Are you ready for the wild, wild West of free agency in 2016 and 2017.
Super Bowl Media Day will seem less chaotic in comparison.
Once the NBA players’ union shot down the idea of smoothing in the massive influx of money from the new NBA television deal, we knew the cap would spike. Now we get an idea — $22 million in 2016, and it’s only going to keep climbing from there. The brilliant Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com — if you’re not following him in the run up to the draft you’re doing it wrong — has the details.
New salary cap projections sent out to NBA teams: 2015-16: 67.1 million, tax 81.6, 2016-17: 89 million, tax 108. 2017-18: 108, 127 tax
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) April 17, 2015
Further projections sent out: 2018-19: 100 million salary cap, 121 tax , 2019-20: 102 salary cap, 124 tax, 2020-2021:107 salary cap, 130 tax
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) April 17, 2015
This has so many impacts. This summer, even though the cap is only going up a few million, you’ll see teams dish out some large contracts — think Khris Middleton — who might not normally get that much, but because a max contract under this cap will not look so bad in two years teams will do it. Call it a market max deal.
On the other side, players are not going to want to sign four-year deals when they see how much more cash will be on the table in two years.
Meanwhile, teams that didn’t manage their money all that well will have cap space to chase free agents. Teams hoarding cap space will be able to go after multiple max players at a time — and there are a lot of teams in that category.
Chaos. It’s going to be Chaos.