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.
How can you say it’s down when it went up nearly $5m. Just bc it was projected at $101 but actually only went up to $99 from $94 it still went up. “Up” is the key word “down” would have been less then what it really was at $94. Example let’s say it ended up at $93 now that would be considered down. You can’t say it’s down bc it didn’t go up to a projected number. $99 is a real number which is higher then $94 so it went up. Lol there
The cap will be up, yes. The projection is down.
Yes, you are correct, that is how numbers work. However, reading the article just a little bit should clarify that easily enough. I suppose a less confusing headline would be “Projected salary cap increase is only 5MM; less than prior expectation”
The playoffs this year cost them legit revenue