NBA makes minor adjustment to hardship rules

The NBA has made a minor adjustment to its new hardship rules, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter links).

As Marks outlines, a player who is signed to a 10-day hardship deal can now be moved to the inactive list if the player he was replacing comes out of the health and safety protocols and is cleared to return before that 10-day deal expires.

Under the previous hardship rules, the player on the 10-day contract would have to be waived once the player he replaced has been cleared.

For instance, the Bulls had several players exit the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols this week and no longer have any players affected. However, the team still has three players signed to 10-day hardship contracts — Alfonzo McKinnie‘s deal runs through December 29, while Ersan Ilyasova and Mac McClung are under contract through December 31.

Under the new rules, if all the Chicago players who were in the protocols are cleared to return, the team could move McKinnie, Ilyasova, and/or McClung to the inactive list rather than immediately terminating their contracts. That would allow the Bulls to avoid having to sign a new replacement player if they have another player test positive for COVID-19 in the next week — in that scenario, they could simply reactivate one of their current replacements, as long as that player’s 10-day deal has yet to expire.

The Heat are another team that could be impacted by this rule in the short term, since they no longer have any players in the protocols and Zylan Cheatham is on a 10-day contract that runs through next Friday. However, many teams besides Chicago and Miami could find themselves in similar situations in the coming days as more players exit the protocols.