The NBA announced late Tuesday the 2012-13 season’s salary cap and luxury tax numbers with both remaining exactly the same as the 2011-12 season.
The salary cap is set at $58.044 million and the luxury tax line at $70.307 million. The minimum team salary, which is set at 85 percent of the cap number, is $49.337 million for the 2012-13 season.
Teams exceeding the tax line will have to pay one dollar for every dollar over. The new rules that deploy a much more punitive tax don’t begin until the 2013-14 season.
The salary cap is set each year by calculations based on projected amounts for Basketball Related Income (BRI) and benefits for the upcoming season. The projected BRI is negotiated by the league and players association. Each year the sides meet to agree on an amount. The salary cap calculation starting in 2012-13 takes 44.74 percent of the league’s projected BRI, subtracts projected benefits and then divides by the number of teams in the league.
How does this impact the Thunder? It doesn’t. The Thunder will be over the cap next season with a payroll of over $62 million, but things don’t come into play until the 2013-14 season. That’s when extensions (or new deals) for both Serge Ibaka and James Harden would go on the books and potentially push Oklahoma City near that big bad luxury tax.
The expectation though is in following years the cap and tax line will increase as league revenues reach all-time levels. It likely won’t increase too much for next season but something around $60 million for the cap and $74 million for the tax is possible. Which of course would be good news for the Thunder.
When people talk of how OKC isn't drawing in the interest of players I think a lot of that comes from our players being 23 and younger. I don't think the have the relationships or experience to reach out to some of these older players.
I know it sucks, but give it a couple of years and I'm sure we'll have free agents knocking on our doors to try and get that ring with the OKC franchise that does everything "the right way." OKC just isn't showing that love to the Vets yet, they obviously feel there is enough talent from within the team to win it all.
I also think, much of this comes down to Presti running things the Spurs way where we don't rely on the old hand but try to recruit from within or look to young and cheap rooks to fill out our roster, with the odd big signing to fill out the team (i.e. Rob Horry).
So is Thabeet playing today?
@okcjim He was working out in Orlando with Maynor and Cook the last two days. I don't see another reason besides Summerleague for him to be there.
@diddoff Will he play with Maynor and Cook the last two games ,I am a Chinese and I can't umderstand your meanings well.
Does anyone else find it a little disconcerting that in the 4 years the Thunder have been in OKC, only 5 players have signed here by their own choice: Derek Fisher, Hasheem Thabeet, Nenad Krstic, Royal Ivey and Shaun Livingston.
Look at our current roster: Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, Collison, Aldrich, Jackson and PJIII were all drafted by us. And Perkins, Thabo, Maynor, Cook, Hayward and I'll throw Nazr in there too, were all acquired via trade.
So far this offseason, no one other than Grant Hill has publically (and that's only according to a David Aldridge report) said they want to join our team, and this is a team that just made it to the Finals.
Big-time free agents (to-be) always leak their "list" of desirable destinations they wouldn't mind being traded to and OKC is never on the list.
What the hell? Has Presti put out an alert to all agents saying, "Don't call us, we'll call you" or is OKC just simply not a desirable place to play despite the great arena, fans and oh yeah, TEAM.
This isn't a concern in the short term since our current team is pretty damn great, but if free agents don't start thinking of OKC as a possible destination to play, that's going to be a major problem for this franchise in the future.
@Daniel Hawaii
How many players do you see--especially compared to other teams--that "leak" that they want out once they are here, regardless of how they arrived? (I think we grow on them.)
@ThunderChick2010 Yeah KEEPING them here is never a problem (which is why I said it might be worth it to trade for Dwight Howard to just get him in our environment for an entire year). It's just GETTING them here that's the problem.
@Daniel Hawaii Well I'm pretty sure it's also about who they pick. Presti doesn't seem to draft/trade based on talent alone, he typically picks guys who will fit in off the court here as well. As big of a drama queen as Dwight is, I don't know that would ever happen for him.
