The N.B.A. and the N.B.A. players’ union have agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that will ensure labor peace, the league announced Saturday morning. The new deal must be ratified by N.B.A. players and the league’s board of governors before it becomes official.
The deal includes the addition of an in-season tournament with monetary rewards for players and coaches who win it, a 65-game minimum for player eligibility for most postseason awards, the removal of marijuana as a banned substance, and a second luxury tax tier, according to a person familiar with the terms who requested anonymity because the deal is not ratified.
The new collective bargaining agreement will begin next season and last for seven years, with a mutual opt-out clause after six years, the same person said.
Although some expected that this collective bargaining agreement would lower the age limit for entering the N.B.A. draft from 19 to 18, the sides did not agree to that. The age limit will remain at 19, which means most players coming out of high school will need to wait a year before entering the draft.
The league announced the deal in a tweet at 2:59 a.m. Saturday. The parties had agreed to extend the midnight deadline for either side to opt out of the current agreement, which has been in effect since 2017.
Had the sides not agreed or come close by Friday, the league intended to exercise the opt-out clause, according to Commissioner Adam Silver. That would have caused the current collective bargaining agreement to expire on June 30 instead of next year, compressing the time the sides would have had to avoid a work stoppage.
The N.B.A. has not had a work stoppage since the lockout in 2011, which delayed the start of that season until Christmas.
This deal is the first negotiated by executive director Tamika Tremaglio, who began her tenure as the head of the union in 2021, and for CJ McCollum, the Pelicans guard who became its president in August of that year.
The second luxury tax tier appears to be a compromise from what the league had wanted. The league had been concerned that some teams were at too great of a disadvantage because a small number of them vastly outspent the others through salary cap exceptions within the existing luxury tax system. This season, the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers are paying the highest luxury taxes in the league for their star-studded rosters.
To prevent that spending imbalance, the league had hoped to institute a fixed sum that teams could spend on salaries, but the union made clear early on that it would not accept any hard spending limit for teams.
Adding a tournament during the N.B.A. season had long been a priority for Silver. The tournament games will be included in the league’s 82-game schedule and the two teams who play in the tournament’s championship game will play in 83 games.
“It’s something that I remain excited about,” Silver had said during a news conference in September. “I think it continues to be an opportunity within the current footprint of our season to create some more meaningful games, games of consequence, during an otherwise long regular season.”
In the past few months, there had been a great deal of discussion about what to do about star players missing games because of “load management,” a term used to identify a player who might not be injured but needs additional recovery time before playing again. Players argued that they are often held out by cautious medical staffs.
The 65-game minimum for most postseason awards appears geared toward addressing that issue by providing an incentive for top players to play in more games.
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