I read in this article the salary cap is could be around 72 million. The Pistons are at $60,650,129 does that mean we'll have just under 11,500,000 to sign free agents with?

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When you are over the cap, you can still spend money. These are called exceptions.

Most teams have two exceptions. The Bi-Annual Exception and the Mid-Level Exception.

The Bi-Annual is available once every two seasons, and is usually in the neighborhood of $2 million.

The Mid-Level is available every year and is equal to the average player salary (or IIRC, the cap divided by 12 players). Lately it has been around $5.5. million.

So most over the cap teams based on that, will still be able to spend $7.5 or so million, plus sign their rookies, plus sign free agents to minimum contracts.

NOW, closer to your question.

If a team is $5 million under the cap, they can't spend the $5 million in space, and then trigger the $7.5 million or so in exceptions. That would be double dipping.

So the CBA says, you must be under the cap by more than your exceptions, to use up your cap space.

So if possible exceptions = $7.5 million
Cap equals = $72 million

Pistons do not actually have cap space until they are at $64.5 million or less.

Does that make sense?

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Our salary for the 08/09 season is $60,650,129. How much do we have to spend?

If the cap is $72 million, I'd guess around $10 million because I can't remember if our rookies or minimum contract signings will count against us.

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