The Sixers could open up to about $65M in cap space this off-season. If they were to sign or acquire a max player into this cap space, they would have about $17M in cap to fill out the roster. However, their exception could offer significantly more flexibility.
A Liberty Ballers article suggests that as a cap space team, the Sixers be limited to the $8M room exception. However, Maxeys extension will put them over the cap. If they use their $17M in space before extending maxey to go over the cap, would they have access to the $12M NTMLE and $4M BAE?
Unfortunately, I don’t think so. The sum of their FAs + Embiid + Maxey ext + NTMLE + BAE would be $179M, which would be $8M over the tax line. Does this mean that they would instead only be able to use $8M of the NTMLE and/or BAE to stay under the tax instead of the full $16M? This would be effectively equivalent to the room exception.
Finally, if they use either (or both) of their $6M trade exceptions, would this pretty much limit them to the $6M TMLE? I know this is a ton of questions, but I would love some clarity on this.
Tldr: If you go over the cap using bird rights, do you have access to the room exception or NTMLE + BAE? And can you use either of those to go over the tax line?
Liberty Ballers article: https://www.libertyballers.com/2024/3/20/24106490/2024-nba-free-agency-paul-george-sixers-clippers-kawhi-leonard-james-harden-joel-embiid
by ktm5141
5 Comments
No clue
Someone better can answer this but if we sign a max player, we are guaranteed blowing past the tax line of $171M and will only have access to the TMLE of $6M like you described. (Hence why Morey is ducking the tax this season)
Embiid: $51M
Maxey: $35M
Max Player: $49M
Paul Reed and/or FA Role Player: $17M
11 Roster Spots at the minimum: $24M
Total: $176M which is $5M over the tax line
We’d likely have the TMLE of $6M and the BAE of $4M, but I think Morey would be hard capped at the second apron of $189M if these exceptions are used, which would handicap us in a trade for a 4th star.
I feel that you’d be better suited using Google for this one
This is sounding to me like a good argument for NOT signing a third max player. You put yourself right back in cap jail with no flexibility.