Salary Cap, Tax Line Set For 2023/24 NBA Season

The NBA has officially set the salary cap for its 2023/24 season. As forecasted earlier this week, the cap increased by a full 10% on last season’s $123,655,000 figure.

Here are the details, largely courtesy of a league press release:

• Salary cap: $136,021,000
• Luxury tax line: $165,294,000
• First tax apron: $172,346,000
• Second tax apron: $182,794,000
• Minimum salary floor: $122,418,000
• Non-taxpayer mid-level exception: $12,405,000
• Taxpayer mid-level exception: $5,000,000
• Room exception: $7,723,000
• Bi-annual exception: $4,516,000
• Maximum salaries:
  • 6 years or fewer: $34,005,250
  • 7-9 years: $40,806,300
  • 10+ years: $47,607,350
• Early Bird exception: $12,015,150
• Estimated average salary: $11,958,000
• Trade cash limit: $7,005,000

The first tax apron for the 2023/24 league year will be the hard cap for any team that acquires a player via sign-and-trade, signs a player using more than the taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception, signs a player using a bi-annual exception, or acquires more than 110% of the outgoing salary in a trade.

The second tax apron is the hard cap for a team that uses the taxpayer mid-level exception.

The salary floor is the minimum amount a team must pay its players in 2023/24. A team that doesn’t spend up to that amount by the start of the regular season will pay the shortfall to the NBA and will only be eligible for 50% of its full share of the luxury tax distribution at season’s end.

The Early Bird amount – which was confirmed to Hoops Rumors by Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype – is the maximum amount a team can offer a player it intends to re-sign using his Early Bird rights. Pelicans forward Herbert Jones has already agreed to an Early Bird deal.

Players earning below the estimated average salary this season who are eligible for a veteran extension can receive a starting salary of up to 140% of the estimated average salary on a new deal. So the maximum starting salary for a player earning below the league average who signs an extension that begins in 2024/25 will be $16,741,200.

The trade cash limit is the maximum amount of money a team can send or receive during the 2023/24 league year. The sent and received categories are separate, so if a team sends out $7,005,000 in one trade and receives $7,005,000 in another, they aren’t back at square one — they’ve reached both limits.

We have separate stories breaking the full year-by-year figures for this year’s maximum salaries, minimum salaries, and mid-level and bi-annual exceptions.