D-League Breakdown: Returning Player Rights are Vital

NBA D-League contracts are signed on a year-to-year basis. Players don’t sign multi-year deals like they do with the NBA because frankly, players do not want to be in the league longer than they have to.

Managing roster volatility is the name of the game as a D-League general manager and head coach, and one of the most valuable assets for making transactions are returning player rights.

What are they exactly? Well, teams in the NBADL retain player rights for two years after they leave the club unless that team waives or trades that player.

For instance, Peyton Siva played with the Erie BayHawks last season and he signed a deal to play in Italy this past offseason. However, the BayHawks were able to hold his returning rights, and should he return in the next two seasons he would have to play for them. Subsequently, Siva’s rights were used in a deal with the Delaware 87ers to bring Myck Kabongo to the BayHawks. The rules are apparently unknown to players themselves, as Siva was pretty surprised he had been traded.

The league created these rules because the roster turnover from year-to-year is wild. It’s a fail safe to prevent players from leaving their club at the end of the season and then re-entering the D-League Draft or signing via waivers once the season starts.

Returning rights lists are not publicly known and are closely guarded by most D-League clubs. Upside & Motor reached out to every single NBADL team asking for a list of these players, and most clubs responded with something along the lines of “that information is internal and we do not release it.” Teams are likely constantly in touch with these players and their agents to try and gauge interest or even the likelihood of returning to the league.

Player rights should be tiered into three categories: Definitely possible, not likely and no chance. This way teams could get a feel for their true value to their club, then when trades become available they know who they want to move and who they want to keep around.

Knowing the value of returning rights players is even more important as new teams enter the league. Expansion teams obviously have no returning rights players when they begin business, but the league holds an expansion draft which allows them to select players to potentially fill their roster. The existing teams can protect rights for up to 12 of their returning players and the rest hit the expansion pool.

The expansion team then selects up to 16 players for their roster, but no more than two from any one team. The Raptors 905 nabbed some well-known names in their expansion draft this year: Dee Bost, Earl Clark, Abdul Gaddy, C.J. Leslie, Luke Harangody, Dahntay Jones, Kevin Jones, Ricky Ledo, Ramone Moore, Mustafa Shakur, Will Sheehey, Nolan Smith, Scott Suggs, Ty Walker, Mitchell Watt and Michael Williams.

Suggs is the only player selected who has played a single minute for the 905, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t using these players to improve.

Most notably, the 905 acquired Ronald Roberts Jr. from the Santa Cruz Warriors. Roberts was in camp with the Toronto Raptors this past summer, so the team clearly wanted to keep him close and they were able to maneuver a trade using an expansion draftee (Kevin Jones) and two draft picks. All in all, they have traded six of their expansion draftees and acquired a D-League All-Star in Ronald Roberts, Sim Bhullar and three future draft picks. Not too shabby.

Again, some of these players may never return to the NBA D-League but their rights still hold massive value for each D-League club, as the majority of trades involve returning rights.

This offseason will be interesting regarding returning rights because the league has already announced there will be three expansion teams — Brooklyn, Chicago and Charlotte are all adding an affiliate. Current teams will likely only be able to protect up to 8-10 players instead of the traditional 12, so the three new teams have enough players to select.

Although teams were not willing to share their current returning rights players, U&M was able to collect data on our own. Here’s a list of players who are still retained by a D-League club should they ever return: Kendall Marshall, Austin Daye, Seth Curry, Hassan Whiteside, Willie Reed, Tim Frazier, Jordan Crawford, Nate Wolters, Tyrus Thomas and many, many more.

The D-League trade deadline won’t gain the publicity that the NBA deadline will, but returning rights will be heavily involved. You can bet on that.