In the NBA, there are three main ways for teams to add talent: the draft, trades and free agency. The last of those three might be becoming endangered.

Thanks to the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, extensions are on the rise across the league. This offseason alone, roughly a dozen players have bypassed the chance to become a free agent in 2025 by signing new deals with their current team instead.

Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray and Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell agreed to maximum extensions with their respective teams, which plenty of players did under the previous CBA as well. The bigger sea change is the number of players who agreed to non-max extensions, such as Indiana Pacers guard T.J. McConnell and Los Angeles Clippers center Ivica Zubac.

There could be a few different explanations for that. For one, the NBA’s salary cap continues to soar, and it’s poised to explode even more in the coming seasons thanks to the league’s new national TV contracts. We might have reached a point where role players are making generational, life-changing amounts of money that’s hard to turn down.

Take McConnell, who was an undrafted free agent back in 2015. Through his first nine NBA seasons, he’s earned roughly $35.6 million in total, and he’s due another $9.3 million this coming season. He just signed a four-year, $44.8 million extension that will nearly double his career earnings.

The same goes for Zubac, who was a second-round pick in 2016. He has earned around $45.5 million over his eight-year NBA career, and he’s set to receive another $11.7 million in 2024-25. He just signed a three-year, $58.7 million extension that will likewise more than double his career earnings.

That might not be the only thing fueling the rise in extensions, though. Most of the NBA’s middle class learned some tough lessons in free agency this summer, which could make role players more gunshy about testing their own free-agent market in future offseasons.

While Tobias Harris (two years, $52 million) and Isaiah Hartenstein (three years, $87 million) cashed in as free agents, a number of other players weren’t nearly as fortunate. Tyus Jones, Monte Morris, Gary Trent Jr. and Delon Wright all wound up settling for one-year, veteran-minimum contracts after earning at least $8 million this past season.

That’s another byproduct of the new CBA, which contains harsh penalties for teams with expensive payrolls. While concerns about the NBA’s new second apron may eventually prove to be overblown in the coming years, most teams across the league were far more cautious with their spending than usual this offseason.

That could create a cyclical effect with free agency. If players are worried about teams reining in their spending during the offseason, they might be more reluctant to become free agents and more open to signing extensions with their current squads. That would further weaken the free-agent market, making it less of an option for teams in need of significant reinforcements.

As more teams sign players to extensions, they’re going to preemptively take themselves out of the free-agent market as well. At the moment, only four teams “seem extremely likely to wield space next summer,” according to Danny Leroux of The Athletic, and the Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards are the only two projected to have enough cap space to offer a max contract.

LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, Rudy Gobert, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Khris Middleton and Julius Randle could all be free agents in 2025 if they decline their respective player options, but they’ll have less incentive to do so considering how few teams project to have cap space. Sign-and-trades are always an option, but the CBA prohibits teams over either apron from acquiring a player that way, which will limit any free agent’s list of potential destinations.

Some players might have no choice but to become free agents and hope they’re one of the lucky ones who lands a huge payday. But considering how the market squeezed most of the NBA’s middle class this past offseason, many soon-to-be free agents may be forced to choose between taking a team-friendly extension or testing their luck in free agency.

Until the market begins to stabilize again, teams can’t bank on getting major reinforcements from free agency. Since most teams will be working with the same tools—some version of the mid-level exception and veteran-minimum contracts—free agents may largely base their decisions on projected role and proximity to championship contention.

Some teams will luck out and land quality contributors at below-market prices. The Phoenix Suns (Jones, Morris) and Milwaukee Bucks (Trent, Wright) were the big winners in that regard this past offseason. Others won’t be as fortunate. And since the new CBA effectively forces teams to spend at least 90% of the salary cap by the start of the regular season, teams might not be keen on carving out mountains of cap space unless they’re confident in how they plan to use it.

The salary cap is likely to rise a full 10% in each of the next few seasons, which could help offset some of these trends. Perhaps free agency will come roaring back in the mid-to-late 2020s. But for now, this year’s Philadelphia 76ers look like more of an outlier than a trend.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.