The NBA has provided teams with an updated salary cap projection for the 2025/26 season, reports Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).
According to Marks, the NBA’s latest projection remains exactly in line with its estimate from last summer. The league is still calling for a 10% cap increase for ’25/26, which is the maximum increase permitted in any single season under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This season’s salary cap line is $140,588,000, so the projection for next season remains at $154,647,000. That’s the figure we’ve used to project minimum salaries, maximum salaries, and mid-level and bi-annual amounts for 2025/26.
As Marks details, a 10% cap increase would also cause the luxury tax line and the first and second tax aprons to rise by the same amount. They would be as follows:
- Luxury tax: $187.9MM
- First apron: $195.9MM
- Second apron: $207.8MM
The 2024/25 season represents the first year in which all of the new apron-related restrictions have been in place. Navigating those aprons has proven to be a challenge for many teams, in large part because the cap only rose by about 3.4% last offseason, as Marks observes (via Twitter).
A 10% increase in 2025 – and perhaps in the next couple seasons after that, aided by the league’s lucrative new media rights deal – will help push those apron numbers higher, creating a more manageable landscape for teams going forward.
Next Season Assumptions – both teams keep all superstars
76ers – play-in team
Suns – play-in team
How about this trade?
76ers get Durant and Beal ( $108 million next season)
Suns get Embiid and George ($107 million next season)
Need more trades to make it work
This is horrendous. I’ve never seen a worse mock in my life, where did you get this from, 2k? In what world would the Suns do this? Assuming they don’t make a somewhat decent run and give the FO a reason to keep KD, why would they want two injury riddled (one who’s career may be over) and old players? This would only set us back further.
To add, the Suns are hot. We have a 4 game win streak, including a win against the Cavs (missing Grayson and Nick) and the Bucks. We are pushing the 9th seed, and 13-3 this year without Brad. In my opinion, KD stays regardless of the playoffs. 36 has lots of potential as a duo, they’ve shown it not only this year (as I said, 13-3 which is on pace for roughly 50+ wins minimum) but in the 2023 playoffs, where we took 2 (the most out of any team) from the Champs (nuggets) without a PG, C, or depth. Beal is gone, and we retool around 36. Assuming we can trade Beal and get a few more depth pieces, we will easily be a top 6 seed, maybe even top 6 in the league.
Is ’36 the year when the Suns will.have potential again? As in 2036?
Suns are a second apron team and therefore unable to aggregate salaries in a trade