Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[Ghost of Podkolzin]

Wishful. But your math (or understanding of how NBA cap and payroll works) is way off.

If the cap is $200M, the other payment levels increase too. Each supermax (35%) will be $70M, for a total of $140M for 2. You may think $60M for the rest of the team would be sufficient, but each MLE-sized deal then will cost $18.25M each. Each veteran minimum will be $3M or more.

If we just talk about splitting the 200M cap on 2 supermaxes, plus as many MLE guys as possible, it looks like this:

supermax  70
supermax 70
MLE 18.25
under MLE  11.75
10 minimums 30

The 200M wouldn't begin to scratch the surface, so you'd work over the cap to try to add talent. But the point is that ALL the contract levels go way up when the cap goes up, at the same pace. Going on up to the tax line, you can spend more, and amend the above to make the "under MLE" into a full MLE, and add 2 more MLE's -- and just that fast, you're out of money.

Your roster? Supermax (2), MLE [today's $12-13M players you mentioned] (4), minimums (8).

That's scary indeed.