Salary Cap Numbers/MLE/LLE/LT

Supposely the Cap is gonna be around 52.5M, Tax at $63M, the MLE anywhere between 5M-5.5M and the LLE(which we dont have) around 1.75M

 

I need clarification on rules considering signing players and cap space..

Is it set in stone if you are over the cap you CANNOT sign any players ( meaning the NBA will now allow you )?????

Unless you have the MLE or TE or LE??? Let's say you didnt have any of those 3 and you were allready over the cap... Can you sign a player without trading anybody from your roster and you had roster space.. ( God I hope that covers questions that will be asked of my question LOL )

 

every team that's over the cap has the MLE available to them, every year. LLE is once every 2 years and TPE's (traded player exceptions) are a result of certain trades.

 

No matter what your cap status, you are always allowed to sign players for the league minimum (which is baed on their experience level).

 

Ok so lets say we have the MLE and were over the cap.. Can we sign Al Harrington??? Even though he cost more than the MLE.. Say Les will pay whatever Luxory Tax Threshhold there is. IE.. Dallas,NY, etc..

 

No I dont think so. Dallas and NY are way over the cap because of trades and re-signing their own free agents with their rights. Not sure though........

 

I would refer you to Larry Coon's NBA Salary Cap FAQ, but more likely, you'd rather get a quick and short answer.

Anyway, the posters before me got it correct; you may not exceed the salary cap in order to sign the free agents of other teams.

I'll use Houston's situation as an example:

We currently have a Mid-Level Exception, and Two Trade exceptions of approximately $1.7 Million and $4.2 Million. We may sign any free agent to a contract at the minimum, regardless of whether we're far over the salary cap, or if the minimum salary of the said player is rather large (Note that everyone's favorite player, Ryan Bowen, is actually making the minimum salary for a 7 year veteran, despite being paid almost $1 Million this year.)

If we hold the full rights of our own restricted free agents, currently only Keith Bogans, we may exceed the cap by as much as we desire to resign him, and hold the right of first refusal, enabling us to match any offer he receives from another team.

We may also sign any of our own veteran free agents to contracts at the greater of 120% of their previous salary, or 120% of the minimum salary without requiring any exceptions. For example, say if we liked Richie Frahm enough to want to give him a 3 year deal. If we were to only sign him for the minimum, the maximum contract length we'd be able to offer would be 2 years. Using the Non-Bird exception would allow us to sign him for up to 5 years at 120% of the league minimum.

The Mid-Level Exception was based on the average player salary, though it seemed to have shifted to a flat $5 Million last year, with a prediction of $5.4 Million this year. It is gained every year, and may be used to sign one's own Early-Bird Free Agents, as well as Restricted and Unrestricted Free Agents of other teams. It may be split up among as many free agents as the team desires.

The Trade exceptions may not be used to sign free agents outright. They may be used to match salaries in a sign-and-trade, with some compensation going to the team that lost the free agent. The trade exceptions may not be aggregated, whether with players or each other. We can't trade Juwan Howard's $6.3 Million along with our $4.2 Million Trade exception to receive a player with a value of $10.5 Million. Beyond simple "player-for-draft pick" trades, using these exceptions gets pretty complicated, and they usually involve the use of simultaneous and non-simultaneous trades, so I suggest not thinking about them too hard (and if you think that Houston's management is too stupid to do such a thing, know that their last two multi-player trades were both of such a sort: Tracy McGrady and Mike James (from Milwaukee)).

Other than the exceptions I listed above, Houston is not allowed to exceed the salary cap (not even for Steve Novak or Vassilis Spanoulis, despite having their draft rights). Big Luxury Tax spenders such as New York, Philadelphia and Dallas are the victims of trading away expiring contracts for large, multi-year deals (Steve Francis, Jalen Rose, Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury, Maurice Taylor, Jamal Crawford, Malik Rose), facilitating sign and trades to add large contracts (Eric Dampier, Jamal Crawford, Eddy Curry), and having exceptionally large contracts in general, which quickly get out of control due to the annual 12.5/10.5% raises (Stephon Marbury, Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Samuel Dalembert).

However, all of these teams did obey the salary cap; often, high salaried teams will overpay to keep their own free-agents (Philadelphia, anyone?), then when they trade them, they must take on more salary. The Luxury Tax is not a fee that teams pay in order that they are allowed to illegally exceed the salary cap; it is a penalty for teams who constantly add payroll through foolish contract extensions and taking on salary in order to gain in net talent. The Luxury Tax is not a hard cap; it is a threshold where after it has been crossed, penalties occur. The Salary Cap is a soft cap that generally allows teams to add one significant player through the MLE every year, and generally allows teams to keep their own players at any cost.

Hope this helps; it certainly seemed a lot better thought out while I was writing it...

 

Because Lebron isn't dumb enough to do that.

To answer seriously, you can do stuff like that, if I remember correctly we did something similar with Mo Taylor, we signed him for a year cheap then gave him a bigger contract when we had cap space. Also, I think there's limits on how much of a raise a player can get if they've only played for you one year, so you couldn't jump from 1 million to 15 million unless you have the cap space to do so. I'm no expert on salary stuff so please correct me if I'm wrong about something.

 

In order to sign a player for more than the MLE (e.g. Harrington) you have to be UNDER the cap by at least the value of the first year of the contract.

 

According to RealGM, the salary numbers are the following:

Salary Cap: $53.135 mil
Luxury Tax Threshold: $65.42 mil
Mid-Level Exception: $5.215 mil

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/41440/20060711/nba_sets_salary_cap_at_$53135_million/

 

NBA Salary Cap for 2006-07 Season Set at $53.135 Million
The National Basketball Association today announced that the Salary Cap for the 2006-07 season will be $53.135 million. The new Cap goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday, July 12, when the league’s “moratorium period” ends and teams can begin signing free agents and making trades.