With the constant increase in its income, the NBA has automatically passed on this trend to the “salary cap” which, at the start of the next school year, will allow franchises to to do with a payroll of 136 million dollarsagainst less than 124 million this season.
While we did not necessarily expect to reach the maximum increase of 10%, this additional budget of 12 million dollars is good news for a lot of teams who want to keep some of their major players, and who were afraid of not being able to do it precisely for financial reasons (one thinks of Toronto with Fred VanVleet and Jakob Poeltl for example).
The highest earners automatically benefit from this increase
This also means that players who have signed a “super max” contract, such as Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, will automatically earn a little more in the process (respectively 4 and 3 million more). Same bonus for the young stars of the 2019 Draft, like Ja Morant, Zion Williamson or Darius Garland, who signed a max contract last summer.
At the same time, the “luxury tax” is also projected to rise, rising from 162 to 165 million dollars, for the franchises which are therefore the most expensive. In this case, according to Bobby Marks from ESPN, the Warriors will save 20 million thanks to this readjustment of the salary cap.
