NBA Free Agency 2017: What is a max contract?

With plenty of players eligible for big money in the NBA’s free agency, the logistics of a max contract will surely need to be explained for some.

With the NBA season officially over and the offseason in full swing, rumors will be running rampant about star players making serious money in free agency and signing with new teams offering them the world.

In free agency, there’s a lot of terms that get thrown out in contract announcements or negotiations that don’t make sense to those reading the news. One of those terms is “max contract”, which means different things for different players in the league depending on how long they’ve been around, and how well they’ve played.

In basic terms, there are three types of max contracts for three different tiers. For players with 0-6 years of experience in the league, they’re eligible for 25 percent of the league’s set salary cap. It gets upped to 30 percent for players with 7-9 years of experience, and then 35 percent for 10 years or over of experience.

While most players’s primes don’t match up with the 35 percent timeframe, it occasionally finds itself making sense with guys like LeBron James or Chris Paul who succeed for long portions of their career.

Then, to add in some more complex pieces, there are “bird rights”. Those players with bird rights, which means they played three seasons without leaving their team, can have their deals exceed the salary cap to resign with the team they’ve been playing for.

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The system is one that seems to work pretty well, given the fact that rookies will play four years on a rookie contract with their first team, which will give them bird rights by the time they’re done their first deal. By the time their second deal is done, they have the chance to earn their 30 percent on a deal, and then 35 percent after that third deal is done.

It’s all a complex system, but now will hopefully make sense after a full explanation.