In the NBA, it’s already next season.

The offseason, technically, might have lasted for only about an hour. The Boston Celtics won the NBA Finals on Monday night, and when the clock rolled over to Tuesday morning, the Orlando Magic and other teams — in many cases — could start talking with their own free agents.

That rule is part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, and is a change from previous years. Under the rule, teams can talk to their own free agents before the June 30 start of free agency, meaning that some deals can be agreed to — but not announced — even earlier than usual. Teams also can negotiate with their own players who are eligible for rookie extensions or who are eligible for veteran extensions. Guard Jalen Suggs and forward Franz Wagner are eligible for rookie extensions. 

Deals cannot be signed until July 6, in most cases. Teams, agents and players also cannot announce publicly their deals until July 6.

The penalties for rule-breakers on those fronts will be severe: fines of up to $2 million, forfeiture of draft picks and the suspension of team personnel involved in violations are among the NBA’s options.

Right now, the Magic have three players from their rosters this past season who are unrestricted free agents — guards Markelle Fultz and Gary Harris and center Goga Bitadze. Forward Chuma Okeke is a restricted free agent. They have three free-agent two-way players, meaning they can move between the G League and the NBA for a limited number of games — forward Admiral Schofield and guards Kevon Harris and Trevelin Queen.

The Magic also have club options on the two-year contracts to which they signed center/forward Moe Wagner and forward Joe Ingles before last season. If they don't pick up those options by June 29, those players become free agents. They could be re-signed by the Magic if they want to bring them back, however, if the team has room under the salary cap, or if they would fit into a team salary-cap exception. But other teams also would be able to offer them contracts and sign them.

To be clear, teams are prohibited from even beginning negotiations with free agents who played for other teams in the just-ended season until 6 p.m. June 30.

Some players, not free agents, could end up changing teams via trades during the NBA Draft on June 26 and June 27. The Magic currently have picks No. 18 and 47.

Teams that hope to add a new player or players in the offseason might prefer to get those new players to agree and sign contracts with them before signing their own players because of salary-cap rules. The order in which players sign can matter because new players must fit within the team's salary cap unless they are signed using an allowable exception.

The salary-cap number for the 2024-25 NBA season has not been announced yet, but has been projected to be about $141 million. The Magic had about $130 million in contracts this past season and could have between $25 million and up to $50 million-plus in room under the 2024-25 salary cap if they do not pick up the options on the contracts of Wagner and Ingles and release their rights to all of their free agents.

Even after teams have used up the money available to them under the salary cap, they can sign players who have been with them for three consecutive seasons to a first-year maximum player salary the NBA allows using the "Larry Bird exception." They also can sign players who have been with them at least two seasons for the Early Bird exception if they do not get outbid by another team. Officially known as the Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agent Exception, the Early Bird allows teams to re-sign their own free agent to a contract with a first-year salary of up to the greater of 175% of the player's salary in the last season of his prior contract, or 105% of the average player salary for the prior season. Early Bird contracts must last for at least two seasons.

If team salaries exceed the first or second apron (tax) over the salary cap, which also have not been announced, they start to become limited in what exceptions are available to them, and in extreme cases, the trades they can make.

Throughout the league, teams have different options available to them, but the Magic are one of just a few teams that have significant salary-cap space this summer. However, they have to consider that possible contract extensions for Suggs, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero over this summer and next will significantly boost their payroll, so they need to be cautious when signing contracts for their own players or new players that would make it difficult to keep their roster flexibility as they continue to build.

“This is a business,” Miami Heat President Pat Riley said when his team’s season ended last month, “as much as it is anything else.”

The champion Celtics and All-Star Jayson Tatum can agree now on an extension that will be worth a record $315 million, though that record is probably going to get smashed annually over the next few years.

There’s an Olympics that will have tons of NBA representation this summer. The Los Angeles Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers still need to hire head coaches. LeBron James, who plays (for now at least) for the Lakers and used to play for the Cavs, can be a free agent. Bronny James — his oldest son — may be about to enter the league as a rookie. There’s a draft that starts on June 26.

The Atlanta Hawks hold the No. 1 selection in what will be one of countless dominoes to fall this summer.

“I really enjoy our process that we’ve built out and the people that we’ve done it with,” Hawks General Manager Landry Fields said. “At the end of the day, you all will be the judge of whether that was the right pick or not. For me, it’s more looking at where are we at, what was our process, how are we assessing this current player and just rolling with it.”

Some players will get a few million this summer. Some will get many millions. The creativity of teams and their salary-cap gurus will be tested this summer, as always.

“You have to put a pencil to the bottom line,” Riley said. “And then also you have to pencil in what the cost is going to be in the collateral damage of going over the first apron, the second apron and then the repeater tax.”

Meanwhile, the NBA is going to secure billions before long. Billions and billions. The biggest deal — series of deals, really — in league history is likely about to close — that being the new media rights packages that the league has been negotiating for some time.

The current deals with ABC-ESPN and Turner Sports expire after next season, and the NBA has been talking with NBC, ESPN and Amazon, among other networks and platforms, about what comes next. The numbers are staggering: 11 years and more than $70 billion is the expectation, both dwarfing the current nine-year, $24 billion deal.

“The global nature definitely factors into the discussions,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “As all of the media companies, even the traditional ones, move toward streaming and have whether primary or adjacent streaming platforms, those platforms are increasingly global. And their ability to reach our fans around the world is a critical component of these discussions.”

It’s a mix of everything right now, some contracts that will extend for a decade, some that won’t last past the end of Summer League in Las Vegas on July 12-22. There are big questions — will Golden State keep its core together, will San Antonio take a big swing to place more talent around Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama, where will James go, will Miami give Jimmy Butler the extension he seeks, will Donovan Mitchell stay in Cleveland? And on and on and on.

The only real certainties are these: 29 teams chasing the Celtics, and everyone is looking to get better. It starts with the draft, then free agency, and plenty of people around the NBA think this will be a summer filled with trades as well.

“Good players are really hard to find, like super hard to find,” Oklahoma City General Manager Sam Presti said. “Guys that can play consistently in the NBA and be in the NBA for more than three years … that’s actually harder than it sounds.”

Welcome to next season, already in progress.