2019 NBA Offseason Salary Cap Digest: Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks were viewed by prognosticators as perhaps the NBA’s worst team entering the 2018/19 season, and while they still didn’t crack the 30-win mark, they exceeded their modest expectations and flashed some intriguing long-term potential. With a handful of core pieces already in place, Atlanta has the draft assets and the cap flexibility to keep adding more this offseason.

Here’s where things currently stand for the Hawks financially, as we continue our Offseason Salary Cap Digest series for 2019:

Guaranteed Salary

Player Options

  • None

Team Options

  • None

Non-Guaranteed Salary

  • Deyonta Davis ($1,645,357)
  • Jaylen Adams ($1,316,852) 1
  • Total: $2,962,209

Restricted Free Agents

Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds

Projected Salary Cap: $109,000,000
Projected Tax Line: $132,000,000

Offseason Cap Outlook

  • Realistic cap room projection: $43.4MM
  • The Hawks have nine players on fully guaranteed contracts for 2019/20. If they simply keep those players plus both of their first-round picks, then renounce or waive the rest of their players, this would be their cap room projection. That’s not an unrealistic scenario, since none of Atlanta’s free agents are players the team must re-sign.

Cap Exceptions Available

  • Trade exception: $1,378,242 (expires 2/7/20) 3
  • Room exception: $4,760,000 4

Footnotes

  1. Adams’ salary becomes fully guaranteed after July 19.
  2. The salaries for two-way players don’t count against a team’s cap, but their cap holds do during the offseason.
  3. The Hawks will lose this exception if they go under the cap to use room.
  4. This is a projected value. In the unlikely event that the Hawks remain over the cap, they’d instead gain access to the mid-level exception ($9,246,000) and bi-annual exception ($3,619,000).

Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are estimates based on salary cap projections and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders and RealGM was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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