Bird Rights are a vital team-building component, enabling NBA franchises to re-sign players for larger and larger salaries. Named after Hall-of-Fame forward Larry Bird, Bird Rights come in three flavors based on how many consecutive seasons a player stays with the same team (in most cases, rights transfer with the player via trade). Non-Bird [Read More]

Fans love to play general manager, willing their team to a championship via a flurry of fake trades. But not every player is trade eligible—an understandable area of confusion for fans, especially after a player receives a contract extension. The following cheat sheet to help clean that up! When Can Players Be Traded, In [Read More]

Unlike the NFL, which has a hard cap or spending limit, the NBA has a soft cap. Teams in the NBA can carry payrolls that go above the salary cap. For example, 27 of 30 are currently over the NBA's $123.7 million cap for the 2022-23 season. Per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the NBA [Read More]

A highlight of the Sports Business Classroom (SBC) Business of Basketball Immersive Experience in Las Vegas each July is the "Mock Trade Deadline." Over the week, students were divided into groups of 5-6, assigned an NBA team and put to work. Their initial task is to self-identify. Where on the lifecycle do they stand [Read More]

In September, the NBA raised its salary cap projection for the 2023-24 season from $133 million to $134 million with a luxury tax threshold of $162 million. That's an 8.37 percent increase from the current 2022-23 campaign's $122.7 million salary cap and a 7.81 percent increase in the tax threshold from $150.3 million. By [Read More]