Several new NBA contract details have come into focus, and the biggest immediate takeaway involves three players who can now be moved without restriction.
Hawks center Jock Landale, Knicks guard Jordan Clarkson, and Warriors big man Charles Bassey waived the implicit no-trade clauses in their contracts, Hoops Rumors has learned. That means all three can be traded freely at the 2027 deadline in February.
The no-trade protection typically comes with a specific kind of deal: a player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year contract, or on a two-year contract with a second-year player or team option, usually gets the right to block a trade for the next season. Teams can ask for that right to be waived, and that’s what happened here.
Landale’s one-year agreement with Atlanta is worth $14.1MM, and it leaves the Hawks with less than $1MM remaining on their non-taxpayer mid-level exception. Clarkson’s minimum-salary contract is fully guaranteed. Bassey’s deal includes a $1.4MM partial guarantee, which gives Golden State the option to waive him before the league-wide guarantee deadline in January without being responsible for his full salary.
There’s also more clarity on a handful of other deals around the league.
Trey Lyles’ one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Timberwolves carries a partial guarantee of $1.5MM. He’ll get the full amount if he stays under contract through January 7. Minnesota also locked in Jaylen Clark on a three-year, $10MM deal that is fully guaranteed, with a first-year salary of $3,086,420.
In Houston, the Rockets used the full taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Marcus Smart to a two-year contract, and Hoops Rumors has confirmed that detail. That leaves the Rockets hard-capped at the second tax apron rather than the first apron. Even so, they’re not close to either line right now, with Yossi Gozlan of CapSheets.com putting them nearly $11MM below the first apron.
Two more deals came in slightly below the numbers that were first reported. Bulls guard Norman Powell’s two-year contract is worth just over $44MM, including a guaranteed $21.5MM in 2026/27 and a $22.575MM team option for ’27/28. Bucks forward Ousmane Dieng signed a three-year deal with identical cap hits of $5.75MM in each season, totaling $17.25MM, and his final year remains a team option.
The Jazz also handed out a pair of matching contracts to Jaxson Hayes and Josh Okogie. Both players will make guaranteed $6MM salaries in 2026/27, with second-year team options also set at $6MM. Jusuf Nurkic’s two-year Utah deal is structured differently, with a descending salary setup - $11,458,333 in year one and $10,541,667 in year two - and it is fully guaranteed.
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Now the pressure is coming from a different direction, with rookies Zuby Ejiofor and Henri Veesaar turning heads in summer league and adding more bodies to a frontcourt mix that is starting to feel crowded. For Gueye, the path forward is pretty clear: keep defending, cut down the mistakes, and show enough offensive progress to stay ahead of the newcomers, because if that part of his game stalls, Atlanta may start looking at its options sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]