Salary Cap

The NBA has informed teams that it expects the 2018/19 salary cap to be $101MM, Shams Charania of The Vertical tweets. The league also said that they forecast the 2019/20 figure to be $108MM, although both figures are subject to change.

The modest $2MM increase is a stark contrast from what teams around the league have seen over the course of the past two years. From 2015/16 the cap jumped from $70MM to $94MM and then the next year it bumped up another $5MM to the $99MM mark it sits at for the 2017/18 season.

A 2018/19 cap projection of $101MM falls short of the $108MM prior projection the league forecast back during the summer of 2016, but after the final 2017/18 figure came in $2MM below projections, it’s not all that surprising.

During the summer we wrote that the league lowered its 2017/18 projection on the heels of lower than expected playoff revenue and it’s possible we’re still seeing the impact of that.

Given the latest projections, the salary floor for the 2018/19 season would be roughly $91MM.

The NBA has formally set the 2017/18 salary cap at $99.093MM, Shams Charania of The Vertical writes. That figure lands ever so slightly above the most recent projections. The luxury tax threshold, according to a league memo, will be $119.266MM, while the salary floor will be $89.184MM.

In addition to setting this year’s salary cap and tax line, the NBA also issued projections for the next two league years. Here are those estimations, per Albert Nahmad (Twitter link):

• 2018/19: $102MM salary cap, $123MM tax line
• 2019/20: $108MM salary cap, $131MM tax line

The NBA’s minimum salaries and mid-level and bi-annual exception figures had already been set for the 2017/18 season, so today’s cap announcement won’t change those. However, the maximum salaries for ’17/18 will be a little higher than our most recent projections. Here are the starting salaries for max contracts:

• Players with six years of experience or less: $24,773,250
• Players with 7-9 years of experience: $29,727,900
• Players with 10+ years of experience: $34,682,550

Here are the total values for a player re-signing with his own team for a five-year max contract with 8% annual raises:

• Players with six years of experience or less: $143,684,850
• Players with 7-9 years of experience: $172,421,820
• Players with 10+ years of experience: $201,158,790

Here are the total values for a player signing with a new team for a four-year max contract with 5% annual raises:

• Players with six years of experience or less: $106,524,975
• Players with 7-9 years of experience: $127,829,970
• Players with 10+ years of experience: $149,134,965

The NBA has informed teams that the salary cap for the 2017/18 season is expected to come in at $99MM, according to Jay King of MassLive.com (Twitter link). The luxury tax line would be at $119MM, per Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report (Twitter link).

Although that’s still a solid increase over this year’s $94.143MM cap, it’s down from the most recent projection supplied by the league in early April. At that time, the NBA projected a $101MM cap, so teams have likely had that figure in mind as they make their preparations for the draft and free agency.

The reduced salary cap projection won’t exactly blow up any teams’ offseason plans, but it could make things more challenging for teams looking to open up cap space for a marquee free agent — clubs may have to clear an extra $2MM in order to make room for a maximum salary contract, though max salaries would be slightly smaller than anticipated as well.

At one point, the salary cap for 2017/18 was expected to climb to $108MM, but the NBA’s projections have gradually gotten more modest within the last year. Larger-than-anticipated free agent spending in 2016 contributed to that decline, and the fact that the 2017 postseason featured fewer games than usual played a part as well.

The NBA will formally announce the salary cap for 2017/18 by the start of July, so nothing is official yet.

This year’s NBA playoffs could set a record for fewest games since the current format was adopted in 2003, tweets salary cap expert Albert Nahmad.

If the Warriors or Cavaliers sweep the Finals, that will result in 78 games, which would be the lowest total since the first-round was expanded to best-of-seven. Even if the Finals go to seven games, 81 would be tied for the second-fewest.

The reduction in games means less revenue from gate receipts, which could cause next season’s salary cap to fall below its current projection of $101MM, according to RealGM.

The Warriors have notched the highest gate receipts of any playoff team over the past three years. However, they swept their way into the Finals and have played just six home games so far, compared to 10 at the same point last season. Their Finals opponents, the Cavaliers, are 12-1 and have also played just six games at home.

There have been just two seven-game series so far, with the Clippers and Jazz going the distance in the first round and the Celtics and Wizards doing the same in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The NBA released its cap projection of $101MM in April. The official figure will be calculated in July.

The NBA’s latest salary cap projection for the 2017/18 season is now $101MM, sources told Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical. That’s an increase of nearly $7MM over this season’s cap of $94.1MM but lower than previous projections. The tax level is projected to rise $8MM to $121MM next season, Wojnarowski adds. (Twitter links).

This is a slight drop from the projections that Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reported in February. Pincus’ report projected a 2017/18 cap of $102MM with a tax threshold of $122MM. Previous projections had the cap for 2017/18 as high as $108MM, according to RealGM.com.

The somewhat modest increase in the projected cap means that teams will have a little less freedom to throw money around, compared to the free agent spending spree last summer. Players will still make substantial more money than just a couple of seasons ago. The cap was $70MM last season and hovered between $53.1MM in 2006/07 to $63MM in 2014/15.

The National Basketball Players’ Association has informed agents that the league salary cap is projected to increase to $120MM in 2020, sources tell Shams Charania of The Vertical. The NBA’s most recent evaluation of the 2020 cap suggested a rise to $118MM is likely, per Charania.

NBA salary cap projections can fluctuate significantly, particularly when figures are being calculated for several years in the future. Still, the most recent estimates from the league and the players’ union – in the wake of a tentative agreement on a new CBA – suggest that the cap is on track to increase substantially over the next several years. The 2016/17 cap is just over $94MM, with a $103MM figure projected for 2017/18.

When the NBA projected its cap for future seasons back in July, its estimate for the 2020/21 campaign was more modest. At the time, the league anticipated a $114MM cap, with a $139MM luxury tax threshold. According to Charania, the projected tax line for a $120MM cap in ’20/21 would be about $143MM.

As Charania details, a $120MM cap would result in maximum salaries of $42MM for top-tier players (35% of the cap), $36MM for the second tier (30%), and $30MM for the third tier (25%). Additionally, under the new CBA, minimum salaries, rookie salaries, and mid-level exceptions will be tied to the salary cap – rather than getting fixed annual increases – so those figures are all on track to increase significantly as well.

While it’s too far away to know exactly which teams will benefit from the increasing cap projections, it’s safe to say that teams with multiple stars, such as the Warriors, will have a better chance to keep their rosters together and avoid going deep into the luxury tax if the cap continues to grow rapidly.