"Two other teams, the Warriors and the Mavs, are projected to be just barely over. Every other team in the league is projected to be under the threshold barring more free-agent spending this summer." http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2516704
First, the title is bit misleading, because we are not barely over the salary cap. We are barely over the luxury tax line. We will be way over cap room line even without Fisher's contract. Wow, that's a big jump from last year. Last year's 6 mils jump was understandable because of new CBA, but this year's 3 mils jump is quite surprising. The league is must doing very well. And, that's a good news for us as well. I will take any kind of financial relief, and combined with Fisher dump, we may be out of luxury tax danger zone as long as we don't add any rookie extension contract. That means we still need to dump one more contract, in order to resign any of our rookies. Bit sad, but hey, we have Knicks to look for... Edit: OK, forget about out of the danger zone. Even without Fisher's contract, we still will commit around 63 mils with Davis, Richardson, Dunleavy, Murphy, Foyle, Diogu and POB. And, we need to resign Biedrins, Ellis, and Taft (and no Pietrus, Zarko, and any rookie contract). Suddenly, I am depressed again...
http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm "5. Warriors $64,943,664" Uh, huh...We are going to be able to sign all of our good young prospects in a couple of years, no sweat...hehe...oy...
According to Janny Hu of the Chronicle, the Lux Tax ceiling is at 65.4M. Does that mean the W's are doing fine?
Hoopshype's figure is without POB's salary. Once, it's added, we would be slightly over luxury tax line. And, if we add players like Bynum and possibly other players, it will go up again. As it stands (without any FA siginings), only 3 teams are projected to pay luxury tax, and we are one of them along with NY and Dallas. So, I can't say we are doing fine unless we set our standard to NY's. As we all know, once we go over luxury tax line, we pay $1 per $1 tax on the amount of their payroll that exceeds the $65 million. So, people may wonder "What's the difference between $66 mils payroll and $64 mils payroll", because the owner only pays $1 mils tax. But, as far as I know (at least based on last CBA), that's not the only $ owner loses. The league distrubute rather significant rebate at the end of year, and if your payroll is over the luxury tax line, you do lose portion of those rebates, and if your payroll is out of the control, you lose all rebates. That's why the league is so afraid of going over luxury tax line (like how Suns sold all their picks this year), and it would be quite interesting how Cohan and Mullin respond. With Fisher's trade, Mullin did earn one more year (assuming we don't resign Pietrus and Zarko). However, the offseason after 07-08 season will be quite scary at this rate. Combination of Davis, Richardson, Dunleavy, Murphy, Foyle, Diogu and POB will be roughly 64 mils, and we have to decide the fate of Biedrins, Monta and Taft. This calls for yet another salary dump. But, since we aleady dumped Fisher, and Murphy is projected to be traded for Harrington, who will probably receive similar amount as Murphy, we really don't have 'easy' salary to dump. At worst scenario, we may have to trade Biedrins and Monta away for nothing...
