The NBA can't quite seem to peg the salary cap for the 2017-18 season.
Initial projections had it at $108 million, but a summer of exorbitant free-agent spending ate into the league's estimated shortfall to pay its players this year, which lowered the 2017-18 projection to $102 million.
Still not quite right, apparently; NBA teams have been informed the new estimate for next season is now $103 million, sources told ESPN's Brian Windhorst.
The salary cap for 2016-17 is set at $94 million, up $24 million from 2015-16 thanks to a lucrative TV rights deal. The players' union rejected a smoothing proposal that would've worked the revenue influx into the cap in incremental, year-over-year allotments.
Even with teams spending approximately $300 million more on salaries than the league had projected, those payments still haven't caught up to the league's surging projected revenue. A new collective bargaining agreement will be in place for 2017-18, but the players will reportedly get the same share of basketball-related income - somewhere between 49 and 51 percent - that they're getting now.
