Lonnie Walker shouldn’t need to sign an Exhibit 10 contract to be on an NBA roster

Lonnie Walker shouldn’t need to sign an Exhibit 10 contract to be on an NBA roster

When the new CBA was ratified last spring, we knew there would be rippling ramifications on how to construct a roster without having one arm tied behind your back.

Last year, the penalties were far more lenient with the two tax aprons. Teams above the apron 1.) still had their pre-existing trade exceptions 2.) were able to aggregate salaries in trades 3.) and could send cash out in deals, among other things. Now, those restrictions become more punitive for the 2024-25 league year and beyond.

Thus, one of the ramifications of free agency was fewer teams willing to shell out their books for players with the risk of being a second-apron team for the foreseeable future. There were a few exceptions–such as the reigning champion Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns–to the rule. Though it was clear that more teams were even more cognizant of decisions made for not only this year, but 2-3-4-plus years down the line.

The league’s “middle class”–i.e. players who were expected to be worth near the mid-level exception ($12.8 million)–were affected. Players like Tyus Jones , Gary Trent Jr. and Monte Morris all signed for the minimum.

Not all two situations are the same. For a split second, we thought we were seeing a similar situation Wednesday evening with Lonnie Walker –the best available free agent–signing a one-year deal with the Boston Celtics.

That was until NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic that Walker signed … an Exhibit 10 deal?!?

What is an Exhibit 10 contract?

Exhibit 10 contracts are essentially training camp contracts worth the minimum over one year, though they’re non-guaranteed. They don’t count against the cap unless a player on an Exhibit 10 contract remains on the roster past the start of the regular season.

Teams can give an E-10 player a bonus worth up to approximately $78K. If he is waived before the start of the regular season and spends at least 60 days with that team’s G-League affiliate, he’s rewarded the full bonus.

Teams give out Exhibit 10 contracts to players they would prefer to have in their system, though most of them get waived to spend time in the G-League. Each team can have up to six Exhibit 10 players to compete for a 15-man or two-way roster spot, if they’re available.

How does Walker’s Exhibit 10 affect the Celtics, league?

The Celtics still have one more roster spot available; their only other players on Exhibit 10 deals are Ron Harper Jr. and Tristan Enaruna , according to Spotrac.

For one, there’s an argument that Walker signing an Exhibit 10 is damaging to player empowerment. For the remaining free agents and their agents, have fun convincing one of the 30 teams to automatically sign you to a minimum contract when a player better than you signed a training camp deal for a chance at a 15-man spot. Since it’s non-guaranteed–figuratively and literally–that player could earn a two-way or be sent to the G-League. Why would a legitimate role player take their chance with the latter?

In all likelihood, Boston will sign Walker to the minimum. None of this may matter. There’s nobody close to his caliber that should push him for that last spot. But it’s the process that bugs me, not necessarily the result.

At this point in the offseason, the market is dry. Most of the teams have most of their roster already filled with training camp contracts to disperse. There may be a few miniature signings here and a small trade there, but 90 percent of activity is complete until October.

This allows cheap, crummy billionaire owners another excuse to lowball legitimate rotation players with impunity. There’s no way that a player of Walker’s caliber should be earning a training camp contract a month out, with the chance of getting sent down to the G-League–just like there’s no way that Trent or Jones should be getting minimum contracts , albeit from semi-contenders.

This also screams that expansion is coming out of necessity. It’s Aug. 28 and Lonnie Walker was just signed today; Markelle Fultz and Dennis Smith Jr., among others , remain free agents when they shouldn’t be. Why?

Again, not all two situations are the same. According to Hoops Rumors’ roster tracker, 20 teams now have at least one guaranteed roster spot available. While a fair amount of those teams likely have partially- or non-guaranteed contracts on the books that it needs to ponder, that’s still an exorbitant amount of teams. There’s no way that Walker should’ve been a free agent this late–let alone signing an Exhibit 10 contract.

All that said, I’m not Walker’s agent. Who knows what other conversations were on the floor? Though now we can already guess what executive-agent conversations could percolate in the future, and it won’t be beneficial for the player. That’s for sure.

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