary to Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Deandre Ayton over the next three seasons. As second apron offenders, the Suns were unable to use the mid-level exception this season and were forced to fill out the roster with veteran’s minimum contracts.
Without a trade involving one of those four players, minimum contracts will be the only mechanism to sign free agents available to the Suns.
Phoenix will also have its 2031 first-round draft pick frozen, and if it remains a second apron offender in two of the four seasons after this one, that pick will automatically be moved to the end of the first-round draft order.
The new CBA also implemented a luxury tax multiplier set to kick-in for the 2025-26 season. The new tax multiplier reduces the tax rate for teams in the first two tax brackets but virtually triples the tax rate for teams in higher tax brackets.
It effectively deters teams from re-signing players who aren’t franchise cornerstones — while also giving those players fewer options to sign lucrative contracts elsewhere in the NBA.
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