A trade kicker is a contractual clause that pays an NBA player a bonus when he’s traded. They’re one of the tools teams have at their disposal to differentiate their free agent offers from the ones put on the table by competing clubs — or to incentivize a player to sign an extension before he reaches free agency.
Sometimes the kicker is worth a fixed amount, but usually it’s based on a percentage of the remaining value of the contract. So, a player who has a 10% trade kicker is eligible for a bonus worth 10% of the amount of money he has yet to collect on his deal (not counting an option year).
Regardless of whether a trade kicker is set at a fixed amount or a percentage, the bonus can’t exceed 15% of the remaining value of the contract. Most trade kickers are worth 15%, the highest percentage allowed.
A trade bonus must be paid by the team that trades the player, rather than the team acquiring him. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement also allows a player to waive part or all of his trade kicker as part of a deal, if he so chooses.
Here’s a list of the NBA players who have active trade kickers for 2026/27, listed alphabetically, along with the details of those trade bonuses:
The following players have trade bonuses on their contracts, but those bonuses would be voided if they were to be traded during the 2026/27 league year, since they’re already earning this season’s maximum salary:
The following players have signed contract extensions that will include trade kickers, but those extensions won’t go into effect until at least the 2027/28 season:
