So much for the NBA’s second epic salary-cap spike.
When projections for the 2017-18 cap first came out, people were shocked at how low they were. All season, they’ve hovered around $102 to $103 million, less than $10 million above this year’s ceiling. Make no mistake, it’s still a sizable increase. But many were expecting it to be higher in light of the league’s $9 billion TV deal.
As it turns out, it might get even lower, according to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
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 $1 million isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. But the $121 million luxury-tax threshold is around $4 million lower than the original forecast. That stands to be a huge deal to a bunch of squads.
These projections never seem to be exact. The number always seems to go up right before free agency. Maybe that’s what happens here. But the predictions have been lowered twice now. There’s always the possibility they keep falling.
There will still be those who are planning as if the cap will hit $105 million, but what if it, somehow, dips below $100 million? All of a sudden you’re talking about a larger swing.
Either way, unless the latest is way off, we’ve probably reached the end of the player-contract bubble. Salaries will increase in size and scale, but we shouldn’t be seeing as many blatant overpays. Expensive deals from the last two summers will now start to catch up with the issuers, and that should force squads into a state caution.
