New data about the collective agreement that will enter into force in the 23-24 season continue to come to light. According to Shams Charania, a journalist for The Athletic, the league will legalize that the teams negotiate with the players who finish their contract with them before free agency opens, that is, before they can theoretically do it with the rest of the franchises. Specifically, this rule would allow them to do so the day after the last game of the Finals is played, giving a margin of between one and two weeks ahead of other suitors.
The truth is that, at this point in the film, no one escapes that the negotiations between free agents and franchises begin long before the deadline for it opens, and to continue pretending that such a thing does not happen is absurd. However, in this case the NBA only authorizes it for one of the parties, giving the team with which the player ends the contract a certain advantage when it comes to facing the renewal. The move seems designed to protect small-market franchises, preventing another team from getting ahead of them and making their men make a decision before they even sit down with them.
Recently there have been controversies in this regard in relation to Jalen Brunson, with whom from Dallas they assure that they never really had an opportunity to negotiate. However, it does not seem that this measure can really prevent cases like this, since it is to be expected that the date for sitting down to negotiate will simply be brought forward for some and for others. The only measure that can really be effective to prevent this type of practice is to toughen the sanctions, but as long as a second round of the draft continues to be the price to pay, these types of dates will continue to be written on paper.
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