The NBA has officially set the salary cap for its 2024/25 season. The cap has come in at $140,588,000, slightly below the most recent projection of $141MM. It represents an increase of about 3.36% on last season’s $136,021,000 cap.
Here are the details, courtesy of a league press release and Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report (Twitter link):
- Salary cap: $140,588,000
- Luxury tax line: $170,814,000
- First tax apron: $178,132,000
- Second tax apron: $188,931,000
- Minimum salary floor: $126,529,000
- Non-taxpayer mid-level exception: $12,822,000
- Taxpayer mid-level exception: $5,168,000
- Room exception: $7,983,000
- Bi-annual exception: $4,668,000
- Maximum salaries:
- 6 years or fewer: $35,147,000
- 7-9 years: $42,176,400
- 10+ years: $49,205,800
- Early Bird exception: $12,991,650
- Estimated average salary: $12,930,000
- Maximum Exhibit 10 bonus: $77,500
The first tax apron for the 2024/25 league year ($178,132,000) 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 or acquires a player using a bi-annual exception, uses any portion of its mid-level exception to add a player via trade or waiver claim, acquires more than 100% of the outgoing salary in a trade, or uses a trade exception generated prior to the start of the 2024 offseason.
The second tax apron ($188,931,000) represents the hard cap for a team that uses any portion of the mid-level exception, aggregates two or more player salaries in a trade, sends out cash in a trade, or uses a signed-and-traded player to take back salary.
The salary floor ($126,529,000) is the minimum amount a team must pay its players in 2024/25. 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 won’t be eligible for its full share of the luxury tax distribution at season’s end.
The Early Bird amount represents the maximum starting salary a team can offer a player it intends to re-sign using his Early Bird rights, assuming that amount is greater than 175% of his previous salary.
Players earning below the estimated average salary in 2024/25 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 2025/26 will be $18,102,000.
The NBA’s cap increased by the maximum allowable 10% in each of the past two offseasons and is expected to do so again in 2025 as the league’s new media rights deal takes effect, so this year represents an outlier, creating more challenges circumstances for teams navigating the cap and the aprons. The NBA officially issued a $154,647,000 cap projection for 2025/26 today, Pincus confirms (Twitter link).