While the NBA's salary cap and luxury tax figures remained the same for the coming season, the maximum salary that a player can earn was bumped up slightly for 2012/13. According to Larry Coon's CBA FAQ, the changes are as follows:
These changes are unlikely to affect anyone with seven or more years of experience. Deron Williams will almost certainly be the only seven-year veteran to sign a max contract, and because he's eligible for a 5% raise on his 2011/12 salary, he'll earn more than the $16.4MM max anyway, as I outlined here.
However, the new maximum salary will have an impact on restricted free agents like Eric Gordon, Roy Hibbert, and Brook Lopez, whose 2012/13 salaries figure to be about $13.67MM instead of $12.92MM. The increased first-year salary will allow those fifth-year players to sign four-year contracts that total about $58.37MM, rather than the $55.18MM they otherwise could have earned. If any of those players sign five-year max deals with their own teams, they could earn up to about $78.6MM, as opposed to the previous $74.3MM.
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