You know all of those people who thought the NBA salary cap would drop significantly this season? The people who said it would be in the $50-53 million range? Yeah, well, those people must be shocked right now, because they had a good case for their predictions.
Nevertheless, the projected cap will be $56.1 million in 2010, which means a lot for teams like New York, Miami, Chicago, and others. To a lesser degree, it also affects the Rockets.
Now, with a few extra million to work with, the Rockets should have much less trouble re-signing Luis Scola and Kyle Lowry than originally thought. I haven't checked the numbers, but this should reduce the amount of luxury tax that Les Alexander will have to pay assuming we re-sign Scola and Lowry. Yes, I know, I'm lazy.
The only drawback (and it has the potential to be a big one) is the fact that New York has more money to work with, which means they have a better chance at signing multiple top-tier free agents, which means that those draft picks we got may not be as high as we would have liked.
Here's the funniest aspect of the new cap, though. As Mike Prada of SBNation.com points out, the Rockets may have turned a perceived robbery into a heist for the ages:
That means the Knicks probably would have had room for two max free agents even before giving away two potential lottery picks and Jordan Hill to the Rockets just to get Jared Jeffries' long-term deal off the books. Nice going, guys.
Fist pumps for Daryl, everyone.