@ThunderChick2010 @Daniel Hawaii I can't think of one.
@Daniel Hawaii I wonder if there's not something else going on here than just the "nothing to do here" meme. I wonder if some of these vets don't like what they see when they look at the way we run our offense and/or the way Brooks handles the rotations.
@Old Man Game could be how we practice. i've personally never been to one, but the reputation is that the thunder practice really hard. if i'm a star i already have enough skill to make money in the nba. why would i want to risk injury during practice by going all out.
@Old Man Game Could very well be. If that's the case, we're kinda screwed seeing as we just resigned Scotty to a 4-yr deal.
@Daniel Hawaii You think guys like Ray Allen and Lewis are tighter with our 23 year old stars or Bosh, Lebron and Wade? Those guys are probably tighter with the older stars. At this point the stars are the ones convincing each other to come to teams for cheap to win not the GM's.
@okcjim They don't even have to be stars. I just want to go on Twitter or the ESPN NBA Rumors page and for once, see that free agents WANT to play in OKC. I want Grant Hill if for no other reason than to know for a fact that he CHOSE us over other teams that wanted him.
This is crazy. We just made the Finals. We're not way over the tax. We have a mid-level exception available. Players should WANT to join this team. But for whatever reason, they just don't.
Maybe this is Presti's doing. Maybe he's made it known that we're not looking to sign anyone. That would be stupid though. Because there's always that chance that a great player would want to play here and to put out a memo that says we're not looking to sign anyone would be asinine.
We always say Presti prefers to acquire players via trade than overpaying for free agents. Well, what if we have it backwards? What if the only way Presti can actually get players is by trade? What if he's tried to get free agents and they just don't want to play here. Like I said, this isn't a concern in the short-term, but it could be in the future.
@Daniel Hawaii I'm sure a lot of good players would like to play with us but most players are trying to make a living and if you come to okc right now you're not going to get paid. Our money is locked up. The only guys we're looking at are discounted players and there just aren't that many of those out there.
Wendell Maxey: "andrey vorontsevich reached an agreement to return to cska moscow. vorontsevich was in talks with OKC thunder but couldn't come to terms."
@diddoff Good. I don't think he would have been a good use of that last roster spot.
i think we are being a bit to...critical of this summer league thing. For starters, these guys havent been in the league, practicing with each other for years. they are kinda just going out and learning. We do get some glimpses of peoples flaws though, cole with his slow movements, reggie with his over-aggressiveness and ect.
course we are seeing some positives too. PJ3 for one is living up to expectations. we are seeing him in his rawest form. He hasnt done training camp, learned from kd or collison ect... and he looks pretty solid. Same with latavious. If lat can come out and do near the same thing tomorrow, then i think the roster spot belongs to him.
is darnell the only one that saw positives in jackson's game today?
@thunderatom Sometimes Darnell writes something like what he said about being impressed with Reggie's performance and it makes me question everything else he writes about anything happening on the court.
@thunderatom I saw lots of positives. Lots of negatives too
@FREE_COLE i saw some positives, but those negatives costed everybody else a chance to have any positives, namely perry. loool. but i guess they made it a point for jackson to play that aggressive. he seemed to know that he messed up a few times afterwards tho. he might have his most even game tomorrow, hopefully PJ3 is out there.
beard got beard implants http://distilleryimage4.s3.amazonaws.com/7aa77da2cb1411e1a23c22000a1c9e05_7.jpg
So the Heat are getting Rashard Lewis too?
Back in my Sonics days Rashard, Ray and Antonio Daniels were my favorites. Sucks to see the two best players now playing against us for our number one opposition.
