found this on another board
A little hard to understand at first but i got it after 2 times through. Remember this is all without the signings of nate and lee. What this says is without signing nate and lee, they cant sign 2 superstars. So resign them both for 2010 and beyond!!!!!eace:There is so much speculation out there that I thought I would post the facts about where NY stands as far as the 2010 salary cap goes. Before we start, there are a few things to understand...
1. I am assuming a salary cap of $58.8 million. Right now the cap is $58.6 million and David Stern said that number will go down for 2009. Assuming a regular bump up for 2010, which actually may not happen, we will probably get it up to $58.8 million. There is a chance that the number will be slightly higher but an even bigger chance that the number will be lower.
2. I am assuming NY's 2009 first round pick is in the 9-13 range. That is where I get my salary cap number for that player.
With that being said, here we go...
1. Right now NY has $25,638,384 in cap-space taken up for 2010. That counts these 5 players...
1. Danilo Gallinari
2. Eddy Curry
3. Jared Jeffries
4. Wilson Chandler
5. 2009 1st round pick
2. Since my 2010 salary cap number is $58.8 million, a max contract for 2010 will start at 30% of the salary cap, which is $17,640,000.
3. So after New York signs 1 max-contract free agent, the Knicks will be at a cap number of $43,646,404.
4. This is where it gets a little bit complicated. In the NBA you must have 12 roster spots filled. Since New York is so far below the roster spot minimum, they will be assigned a phantom player cap-hit for every roster spot that is open. A phantom player cap-hit is the rookie min which is $473,604. Right now, under my current scenario, New York has 6 players signed on the roster....the previous 5 and the 1 max-contract signing. So in order for New York to have the most money available to sign a 2nd max-contract free agent, the Knicks will have to sign 5 players to the phantom player salary. This raises the cap number to $45,646,404.
5. So New York now has 11 players signed, 1 below league minimum. New York will then have $13,153,596 available to sign their last free agent. That number is still a little bit over $4 million less than the max.
So what does this all mean? Well the bottom line is that unless New York can move Eddy Curry, it is pretty unlikely that New York will be able to sign 2 true max-contract free agents come 2010. Even if they move JJ I don't think they will have enough money because I do not see the Knicks filling almost half of their roster with minimum salary rookies.
If you have any questions on the cap, just let me know and I can try to answer.