With the salary cap set for the new league year, the NBA has finalized its luxury-tax calculations for the 2015/16 season, and the champion Cavaliers will be on the hook for a hefty bill. According to ESPN’s Marc Stein, owner Dan Gilbert and the Cavs, having spent well beyond the luxury-tax threshold last season, owe a tax payment of $54MM.
Here’s the complete list of taxpaying teams for the 2015/16 season, per Stein:
- Cleveland Cavaliers: $54MM
- Los Angeles Clippers: $19.9MM
- Golden State Warriors: $14.8MM
- Oklahoma City Thunder $14.5MM
- Houston Rockets: $4.9MM
- San Antonio Spurs: $4.9MM
- Chicago Bulls: $4.2MM
The tax payments owed by those seven teams total nearly $120MM, and according to Stein, half of that money will be used to fund the NBA’s revenue-sharing program. The other half will be split up equally among the league’s 23 non-taxpaying teams, with each franchise receiving about $2.5MM.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Trail Blazers and Magic were the only teams to fall short of the $63MM floor, per Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). They’ll have to make up the difference by cutting checks to the players who finished the season on their respective rosters.
What they do with the money is so stupid. I’ve always wondered what they did with that money and joked that they have a large pizza party at the end of the year. But they just split it amongst themselves. Like donate to charity or use it to further enhance the wnba or refurbish some worn down basketball courts.
Lol sports owners are so greedy there’s no way they would do any good with the money but I love the idea of fixing the courts or the WNBA (no that I care about the WNBA)
Nothing wrong with the WNBA. There’s some serious talent there. Too bad they don’t get as much exposure
I’m not saying there’s not I just don’t care for it there’s just no hype so it’s hard to get invested in it
That’s a really good idea. As proven by the absurd contracts being issued this offseason, $2.5M is nothing to a NBA team. If they had to use half that money to building basketball courts in their region, it could help provide a pipeline for long-term viability. Plus the amount of goodwill exposure would be priceless.
Love the idea of them building courts to give back… I have a place in my back yard they can start.