There will not be a labor stoppage in the NBA any time soon. In the early hours of Saturday morning, multiple reports indicated that the league and its Player’s Association came to terms on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is set to begin ahead of the 2023-24 season and run for the next seven years, although there is reportedly a mutual opt-out after the sixth year.
Right before the clock hit 3 a.m. on the east coast, the league and the NBPA put out a statement confirming that there is a tentative agreement on a new CBA. As Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN noted, the expectation is that the new deal will be “ratified by league governors and players in the coming weeks.”
As for what is going to be in the new CBA, reports indicate that the in-season tournament that Adam Silver has coveted for years will, indeed, be coming to the NBA. There’s also a games played minimum for postseason awards, as players will now need to play at least 65 games to be eligible.
Per Shams Charania of The Athletic, players will now be allowed to use marijuana under the new CBA.
There are also a number of tweaks to things like maximum contract extensions, the number of two-way contracts a team can have, and perhaps most notably, the ability that more ambitious teams have to spend.
Wojnarowski specifically cited the Clippers and the Warriors while mentioning the new rules regarding teams that spend the most, writing that the league “is implementing a second salary cap apron — $17.5 million over the tax line — and those teams will no longer have access to the taxpayer mid-level in free agency.”
