The NBA salary cap is jumping up about $7 million next season — right in line with the league office’s prediction models.
Just as a reminder, the salary cap is set based on the players’ share of the NBA’s basketball revenue split (essentially 50/50 with the teams, although it can fluctuate from 49 percent up to 51 percent depending on a variety of factors). The NBA league office works to project those future numbers for teams, and they had told teams around the start of the season to expect a $109 million salary cap and $132 million luxury tax line for next season. That is what is coming, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic.
The NBA has informed its teams of updated projected salary cap and tax level that is unchanged in 2019-20 ($109M/$132M) — and $2M lower in 2020-21 ($116M/$141M), sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 5, 2019
For comparison, this season the cap is at $101.9 million, with the luxury tax is at $123.7 million.
Teams are going to use that extra cap space — around 40 percent of the league’s players will or can or will be free agents. While we focus on the max salary guys — Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, etc. — there are a lot of other rotation and role players available that will reshape rosters and change fortunes for teams. It’s going to be a wild off-season.