The Waive And Stretch: Make-Shift Ten Days, Non-Guaranteed Tracker, Representation Free Agents In New Orleans, And More

Nov 25, 2024

Welcome back to another edition of The Waive and Stretch Newsletter. A quick shameless plug to note that I am looking to work in basketball in any capacity and would love to connect with anyone in the industry or trying to break in. Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think might find it interesting. Let's get into it!

What Caught My Attention This Week

Teams Signing Make-Shift Ten Days
Ten day contracts are a great way for teams to bring in a guy in a pinch when they need to fill out the roster for any reason: injuries, roster compliance, etc. They don’t have to give out a guaranteed, rest-of-season contract and and can evaluate over those ten days then make a decision on a player from there. You’ll see teams shuffle through ten day contracts and churning roster spots just to take a look at multiple different guys.

Unfortunately, ten day contracts can’t be signed until January 5th (not including hardship ten days). So, what can teams do until then? Enter non-guaranteed minimums. This year, we’ve seen teams turn over roster spots while not taking unnecessary dead cap hits (important when every dollar counts in the apron era) by keeping non-guaranteed money on the books. Take Oklahoma City for example. They’ve already turned over their last roster spot three times this season. They started off by signing Alex Reese to a non-guaranteed deal, waived him two weeks in and then filled his spot with Malevy Leons on a non-guaranteed deal, then just waived him and signed Branden Carlson to a non-guaranteed deal. This has allowed them to bring in and get a look at three different players at the same cost of a rookie minimum deal through this point of the season, while preserving the ability to save that roster spot to convert Ajay Mitchell’s two way at some point this season without having to waive additional guaranteed money.

Meanwhile, both the Indiana Pacers and New Orleans Pelicans have ran into injury issues early on this year, with both backup bigs out for the year in Indiana and virtually everyone hurt in New Orleans. Both teams turned to filling out their final roster spots with a non-guaranteed rest of season minimum, with the Pacers signing Moses Brown to fill out their frontcourt depth, and the Pelicans signed Jaylen Nowell, who was just waived and replaced with Elfrid Payton. Both these teams have precarious luxury tax positions as well, so they couldn’t afford to fully guarantee any kind of rest of season deal.

Two Things To Keep An Eye On This Season

Non-Guaranteed Tracker
With all these non-guaranteed contracts out there that teams could waive at any minute, I’ve put together a non-guarantee tracker that shows how much has been guaranteed, the daily guarantee amount, partial guarantees etc. This also takes into consideration whether the contract is reimbursable by the League, and that it only gets reimbursed if the total guarantee amount reaches the applicable 2 years of service minimum (something we saw with New Orleans waiving Jaylen Nowell). You can find it under the “Trackers” section on Ducking The Tax here.

Representation Free Agents In New Orleans
It has been reported that Zion Williamson has parted ways with his representation in CAA. Zion has 3 years and $126.5 million left on his current contract, though it could have varying levels of guaranteed money left based on a number of stipulations within his contract.

Additionally, Will Guillory reported on Sunday that Brandon Ingram has also parted ways with his representation in Excel Sports Management. Ingram will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason and has been extension eligible all season. On a four year deal, EPV pegs his value right around $177 million. He is eligible for a 4 year, $208 million extension now. It remains to be seen whether both sides will be able to come to an agreement on an extension before Ingram becomes an unrestricted free agent or find a team to trade him to who would come to an agreement on an extension, and Ingram parting ways with Excel certainly complicates matters.

These are two pretty huge agency free agents in New Orleans. Both players received max contracts on their 2nd deals and are in line for big paydays in the future. It will be interesting to see just how quickly it takes both players to find new representation, with the caveat that they have to wait 15 days before officially signing with a new agent.