Totally agree. The thought of 2 of my former favorite players teaming up once again on a team I hate makes me want to throw up.
the following is a tweet from Chris Palmer
"Deron Williams signed his contract on an iPad. That's so cool. "
this guy sucks so bad
Zach McCann: After spending all night at photo shoot, I was starving. Went into Durant's suite and he's sitting there with, like, 20 in-n-out burgers. 2 minutes ago
Read more: http://hoopshype.com/twitter/media.html#ixzz20HmzLlC9
Zach McCann: They were Durant's burgers. And he's a very nice guy. I just thought it was funny he had so many. about 16 minutes ago
Read more: http://hoopshype.com/twitter/media.html#ixzz20HoOhppk
@K-Dagger Plainview don't give any to harden!
@K-Dagger Plainview Smh his diet is terrible he needs to be puttin on muscle not fat
Jerryd Bayless to Memphis
@OBoymuzik Hes quality. he will improve their team
@K-Dagger Plainview my opinion of bayless is westbrook lite. he's a score first point guard, but not nearly as good as russ.
@K-Dagger Plainview No he won't. Mayo was better. Therefore they downgraded.
@Koka_Da_Bauce @K-Dagger Plainview mayo is a 2 bayless is a PG....their backup last year was Jeremy Pargo
@OBoymuzik ground breaking
With center being the position we still have the most question marks about, I'd like to see us take a flyer on Greg Oden. We'd probably get him cheap and I've read that he might even be able to play this year. Even if he couldn't play, he could spend the year learning our system. Rumors are he wants to play for the Heat. I don't want him there. A cheap investment today could pay off huge tomorrow.
@Daniel Hawaii No thank you. Our center position already sucks. Yes, he was good when he played, which as of now is about 20% of the games in his career. But no, we don't need more scrub centers. I would rather overpay for McGee.
@DennisBerry With Harden and Ibaka still looking for extensions, there's no way we could afford McGee.
@Daniel Hawaii I know, I'm saying I'd take a type like him over Oden anyday
@Daniel Hawaii he would never play on the same team as durant i'm afraid
@OBoymuzik What? Why? That's ridiculous. He'll play for whatever team gives him a contract.
@Daniel Hawaii yeah lol that's thabeet...thabeet has looked worse than oden even though he's been healthy
@OBoymuzik I was just looking for the cheapest possible solution to our center problems, with the highest possible reward. But a guy who has undergone 3 microfracture surgeries is probably not the answer. Presti probably was thinking the same thing when he signed Thabeet.
@Daniel Hawaii that can happen
@OBoymuzik Yeah even I'm starting to think this idea might be a little crazy. I think my disgust over Cole Aldrich's play has pushed me over the edge.
@Daniel Hawaii lol man sorry if you had to go search for both of those articles...the Grantland one was the one i had read...the 2nd one sounds like it's basing its info on an article on bleacher report...which is not credible at all (they had articles on reasons we'd get swept by the lakers this year AND had a full article comparing Westbrook to Stephan Marbury)
@OBoymuzik
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7908766/a-rare-interview-former-no-1-overall-pick-greg-oden-injury-plagued-career
He doesn't harbor any ill feelings towards Durant:
"Just don't think for a second that Greg feels sorry for himself. And don't think that he carries any animosity toward other guys in the 2007 draft, most notably Durant, the second pick and someone whose name will always be linked with Greg's."
"I'd be lying if I said that it didn't suck to see Durant doing so well," he said. "Only because every time he had a good game in those first few years, I knew I was going to get a bunch of crap from all of my haters. But that doesn't mean I dislike him as a person or anything like that. He's a good guy and one of the three best players in the league right now."
But that same article did say he planned to take the whole season off and fully recover from his injuries.
http://sports.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981449877
However, this site, not sure how credible it is, says he plans to return this season. I still think he could be a low risk-high reward player in the future.
@Daniel Hawaii where did you read he could play this year?
@Daniel Hawaii he said he was planning on taking this year off to try to get healthy
@OBoymuzik I doubt even ONE team has made him an offer. Let's do a preemptive strike, beat the crowd and get him into our system now.
@Daniel Hawaii if multiple teams make an offer i mean...he's said publicly that he's a little bitter towards durant even though he knows he's a nice guy