After an initial projection of $107 million, that has already been lowered to $101 million, the salary cap is now officially projected to land at $99 million for the 2017-18 season.
This is bad news for NBA teams that are attempting to add a max-level player or avoid the luxury tax this upcoming season.
Teams have been informed the NBA expects the salary cap to go down from latest projections, per league source. $99 million the new number.
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) June 22, 2017
This is a direct result of the shortened NBA postseason, of which there were only 79 games in total. It was also the lowest number of NBA Playoff games in 15 years which greatly hampered the NBA’s ability to make a lot of their gate sales and TV revenue for more playoff games.
Kind of ironic that the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers domination in this playoffs can end up hampering their ability to maintain their rosters and make it harder for other teams to add to their rosters to compete with them simultaneously.
Here is the new breakdown of max contract levels for players this off-season:
New max contract projections
0-6 years experience
$144M over five years
$106M over four years7-9
$172M
$128M10+
$201M
$149M— Dan Feldman (@DanFeldmanNBA) June 22, 2017
This lowered cap is making teams who spent too much “funny money” on average or injury-riddled players last summer like Memphis’ Chandler Parsons ($24 million per season), Portalnd’s Evan Turner ($18.5 million) and Washington’s Ian Mahinmi ($16 million) feel even more foolish and concerned with their cap restraints.
You can expect teams to be a little more cautious with their cap space this summer.
