The NBA salary cap is somewhat malleable, with various exceptions allowing every team to surpass the $112,414,000 threshold once their cap room is used up. In some cases, teams blow past not only the cap limit, but the luxury-tax line of $136,606,000 as well — the Nets and Warriors, for instance, project to have nine-figure tax bills this season as a result of their spending.
The NBA doesn’t have a “hard cap” by default, which allows clubs like Brooklyn and Golden State to build a significant payroll without violating CBA rules. However, there are certain scenarios in which teams can be hard-capped, as we explain in a glossary entry.
When a club uses the bi-annual exception, acquires a player via sign-and-trade, or uses more than the taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception (three years, starting at $5,890,000), that club will face a hard cap for the remainder of the league year.
When a team becomes hard-capped, it cannot exceed the “tax apron” at any point during the rest of the league year. The tax apron for 2021/22 was set at $143,002,000.
So far, over a third of the teams in the NBA have been willing to hard-cap themselves this offseason. Some teams will have to be aware of that hard cap when they consider any roster move for the rest of the season, but for others it’s just a technicality that won’t affect their plans.
Listed below are the hard-capped teams for the 2021/22 league year, along with how they created a hard cap.
Chicago Bulls
- Acquired Lonzo Ball from Pelicans via sign-and-trade.
- Acquired DeMar DeRozan from Spurs via sign-and-trade.
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Alex Caruso.
Cleveland Cavaliers
- Acquired Lauri Markkanen from Bulls via sign-and-trade.
Dallas Mavericks
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Reggie Bullock.
- Used bi-annual exception on Sterling Brown.
Houston Rockets
- Acquired Daniel Theis from Bulls via sign-and-trade.
Miami Heat
- Acquired Kyle Lowry from Raptors via sign-and-trade.
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on P.J. Tucker.
New Orleans Pelicans
- Acquired Devonte’ Graham from Hornets via sign-and-trade.
- Acquired Garrett Temple from Bulls via sign-and-trade.
New York Knicks
- Acquired Evan Fournier from Celtics via sign-and-trade.
Oklahoma City Thunder
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.
San Antonio Spurs
- Acquired Doug McDermott from Pacers via sign-and-trade.
Toronto Raptors
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Khem Birch.
Washington Wizards
- Acquired Spencer Dinwiddie from Nets via sign-and-trade.
- Used non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Isaiah Todd.
This list, which could continue to grow, will continue to be updated throughout the 2021/22 league year as necessary. It can be found anytime in the “Hoops Rumors Features” menu on the right-hand sidebar of our desktop site, or in the “Features” menu on our mobile site.
So if a team is hard-capped they’re essentially barred from adding *any* salary?
ie. Can’t even sign BO guys on a vet min?
If the signing would take them past the hard cap threshold, then yeah, they can’t do it.
In past years there have been teams that literally couldn’t carry a 15th man because they were so close to the hard cap, but it doesn’t look like any teams will be that hamstrung this season.
So, a hard-capped team would need to leave about a million under the apron to fill any open roster spot with a standard rookie minimum contract. I see that the minimum standard salary is $925,000 this year. Two-way contracts don’t count against the cap, so I could see why a team would try to make do with the 14 roster spots and the 2 two-ways if there’s no requirement to fill the 15th spot.
You say there are various & sundry exceptions to this capping agreement. So the question for me is total payroll for each team. Then, say breaking out the yearly total for players, coaches & total staff.
My sense is that the Lakers & Nets have the highest payrolls.
It seems to me like there is an easier way for the league to address the salary cap than the current format.
How do the slightly-over minimum deals for Todd and Robinson-Earl trigger the hard cap? I know they are done with the MLE and neither team is paying the tax, but both contracts have to be under $5.89m.
Both are for four years instead of three. Can’t do that with the taxpayer MLE.
I thought that would have something to do with it. So regardless of the dollar figure, a four-year contract must be from the NTMLE, even if the salaries are minimums?
Exactly. For second-round picks, you can’t go up to four years with anything besides the NTMLE or cap space (as the Hornets did with JT Thor).
So when people say that the hard tax is invoked by using more (salary) than the NTMLE, that’s not entirely correct, is it?
It’s correct, it’s just incomplete (and I’ve probably been guilty of that wording at times too). It’s more accurate to say the hard tax is invoked when a team uses its MLE in a way that exceeds what the taxpayer MLE would allow, whether that’s dollars OR years.
It all makes sense now. Thanks for enlightening me.
And once a team becomes hard-capped by acquiring a player via S&T they can use as much of the NT-MLE on deals up to 4 years as the need to since they’re already hard-capped. Same goes for the bi-annual exception (but only for 1 or 2-year deals), assuming they didn’t use it the previous year.