When the Bulls traded Lonzo Ball for Isaac Okoro, they had to use part of their Zach LaVine traded player exception (worth over $17 million) to cover Okoro’s $11 million salary, as reported by Keith Smith of Spotrac.
They couldn’t simply use Ball’s $10 million outgoing salary because his contract includes an Exhibit 3 injury clause.
This clause lets the team avoid full salary guarantees if Ball suffers a specific injury, likely related to his knee.
Due to this clause, the NBA required the Bulls to treat Ball’s salary as non-guaranteed for trade purposes, so it didn’t count fully toward outgoing salary.
As a result, Chicago needed to use LaVine’s trade exception instead to absorb Okoro’s contract.
This move puts the Bulls under a hard salary cap at the first tax apron for the 2025/26 season.
Whether they used the expanded traded player exception or the existing one, the hard cap consequence remains the same.
