Good news about projected salary cap for Knicks
New York Knicks head coach Mike D'Antoni and Knicks president of Basketball operations talk about the past season that just ended and the future of next year's team. (April 15, 2010) Credit: Photo by Richard Harbus
NBA commissioner David Stern on Friday projected a salary cap of $56.1 million for the 2010-11 season, which is slightly lower than this season's cap ($57.7 million) but higher than the league projected last summer.
This is good news for the Knicks, who, based on that number, would have about $34 million to spend on free agents this summer if they renounced the rights to all of their free agents, including David Lee.
That would leave the Knicks just enough to sign two maximum-contract players, such as a dream dynamic duo of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Another pairing could be Joe Johnson and Amar'e Stoudemire. Realistically, though, the Knicks wouldn't have much money left over under the cap to fill out the rest of the roster.
A maximum contract for a player with more than six years of NBA experience starts at $16.8 million for the contract's first season, based on a $56.1- million cap. The maximum for a player such as Lee, who has five years' experience, would be $14 million. It would leave the Knicks more room to add other players if they signed Lee along with a full max player.
The Knicks have six players signed through 2010-11: Eddy Curry ($11.2 million), Danilo Gallinari ($3.3 million), Wilson Chandler ($2.1 million), J.R. Giddens ($1.1 million), Toney Douglas ($1 million) and Bill Walker ($854,389), though Giddens and Walker can be waived at any time before Aug. 1 to clear them off the payroll.
With just those players under contract, the league assigns cap holds at $473,604 per slot to fill out a 12-man roster, so the actual payroll is more than just the sum of the existing contracts.
Last summer, the NBA sent a memo to teams warning that the 2010-11 cap could drop as much as 7 percent; it set a possible range of $50 million to $55 million. Knicks president Donnie Walsh said his staff had been working under the assumption that it would be about $53.5 million.
After the league held its Board of Governors meeting in Manhattan, Stern told The Associated Press that "the revenue projections that we have now . . . will not be down as much as we had feared."
The actual cap number won't be determined until July. The league is depending on strong revenues from the playoffs, which begin Saturday.
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