As our list of traded player exceptions shows, six NBA teams currently control TPEs worth more than $10MM apiece. Those exceptions are as follows:
- Atlanta Hawks: $25,266,266 (expires 7/7/25)
- Brooklyn Nets: $23,300,000 (expires 7/7/25)
- Chicago Bulls: $17,506,232 (expires 7/8/25)
- Dallas Mavericks: $16,193,183 (expires 7/7/25)
- Memphis Grizzlies: $12,600,000 (expires 2/3/25)
- Washington Wizards: $12,402,000 (expires 2/10/25)
A trade exception allows a team to acquire a player’s contract without sending out matching salary in return. So in theory, the exceptions listed above could put these clubs in position to take on a sizable salary in a preseason or mid-season trade, perhaps acquiring a draft asset or two in the deal for their troubles.
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In practice though, it will be difficult for any of these teams to make full use of their large TPEs in that sort of move. The Hawks, Nets, Bulls, Mavericks, and Wizards are all hard-capped at the first tax apron, while the Grizzlies would be if they were to use any portion of their exception.
Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Memphis also don’t have much breathing room below the luxury tax line, while Dallas is already in the tax, so they won’t be eager to take on much extra salary anyway.
Chicago could get about $6.6MM below the tax line by waiving Onuralp Bitim‘s non-guaranteed salary, while Washington could get about $11.9MM below that threshold by waiving their non-guaranteed players, so accommodating modest salary dumps could be in play for those clubs — especially the Wizards, whose big TPE will expire at the trade deadline. But generally speaking, these trade exceptions might not prove all that useful until the 2025 offseason.
Our TPE list uses italics to show which exceptions are currently ineligible to be used. As a reminder, teams operating above either tax apron can’t use trade exceptions generated during the previous regular season (2023/24) or the previous offseason (2023), while teams operating above the second tax apron can’t use new TPEs created from sign-and-trades.
That means, for example, that the Timberwolves are ineligible to use the $4MM exception they generated in February when they traded Troy Brown to the Pistons. They’re also ineligible to use the $8.8MM TPE they generated by signing-and-trading Kyle Anderson to Golden State last month. However, they could use the $2.5MM TPE created in July’s Wendell Moore deal, since it’s new since the season ended and wasn’t the result of a sign-and-trade.