CBAMavs here and I’m back after a long hiatus. This is a small preview at the last minute to help you know what the Mavericks can legally do to improve the roster for the 2026-27 season. It was important to wait until after the draft to use the actual numbers for the draft picks.
This is what the Mavericks’ current cap sheet looks like:
The Mavericks are slightly under the salary cap ($2,960,632) but will operate over the cap. This is because staying over the cap allows them to take advantage of different salary cap exceptions that they’d have to renounce to actually dip below the salary cap. To operate under the cap, the Mavericks would have to renounce all their free agent’s cap holds (Middleton, Powell, Bagley, Williams, Cisse), lose their Traded Player Exceptions (TPE) ($20,830,154) [Davis], ($6,000,000) [Hardy], ($2,296,274) [Exum] and lose access to the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (NT-MLE) ($15,048,000 up to 4 years) and the Bi-Annual Exception (BAE) ($5,478,000 up to 2 years). The Mavericks would gain back the Room Exception ($9,369,000 up to 3 years) by going under the cap, but the Room Exception + the cap space acquired is less than the Non-Tax Mid-Level Exception by itself.
And they would be able to use these since the Mavericks currently sit $45,616,047 below the 1st apron.
This is what the Mavericks Cap Sheet looks like if they used the NTMLE, the BAE, and their largest TPE.
They would still be $4,259,893 below the 1st Apron even after using these exceptions. As they will be operating over the cap and are $45,616,047 below the 1st Apron. How can the Mavericks use that Apron Room?
Bird Rights: We can offer them anything they’d like, up to their specific max. 0-6 years’ experience is 25%, 7-9 years’ experience is 30%, and 10+ years’ experience is 35%. Not that any of our players deserve anything close to a max, though.
Non-Bird rights mean the Mavericks can only give a 20% raise. For Bagley, that means the Mavericks can only offer up to $3,697,105 using the non-Bird rights. This is likely not enough, so they would have to use another exception to sign Bagley if they wanted to keep him.
Signing other Free Agents
NT-MLE: 15,048,000 (up to 4 years with 5% raises) (total for 4 years/$64,706,400)
BAE 5,478,000 (up to 2 years with 5% raises) (total is 2 years/$11,229,900)
The MLE (and BAE) can be split among multiple players. The first year salary is what is used to reduce the MLE/BAE.
In the new CBA, the MLE and BAE can also be used at Traded Player Exceptions, in addition to the normal path of using them to sign a free agent.
Trade rules below the 1st Apron
How Traded Player Exceptions work?
At the end of the day, the Mavericks can use these different avenues to maximize their roster, but will have to stay below the 1st Apron $209,000,000.