Phoenix Suns: Circumventing the ‘reacquisition rule’
By Luke Swiatek
The “reacquisition rule” prevents players from signing with a team that trades them, but is there a way around it that the Phoenix Suns could exploit?
The NBA’s reacquisition rule says specifically that a team can’t reacquire a player that it’s already traded away in the same season. That generally means you can’t trade a player and trade them back in the same year; the Phoenix Suns couldn’t trade Richaun Holmes back to the Philadelphia 76ers until next season, for example.
If a player gets bought out, the restrictions are more draconian. If a player is traded and then waived/bought out, his original team can’t reacquire him for a full calendar year after the trade. The only exception is if he was in the last year of his deal, in which case the restriction reverts to his first team still not being able to acquire him until the next league year begins.
Two CBAs ago, there was a loophole: there was only a 30-day waiting period for reacquiring a traded player if he was waived by his subsequent team. In 2009, the Cleveland Cavaliers exploited that loophole.
As part of a three-team trade, they moved Zydrunas Ilgauskas and a first round pick to the Washington Wizards for Antawn Jamison. Then, the Wizards waived Ilgauskas, who waited for 30 days and re-signed with the Cavaliers, prompting Bleacher Report to write an article entitled “The 30-Day Waiver Rule: An NBA Loophole That Must Be Closed.”
To be fair, the NBA did close that loophole. The aforementioned rules now make a team wait until at least the beginning of the next league year before reacquiring a player they’ve traded away, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to exploit them.