What must happen for a player to lose their Bird rights?

For a player to lose their Bird rights, they must be renounced or sign with another team. Bird rights are a special exception in the NBA salary cap system that allow teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents after they have played a certain number of years with the team. If a player is renounced, the team relinquishes their Bird rights to that player, which typically occurs when a team decides not to offer a qualifying offer or when they want to clear cap space.

When a player signs with another team, they inherently lose their Bird rights because they can no longer be re-signed by their previous team under the Bird exception. This is essential for maintaining the integrity of the salary cap, as it prevents teams from holding onto a player's rights indefinitely if the player decides to move on.

In contrast, being traded, retiring, or being waived does not lead to an immediate loss of Bird rights. In trading, for example, a player's Bird rights often transfer to the new team. Thus, the correct understanding revolves around the ramifications of renouncement or signing elsewhere, which directly results in the loss of those rights.