Seven NBA players sit under the poison pill trade rule this season, and the gap can be $24 million before next July

Seven NBA players who signed rookie-scale extensions in 2026 are now covered by the so-called poison pill trade rule for the rest of this season. The term does not appear in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, but it is the shorthand for what happens when a team tries to trade an extended rookie before the new deal starts next July: the outgoing salary for the trading team and the incoming salary for the acquiring team are calculated differently, and the gap can be tens of millions of dollars.

How the rule works

When a player on a rookie-scale extension is traded before the extension takes effect, his current team treats only this season’s salary as the outgoing matching number. The team that acquires him has to match an average of this season’s salary plus every year of the new extension, including option years. That average is often far higher than the paycheck he is collecting now.

Take Detroit’s Ausar Thompson. He is on an $11,117,295 salary this season and signed a five-year, $155 million extension that begins in 2027-28. If the Pistons traded him today, Detroit would send him out as an $11.1 million player. The club that took him on would have to fit him as a $27,686,321 incoming player — this year’s salary plus the $155 million, divided across six years. For a max-level extension, future salaries are figured on a projected 4.5 percent salary-cap rise and without assuming Rose Rule bumps.

The seven players

The list for 2026-27 covers Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs, Brandon Miller of the Hornets, Amen Thompson of the Rockets, Ausar Thompson of the Pistons, Cason Wallace of the Thunder, Keyonte George of the Jazz and Brandin Podziemski of the Warriors. Their outgoing and incoming trade values, as tracked for this season, are:

Player	Team	Outgoing	Incoming
Victor Wembanyama	Spurs	$16,868,246	$44,470,841
Brandon Miller	Hornets	$15,104,626	$36,602,456
Amen Thompson	Rockets	$12,258,609	$36,709,768
Ausar Thompson	Pistons	$11,117,295	$27,686,321
Cason Wallace	Thunder	$7,420,806	$23,736,801
Keyonte George	Jazz	$6,563,925	$26,927,321
Brandin Podziemski	Warriors	$5,679,458	$19,279,910

Why the gap matters before July

Most of these players are not realistic trade candidates. Wembanyama just put up a career-high 52 points with 24 rebounds and eight blocks, as we detailed in our story on that night. Amen Thompson is central to a Rockets roster we mapped against the tax line in our Rockets salary breakdown. The point of the rule is not that any of them will move; it is that if a team ever wanted to, the matching math would be hard, especially for clubs sitting at or above a tax apron.

Amen Thompson’s gap alone is more than $24 million between the outgoing and incoming figures, which effectively rules out sending him to an over-the-cap buyer this season. Smaller gaps on the list still leave a large hole to fill. Once the 2027-28 league year opens next July, the poison pill ends for this group: each player’s 2027-28 salary becomes both the outgoing and incoming number.

The rule does not apply to ordinary veteran extensions. Those deals can carry a separate six-month trade restriction, but the salary numbers match on both sides. We will keep following CBA mechanics on our Around the league page and on Business & salaries.