NBA rookie extensions totaled more than $1 billion in salaries for a fifth straight offseason.
Teams and eligible players went into a predictable holding pattern after Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, Franz Wagner and Scottie Barnes each signed five-year, $224 million max extensions in July. But in the hours leading up to the 6 p.m. ET Monday deadline, seven players -- Moses Moody, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Green, Jalen Suggs, Jalen Johnson, Alperen Sengun and Corey Kispert -- signed extensions.
The most notable was Green, who became the first player to sign a three-year rookie extension for more than $30 million per season. The deal has a player option in the final season and a 10% trade bonus, while the Houston Rockets now have a tradable contract starting on July 1.
The players who didn't sign extensions will enter a 2025 free agency market where the salary cap is projected to increase from $140.6 million to $154.6 million, but that 10% increase does not mean teams are flush with cap space. Only the Brooklyn Nets project to have more than $30 million to sign a restricted free agent to an offer sheet.
Under the new collective bargaining agreement, the restrictions on how high-spending teams add to their rosters will be joined by harsher financial penalties next offseason for teams that exceed the luxury tax in excess of $10 million. (A team that falls into the repeater tax category -- four consecutive seasons or four out of five -- will pay a significant penalty if it exceeds the tax threshold by just one dollar.)
Now that the deadline has passed, what is next for fourth-year players who didn't get extensions and the handful of veterans who still might at some point this season?
Jonathan Kuminga, Golden State Warriors
We are going to learn a lot about Kuminga's future over the next nine months.