January guarantee deadline forces teams into numbers-based decisions

Jan 8, 2026 5:18 PM

At the start of the week, 32 NBA players were on standard, full-season contracts that were not fully guaranteed for the 2025/26 season.

Teams faced a clear deadline: waive those players by Wednesday, January 7 at 4:00 p.m. CT, or accept that their salaries would effectively lock in.

While the official league-wide guarantee date is January 10, the waiver process makes January 7 the true point of no return.

Any player waived after that Wednesday would not clear waivers before Saturday, meaning his full-season guarantee would still apply.

Ultimately, 30 of the 32 players remained on their teams past the deadline, triggering guaranteed salaries for next season.

With the exception of Terry Rozier at $26,643,031 and Dean Wade at $6,623,456, most of those players are earning minimum salaries ranging from $1.27 million to roughly $2.87 million.

From a cap perspective, retaining them carried limited downside, but from a roster standpoint, it meant sacrificing potential flexibility ahead of the trade deadline.