5 teams most affected by the 2017-18 NBA salary cap overestimation

With the 2017-18 NBA salary cap projecting to be $6 million less than initially thought, here are five teams that will be most hurt by this miscalculation.

While the 30 NBA owners wanted to gradually increase the salary cap with all that incoming revenue from television, the players wanted their 50 percent of the revenue as soon as they could get it. The players got their way, and while this has led to an exciting summer of 2016 NBA free agency with an exploding salary cap, it has made the future much less predictable.

Though the NBA salary cap erupted from $70 million in 2015-16 to over $94 million in 2016-17, a recent projection predicts the 2017-18 NBA salary cap is going to be roughly $6 million from where the league and owners thought it was going to be. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst tweeted out that 2017-18’s cap will be closer to $102 million than the $108 initially expected.

Not that the oil well has run dry in this NBA salary cap boom by any means, but this $6 million discrepancy could prove costly for a handful of teams that will have marquee players hitting free agency next summer.

All 30 teams will be affected in some capacity by this salary cap miscalculation. The well-run organizations will do what they do and adjust accordingly, while the poorly run teams will gain another front office obstacle they’ll struggle to overcome. Regardless of how well a team is run, here are the five teams that will be most affected by the new projections of the 2017-18 NBA salary cap.

Next: 5. Dallas Mavericks.