March 12th, 4:00 p.m. ET, Tag deadline
If the players don’t come to a new CBA agreement it triggers a clause where teams will be able to use the franchise tag or the transition tag — normally teams must pick only one — and that’s some tough timing for the league.
Theoretically, a team could use both and the new CBA could be agreed upon and then teams will get a very tight grace period to rescind one of the tags. In any case, tags will be officially dropped on the 12th. Get ready to find out if your team uses it to hang on to its players or if the free-agent market will be flooded with talent.