The NBA salary cap is going up next season, but not nearly as much as had been projected just a couple of seasons ago. That could lead to decreased player movement in future years because teams are not going to have the cap space they thought.
The NBA has sent a memo to teams that lowers the projected salary cap next year to $101 million, down from previous projections (it is up still from the $94.1 million this season), something reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
Sources: The NBA has delivered teams a new salary cap projection for the 2017-18 season: $101M. The cap is $94.1M this season.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 7, 2017
Sources: The tax level is projected to rise from $113M this season to $121M in 2017-18.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 7, 2017
That is $1 million less than the last projection teams got, and that number has steadily fallen from the $107 million projected a couple of years ago. The reason for the decrease primarily is that teams spent last summer — it was projected that NBA teams would not meet the minimum spending goals in the CBA because the cap spiked by 35 percent last summer, and that shortfall would lead to a higher cap. But holy Timofey Mozgov Batman, teams went on a spending spree. That has dropped the projection.
The projection for the 2018-19 season is almost flat with next season. What that means is teams projecting they want to target free agents in a couple of years are going to have to really manage their cap because they are not being gifted a big bump in cap space.