NBA:Options

NBA RealGM — League Rules

An option year is a season your team may keep a player for, at his existing salary. It is a team option — the player has no say — and you decide one season at a time.

Option years are marked with a trailing x:

Xavier McDaniel (SEA - SF/PF) $2,606,200 (2026, 2027x)

Guaranteed through 2026. 2027 is yours to take or leave. See Contracts for the notation, including contracts carrying several options.

When

Options are the first phase of the off-season, before re-signing, the draft, and free agency. For 2026 the window ran July 16 to July 30. Dates are announced each year — see Off-Season.

Only the upcoming season's options are decided. A contract reading (2025, ~2029x) comes up four separate times, once per off-season.

Your own upcoming option decisions are listed at the bottom of your team's tab on the league spreadsheet, and every decision in the league is collected on its Options tab.

Exercising and declining

Post a decision for every player on your roster with an option for the upcoming season. This is not optional, and silence is not neutral.

Your decision	Result
Exercise	The option year becomes a guaranteed year at the same salary
Decline	The player goes to free agency
Nothing posted	Treated as a decline — the player goes to free agency

Exercise and decline are the terms used here, following the NBA. Accept and pick up mean the same thing and are perfectly fine in a post — the forum itself is named NBA Option Year Pickup/Decline.

All three outcomes are final. You cannot revisit a decision once posted, and you cannot recover a player lost by forgetting to post.

Exercising

The salary is unchanged: the same annual figure, now guaranteed for that season. It counts in full against your cap.

It also extends your waiver exposure by exactly one season. Before you exercise, that year carried no dead money if you released him; after you exercise, waiving him produces a cap hit through that year. Options are cheap to hold and cheap to walk away from — exercising is the moment that changes.

Declining

A declined player enters the free agent pool. Two consequences:

• You may not decline an option and then re-sign him. Re-signing is closed to you for that player. Declining is how you let a player go, not a way to reprice him.
• He is an ordinary free agent, so any team may bid — including yours, at open-market prices rather than his option salary.

How to post

Create a topic in the NBA Option Year Pickup/Decline forum. The title is the player's name and the description is your decision — Exercise/Decline.

The body carries your decision, the option year, and the player's contract:

Sonics exercise the 2027 option for Xavier McDaniel (SEA - SF/PF) $2,606,200 (2026, 2027x)

Sonics decline the 2027 option for Xavier McDaniel (SEA - SF/PF) $2,606,200 (2026, 2027x)

See also

• Contracts — option notation and the x suffix
• Re-Signing — why declining forecloses one
• Free Agency — where declined players go
• Waivers — how an exercised option lengthens a cap hit
• Off-Season — the option window and what follows it