National Basteball Association salary cap to be $70 million in 2015

The NBA’s salary cap will rise to $70million for the 2015-16 season – an increase of $2.9m from a year ago, the league announced on Wednesday.

The salary cap comes in significantly higher than estimated for the 2015-16 season, though it should have no effect on the Wolves.

The significant increase in the salary cap will impact max contracts as well as luxury tax payments. As it turned out, even that was conservative.

The luxury-tax threshold will be $84.74 million, more than $3 million above the projected level of $81.6 million, sources said. In the meantime, almost every key free agent has reportedly agreed to a deal during the period known as the moratorium.

In addition, two teams – the Orlando Magic and Denver Nuggets – failed to meet the minimum 90 percent payroll last season.

This means that they can comfortably use their trade exceptions should an opportunity arise prior to their expiration, but I wouldn’t expect them to be used. When this happens, the league sends the players’ association a check for the difference – the $57.3 million is then distributed to the players – and one-thirtieth of the shortfall is added to the cap in the next season.

The cap is expected to make a huge jump to over $90 million in 2016-17 after the league’s new TV deal kicks in.