The NBA has informed its teams of a new salary cap estimate for the 2024/25 season, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, who reports (via Twitter) that the league’s latest projection is for a $141MM cap.
That figure is still tentative, as the actual salary cap for ’24/25 won’t be finalized until the very end of the current league year this summer. Still, the NBA hadn’t issued a projection since last June, so teams now have a more up-to-date estimate to work with.
The salary cap can increase by a maximum of 10% each season and has risen by that amount in each of the past two years. Player agents have been optimistic about another sizable increase for 2024/25 — many of the reported figures for maximum-salary extensions that will go into effect next season have been based on a projected 10% jump.
However, the NBA hasn’t been nearly as bullish in its own formal projections. The league initially forecast a $142MM cap, which would have been about a 4.4% increase over this season’s $136,021,000 cap. A $141MM cap would represent an even more modest increase of 3.66%.
Here’s one example of how the projection will impact the extensions that begin in 2024/25: Jaylen Brown‘s five-year, super-max contract with the Celtics was reported at the time of its signing by many outlets to be worth $304MM, but that estimate was based on a projected 10% increase. If the cap comes in at $141MM, Brown’s deal would actually be worth just over $286MM — still a gigantic payday, obviously, but not the NBA’s first ever $300MM deal, as was suggested by some reporters last July.
If the cap comes in at $141MM, the minimum salary floor would be $126.9MM and the luxury tax line would be approximately $171.3MM. The first apron would come in around $178.7MM and the second apron would be just shy of $189.5MM.
A 3.7 percent salary cap increase is enough. Players are already earning too much money while the average American can barely get by.
SlowEddie the NBA salary cap I do not believe is based on the rate of inflation. Also the average American,sadly doesn’t possess elite athletic skills enabling them to sell themselves as a product.
StuckEddie those Americans are struggling so kick that they pay for tickets and merchandise and cable subscriptions and then they buy the beer and trucks that are advertised on the game broadcasts. Those things create profit for the NBA and the players have a contract that requires the league to share those profits with the players. Your argument is for the billionaires to get richer. That is a more American idea than you probably wanted.