NBA executives learned some sobering lessons during the summer of 2016.
That July, the salary cap spiked due to an influx of TV money, and dozens of exorbitant contracts were doled out. Even after a few months, it was clear many of those deals –$72 million for Joakim Noah, anyone? – would not age well.
Even though there isn’t a spike, there’s a similar salary cap bubble this summer. Around a third of the league has the capacity to sign a player to a max deal this free agency. The question is which teams learned from that reckless summer.