The decision by the NBPA to reject cap smoothing created a spike in 2016 that the free agency class that offseason benefited from tremendously to the detriment of subsequent classes. 

Teams in the 2017 offseason had less cap space due to the types of multi-year contracts that were agreed upon in 2016 as well as fewer playoff games.

Many front offices recklessly signed players assuming the cap would continue to climb at its projected rate.

The cap spiked from $70 million in 15-16 to $94 million in 16-17.

"If you're a team, you're sitting there saying, 'Well, I'm not going to negotiate off of someone else's mistake,' " a general manager from a team not linked to any of the players signed by the Grizzlies in 2016 told ESPN. "That was the problem. Players were going to try to hold teams and agents to these comparisons. We're coming out of a bubble.

"You had faulty logic all across the league. The league and the players association for a lack of smoothing, the teams that spent, the agents and players that thought that this was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that was never going to end. You had a lot of parties that were guilty of a gold-rush mentality. It's always going to come to an end."