All 27 terms the simulator uses, filed in four drawers — explained the way you’d explain them to a friend, cited the way you’d win an argument. The same cards pop up anywhere you tap a term in the app.
The league-wide ceiling on team salary, set each July from projected basketball-related income. It's a soft cap: teams routinely exceed it using exceptions like Bird rights and the MLE — the real walls are the aprons above it.
The threshold above the cap where the owner starts paying tax on overage, at rates that escalate with distance and with repeat-offender status. Many rules key off it: taxpayer exceptions, apron lines, and the mid-level's size.
Team salary is below the salary cap, so the team has cap room: it can sign free agents or absorb traded salary directly into that space instead of matching salaries.
Above the cap but below the luxury-tax line. The team can't use cap room, so signings go through exceptions (MLE, Bird rights, minimums) and trades must satisfy salary matching.
Team salary is above the tax line, so the owner pays an escalating tax on every dollar over. Being a taxpayer also shrinks which exceptions are available (the full MLE gives way to the smaller Taxpayer MLE).
A hard line a few million above the tax. Teams over it lose tools: no sign-and-trade acquisitions, no expanded matching in trades (100% only), no buyout-market signings above the minimum. Some moves (using the full MLE, acquiring via sign-and-trade) hard-cap a team AT this line for the whole season.
The most restrictive tier, above the first apron. Second-apron teams can't aggregate salaries in a trade (no combining two players to match one), can't send cash, can't use any MLE, and their future first-round pick can be frozen. Designed to make super-team payrolls painful to operate.
An exception letting a team exceed the cap to re-sign its own free agent who's been on the roster ~3 seasons, up to his max. This is how expensive rosters keep their stars — and it's the one signing tool even second-apron teams keep. Renouncing a free agent forfeits it.
The two-season version of Bird rights: a team over the cap can re-sign its own free agent for up to 175% of his prior salary (or the league-average salary, if greater), on a deal of at least two seasons.
The one-season version: an over-the-cap team can re-sign its own free agent, but only up to 120% of his prior salary (or 120% of the minimum). Enough for role players, useless for a star raise.
Room below the salary cap. Teams with room sign free agents directly and can absorb incoming trade salary into the space (plus a small $250k cushion) without sending matching salary back.
The full MLE (9.12% of the cap, up to 4 years) for over-the-cap teams that stay below the first apron. Using more than the taxpayer portion hard-caps the team at the first apron for the rest of the season — a hard cap this sim carries into every later move.
The smaller MLE for teams over the first apron (up to 2 years). Using it hard-caps the team at the second apron for the season. Teams over the second apron get no MLE at all.
A small exception (5.678% of the cap, up to 3 years) for teams that used cap room: after spending their space, they still get this to add one more mid-priced player.
A small exception (3.32% of the cap, up to 2 years) usable only every other season, and only by teams below the first apron. Using it hard-caps the team at the first apron.
Any team, at any payroll, can sign players to the league minimum (scaled by years of service). It's the only signing tool that never hard-caps you — which is why deep-apron contenders live on minimums.
In a trade, each over-the-cap team's incoming salary is capped by a formula on its outgoing salary — expanded bands (200% + $250k on small salaries, +$7.5M in the middle, 125% + $250k on big ones) for teams below the first apron, and a strict 100% for teams above it. Every leg of a trade is judged under its own team's band.
Certain moves — using the full MLE or BAE, taking back extra salary under expanded matching, acquiring a player by sign-and-trade — freeze a ceiling (first or second apron) the team may not cross for the rest of the season, for any reason. This sim remembers your hard cap across moves: a signing today can kill a trade next week.
The CBA freezes recently signed players: free agents signed this offseason can't be traded until December 15 (later for some Bird re-signings), draft picks for 30 days after signing, and extensions beyond extend-and-trade limits for six months. Extensions within those limits — like a pre-moratorium extension of an expiring deal — carry no freeze at all.
Teams may trade firsts up to seven drafts out, but the Stepien rule bars leaving yourself without a first-round pick in consecutive future drafts. This sim tracks pick ownership across every move you make, so a pick you dealt two trades ago still counts against you.
The sum of every guaranteed salary a team has on the books for a season — the number measured against the cap, tax, and aprons. For signing purposes the league also counts your own free agents' cap holds until they're re-signed or renounced.
A player's max is a share of the cap set by experience: 25% with 0–6 years of service, 30% with 7–9, 35% with 10+. A team re-signing its own player can always offer at least 105% of his previous salary, even past those lines.
Seasons on an NBA roster. It sets a player's minimum salary, his maximum-salary tier (25/30/35% of cap), Bird-rights eligibility, and which special rules apply — like the Gilbert Arenas cap on offer sheets to 1st/2nd-year restricted free agents.
Multi-year deals step up from the first-year salary: 8% annual raises when a team re-signs its own free agent with Bird or Early-Bird rights, 5% for everyone else (outside signings, cap room, exceptions). That first-year number is what all the rules test.
A placeholder charge (a multiple of last year's salary, by Bird status) that a team's own free agent occupies on its books until he re-signs, is renounced, or signs elsewhere. Holds keep teams from spending the same dollar twice: you can't use "his" room and then re-sign him with Bird rights. Renouncing clears the hold but forfeits the Bird rights.
A free agent whose team gave a qualifying offer, earning the right to match any offer sheet he signs. Match and you keep him at the rival's terms (but can't trade him without his consent for a year); first-to-second-year players are further capped by the Gilbert Arenas rule.
Our estimate of what an asset is worth in a trade — not a player rating. It dollar-values production (wins produced vs. salary, adjusted for age, term, and role) and prices draft picks off the origin team's projected slot. Directional, calibrated to real 2026 deals; the fairness meter sums it per side.