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Sources: NBA Teams Told To Prepare For Significant Salary-Cap Bump In Coming Years

NBA teams at last week's BOG meetings in N.Y. were "advised that the league's salary cap could rise" past the $100M mark as soon as the '17-18 season, according to sources cited by Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Sources said that based on "current projections, league officials expect the salary cap to increase" from its current $63.1M figure to $67.1M next season, $89M in '16-17 and $108M in '17-18. The jumps "represent massive increases triggered largely by the influx of television money that will begin pouring in" after the '15-16 season, when the NBA's new nine-year, $24B TV deal kicks in. Sources said that the league "has been careful to stress to its teams that these are not mere projections but are also contingent on the NBA and its players avoiding a work stoppage" after the '16-17 season. Both the NBA and NBPA "have the right to opt out of the current labor agreement by Dec. 15, 2016." Sources said that teams last week also were informed of "projected jumps in the luxury tax threshold" from its current figure of $76.8M to $81.6M next season, $108M in '16-17 and $127M in '17-18 (ESPN.com, 4/17). 

CHANGE IS GONNA COME: In N.Y., Scott Cacciola wrote change "is coming to the NBA, and relatively soon." It will "come in the form of the league’s new media-rights deals with ESPN and Turner Sports," which will have a "drastic effect on the size of player contracts, the machinations of free agency and the league-imposed salary cap." While the new money is a "windfall for the league ... all that cash will also have wide-ranging implications." Meanwhile, there has been a "growing chorus to revamp the rules" around the draft lottery and "reduce at least some of the incentives for losing." But NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that the owners are "unwilling to budge at the moment ... which came as a bit of a surprise to him." Cacciola: "Their reason? The new TV deals, and the money that will flood the league and inflate team payrolls as a direct result." Given the "potential for tumult ahead, Silver appears to be taking a measured approach to the league’s short-term future, and so are the owners, who see no need for sweeping overhauls" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/18). 

TEST CASE: In Boston, Gary Washburn wrote while it "was admirable" for the NBPA to "agree to HGH testing for players beginning next season ... the union is likely to want a concession for the players when the new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated." Washburn: "Is HGH use an issue among NBA players? The consensus around the league is that it isn’t. Now, what will the league concede to the players? Retaining the current age limit? Fewer back-to-back games? It will be an interesting next several months of negotiations" (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/19). CBSSPORTS.com's Matt Moore wrote Silver "made it sound like the NBPA didn't put up too big a fight" over HGH testing, which would "be a first" under new Exec Dir Michele Roberts. But Silver said that the NBPA, after it "got settled with the new regime and researched it, found that it was something they had agreed to and that the process wasn't hard to iron out" (CBSSPORTS.com, 4/17).

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