Year: 2017

While some NBA teams will head into free agency with more than enough cap room to add a maximum salary player, others clubs will be totally capped out. However, each of the NBA’s 30 clubs will be on common ground in one respect: No team will be ineligible to sign a player to a minimum salary contract.

Teams with cap room available will have a little more flexibility to sign players to longer-term minimum salary contracts, but over-the-cap clubs will still be able to use the minimum salary exception to add as many players as they want. Unlike other exceptions, such as the mid-level or the bi-annual, the minimum salary exception can be used multiple times, for contracts of up to two years.

[RELATED: Values of 2017/18 mid-level, bi-annual exceptions]

Undrafted free agents and late second-round picks are often recipients of minimum salary contracts, but there are plenty of veterans who end up settling for the minimum too. Of course, because a player’s minimum salary is determined by how much NBA experience he has, many veterans will earn more than twice as much money as a rookie will in 2017/18 on a minimum salary contract.

Listed below are 2017/18’s minimum salary figures, sorted by years of NBA experience. If a player spent any time on an NBA club’s active regular season roster in a given season, he earned one year of experience. So any player with zero years of experience has not yet made his NBA debut.

Here’s the full breakdown:

Because the NBA doesn’t want teams to avoid signing veteran players in favor of cheaper, younger players, the league reimburses clubs who sign veterans with three or more years of experience to one-year, minimum salary contracts. Those deals will only count against the cap – and against a team’s bank balance – for $1,471,382, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience.

For instance, if David Lee – who has 12 years of NBA experience – signs a one-year, minimum salary contract with a new team, that team would only be charged $1,471,382 for Lee’s contract. He’d earn $2,328,652, but the NBA would make up the difference. This only applies to one-year contracts, rather than multiyear deals.

If a player signs a minimum salary contract after the regular season begins, he’ll earn a pro-rated portion of the amount listed above.

The salary cap for the 2017/18 NBA league year won’t be finalized and announced for several more days, which means we’re still relying on the NBA’s $99MM projection when we calculate the value of maximum salary contract or attempt to determine how much cap room teams will have.

[RELATED: NBA Maximum Salary Projections for 2017/18]

However, while some contract figures won’t be finalized until we know where the salary cap ultimately lands for 2017/18, others have already been established. In the case of the mid-level, bi-annual, and room exceptions, the NBA’s latest Collective Bargaining Agreement includes specific figures for the ’17/18 season, so we already know what the values of those exceptions will be next year.

Listed below are the maximum annual and total values of each of these exceptions, along with a brief explanation of how they work and which teams will have access to them.

Mid-Level Exception (Non-Taxpayer):

The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is the primary tool available for over-the-cap teams to add free agents. As long as a team hasn’t dipped below the cap and doesn’t go over the tax apron (currently projected to be $127MM) at all, it can use this MLE, which runs for up to four years with 5% annual raises.

In 2016/17, this exception was only worth up to $5,628,000 in year one, so it will rise in value significantly next season. That makes it a legitimate option to land second- or third-tier free agents who would have required cap room to sign in the past.

Mid-Level Exception (Taxpayer):

If an over-the-cap team currently projects to be a taxpayer, or expects to move into tax territory later in the 2017/18 season, it will have access to this smaller mid-level exception for taxpaying teams. If a team uses more than $5.192MM of its mid-level exception, it is forbidden from surpassing the tax apron (projected at $127MM) at any time during the league year. So even if a team isn’t above the apron when it uses its MLE, it might make sense to play it safe by avoiding using the full MLE and imposing a hard cap.

In 2016/17, the taxpayer mid-level exception – which was only used by the Cavs – was worth $3,477,000. The taxpayer MLE can be used to sign a player for up to three years, with 5% annual raises.

Room Exception:

Although this is also a mid-level exception of sorts, it’s colloquially known as the “room” exception, since it’s only available to teams that have used cap room. If a club goes under the cap, it loses its full mid-level exception, but gets this smaller room exception, which allows the team to go over the cap to sign a player, once the team has used up all its cap space.

In 2016/17, this exception was worth $2,898,000, and resulted in some valuable signings, including Seth Curry (Mavericks), Dion Waiters (Heat), Zaza Pachulia (Warriors), and Nene (Rockets). It can be used to sign players for up to two years, with a 5% raise for the second season.

Bi-Annual Exception:

The bi-annual exception, as its name suggests, is only available to teams once every two years. Of the NBA’s 30 clubs, only the Clippers used it in 2016/17, signing Luc Mbah a Moute to a deal that started at $2,203,000. That means the league’s other 29 teams could theoretically use it this season.

Still, even if a team didn’t use its BAE in ’16/17, that club doesn’t necessarily have access to it for the coming year. As is the case with the non-taxpayer MLE, this exception disappears once a team goes under the cap. It’s also not available to teams over the tax apron — using the BAE creates a hard cap at the apron.

The BAE can be used to sign players for up to two years, with a 5% raise after year one.