Your Memphis Grizzlies Off-season At A Glance.
The Memphis Grizzlies 2011-2012 season has come to a close, but in the NBA, there’s no real off-season. Sure, the players will get a vacation, and there won’t be any games until the last week in October, but for the team’s front office and important decision-makers, they will never be more busy than the period from the end of the season until the annual NBA Draft.
The Grizzlies are a team that are faced with a lot of decisions this off-season. Owner Michael Heisley was quoted as saying that, while he wants to be competitive, they’re not a team that can operate by paying the luxury tax.
The luxury tax is a system in place that keeps the bigger-market NBA teams (think the Lakers, Knicks or Bulls) from spending way more money on their teams than the smaller-market teams can (think the Grizzlies, Hornets or Thunder.)
Under the old CBA, the luxury tax had pretty much failed the small market teams, and making the playing field more even for them was a big deal to Commissioner David Stern during the lockout before this season. As a result, the league tightened up the luxury tax rules to make repeat offenders pay a stiffer tax the more they went over the threshold.
In one of the most surprising changes of fortune of the past two years, the Grizzlies have went from having one of the lowest payrolls in the NBA to being right up against the luxury tax, and were actually over that threshold last season, before they traded Sam Young to Philadelphia.
For any salary cap questions, check this site out, as it is the best place I’ve seen as far as salaries and player/teams options on the web.
The salary cap for this past season was set at $58,044,000. As you can see, the Grizzlies were well over that number, but the luxury tax threshold was set at $70,307,000. The Grizzlies were over the salary cap, meaning that they could only sign potential free agents to the league minimum or using various exceptions that the league built into the CBA.
Just because a team is over the salary cap doesn’t mean that they pay the luxury tax, only when they’re over the luxury tax line.
Memphis finished under the luxury tax this season, but that will become way more difficult in the next two years, as three of the Grizzlies’ four highest-paid players signed extensions before the new CBA, and their contracts are to scale of the old system.
This all basically means that the Grizzlies will have a tough time filling their roster out with any quality depth, while also remaining under the luxury tax threshold, something that a lot of owners, Michael Heisley included, will absolutely not pay.
What the tax means, and future ramifications for the Grizzlies will be coming in the following days and weeks.