Sometimes projections are off. In this case, the projections came in a tad high.
The NBA projected its salary cap to come in at $141 million for the 2024-25 NBA season. Instead, the salary cap — calculated as a percentage of league revenue from the previous season — will be $140.588 million, the NBA announced Sunday afternoon.
Roughly $400,000 short of the projections.
This matters for a few teams, with Knicks possibly being the one impacted the most. Not only does the salary cap fall short of its projection, but as a result, so does every other salary cap-related number:
- The luxury tax line is now $170.814 million
- The first apron is now $178.132 million
- And the second apron, initially projected at $189.5 million, is now $188.9 million, more than half-a-million short of expectations
Which means $600,000 less at the Knicks’ disposal to build out a roster on a maxed-out payroll — provided the roster as-is is the one they take into the season.
After trading six draft picks plus Bojan Bogdanovic to the Nets to land Mikal Bridges, the Knicks are in salary cap purgatory.
They must now expand the Bridges trade to send at least another $4 million in outgoing salary, otherwise they will be hard-capped at the first apron — $178 million — for taking back more salary than they send out in a trade.
And if and when they do send out additional salary, they will instead be hard-capped at the second apron, which just had a slight reduction from its expected value to its actual value.
For the Knicks, every dollar and cent matters in building this roster.
That’s because New York already has $164.1 million on the payroll for the 2024-25 NBA season — and that figure doesn’t include rookie scale contracts for No. 25 overall pick Pacome Dadiet, whose cap hit is $2.7 million his rookie year, and No. 34 pick Tyler Kolek, who is projected to earn $1.2 million his rookie season.
Identifying the player to use to expand the Bridges trade, however, is not easy and is likely what is taking so long for the deal to reach completion.
The Knicks are uninterested in trading Miles McBride, whose $4.7 million salary alone could complete the deal on its own, but whose departure — particularly for no player in return — would cost the Knicks quality 3-and-D back court option off the bench on a team-friendly contract.
The collective bargaining agreement also prevents the Knicks from stacking minimum contracts in a trade any time outside of the window between Dec. 15 and the February NBA trade deadline. In related news, the Knicks reportedly declined the team option on DaQuan Jeffries and waived Mamadi Diakite well before his contract guarantee date.
They also picked up the team option on reserve center Jericho Sims.
Which means to create $4 million more in outgoing salary as part of the Bridges trade without moving McBride, and without moving any of the Villanova Knicks (Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart or Donte DiVincenzo), New York would need to either move Julius Randle or Mitchell Robinson — or sign Dadiet to his rookie scale contract then trade him with Sims to a team with cap space in exchange for no incoming salary to reach $4 million.
This is the hand the Knicks have been dealt. Their chip count is $600,000 less than projections initially suggested, presuming they find a way to adjust the Bridges trade accordingly, they are still sitting at the championship stakes table.
