The NBA announced that the Salary Cap has been set at $136.021 million for the 2023-24 season. The Tax Level for the 2023-24 season is $165.294 million.

The Salary Cap and Tax Level go into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday, July 1. Teams are permitted to begin negotiating with free agents today at 6:00 p.m. ET -- six hours prior to the start of the league’s “moratorium period.” The moratorium period ends at noon ET on Thursday, July 6.

The Minimum Team Salary is $122.418 million for the 2023-24 season.
The First Apron Level is $172.346 million for the 2023-24 season.
The Second Apron Level is $182.794 million for the 2023-24 season.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement provides for three different Mid-Level Exceptions depending on a team’s salary level. The Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level for the 2023-24 season is $12.405 million, the Taxpayer Mid-Level is $5 million, and the Mid-Level for a team with room under the Salary Cap is $7.723 million.

The NBA and NBPA have signed their new Collective Bargaining Agreement and have shared the 676-page document with teams approximately 48 hours before the start of the 2023 free agency period.

The deal becomes effective on July 1st and runs through the 29-30 season.

The two parties came to agreement on the new CBA on April 1st, but many of the details were worked through in the subsequent months.

The NBA has informed teams that the 23-24 salary cap is projected at $136 million, which is $2 million higher than their previous projection.

The luxury tax will be set at $165 million, which is $3 million higher than their previous projection.

The salary cap for the 22-23 season was set at $123.655 million.

Under the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement, teams over the second luxury tax apron cannot aggregate their own players in a trade. But they can send a player out for a combination of aggregated players.

There were questions of whether the Phoenix Suns were under a deadline to trade Deandre Ayton as they are now projected to be over the second apron in the future.

Bobby Marks clarified that stipulation during a podcast appearance with Zach Lowe, citing executives with teams he spoke to over the past day.

The NBA's next collective bargaining agreement has not yet been published by the league and NBPA.

While many teams are treating the NBA's punitive second luxury tax apron as essentially a hard cap, the Phoenix Suns have decided it would be advantageous for them to "explode right through it" rather than merely go up the line or barely over it, sources tell ESPN's Brian Windhorst.

The Suns believe going way over the line opens up some options that wouldn't be available to them if they had a mandate to stay below it. 

This calculus led them to trade for Bradley Beal on Sunday.

Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Deandre Ayton are due $116 million this upcoming season and $135 million in 24-25. Beal's salary averages more than $50 million over the next four years. 

The second apron is $17.5 million above the luxury tax threshold and is largely designed to prevent teams from having more than two max players on their roster. The Suns now have four players on varying degrees of max contract on their roster.

The Suns will try to re-sign Torrey Craig, Josh Okogie, Damion Lee and Jock Landale, while also likely keeping Cam Payne.

Adam Silver has been a proponent of increasing the amount of parity in the NBA dating back to when he was deputy commissioner under David Stern.

The NBA's next collective bargaining agreement is expected to further increase parity as it will significantly punish any teams who go well over the luxury tax to the second apron.

"Well, I think there's enormous benefit," said Adam Silver when asked about parity this season. "I get the question asked, too, sort of the converse of that question is are dynasties good for the league. My ultimate view is competition is great for the league, and if as a result dynasties are made, I think that's great, too. So I'm not against seeing repeat championships.

"On the other hand, whoever wins this year it'll be the fifth consecutive year where we have a new team winning a championship.

"When you think about a 30-team league, and it's not just the fans in those markets but fans increasingly all over the world who follow a team in that particular market maybe because they have an affinity for that style of play or a particular player on that team or some created connection to that city, you want a league where everyone feels that if the team that they are rooting for is well-managed and gets a little bit lucky, too, that's necessary, that they can truly compete for championships.

"I think this increased parity we're seeing around the league is fantastic. It's part by design, too. Through successive collective bargaining agreements and the one we just negotiated, there's some new provisions in that one, as well, that we hope will help even the playing field to a certain extent.

"It's important to point out, as well, that we only can make those changes with the partnership and cooperation of the players. We sit down with them. In a way, they're not that different than fans. You have the greatest players in the world coming together on 30 different teams. They want to compete, too. At the end of the day, they want a level playing field.

"They of course also want the opportunity to become free agents and the opportunity to potentially move to a different market depending on the circumstances. But we both have the same interest at the end of the day.

"Just lastly, I think something I pointed out before, it's changes in the CBA, which I think have been effective to a certain degree, but also there's societal changes because of social media and the amount of distribution that in terms of players being able to get the recognition, I think it's less important as it was in the old days to be in particular markets.

"We're seeing that -- Nikola Jokic, clearly a global superstar, two-time MVP playing here in Denver, and because of the success Miami has had, sometimes people think of it, frankly, as a larger market than it actually is.

"I'm pleased with it. I recognize that there's a bit of randomness to it, too, but we're seeing a really, I think, positive trend line in terms of competition."