For the agents of maximum-salary contract players who are plotting their upcoming 2015 free agency, the optimal course is to execute a breakout strategy -- an untraditional yet clear choice:  Signing a two-year contract with a player option for the second season so the player can return to free agency in 2016.

The Exploding Cap

This summer's salary cap number projects at just over $67 million. With the new television deal's revenues kicking in and starting to impact BRI, the 2016 salary cap projects to jump to approximately $89 million.  

At present, the 30 NBA teams would combine for over $1.6 billion of cap room, an astounding average of over $54 million of cap room per team. 

This will be adjusted down as teams sign long-term contracts this summer, and sub-max contracts of 2016 will bump up as a result of the surging cap, occupying more cap room. The ballpark figures are nonetheless extraordinary, and max players will still hold disproportionately high value to teams compared to those in the sub-max tiers.

The 2016 Field

With the exception of Kevin Durant and potentially Dwight Howard, the competition at present for unrestricted free agents in 2016, at any position, is not particularly crowded or fierce. The list includes aging players often injured or in a state of decline (not including Howard), like Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Deron Williams, Joakim Noah and Joe Johnson. Others have uncertain value, like David Lee, Danilo Gallinari and Nicolas Batum. There are a handful of strong potential restricted free agents, like Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal and Andre Drummond.  

There is no sign of a high volume of cap-eating contracts that could, despite the huge rise in available cap room, theoretically drive down the price for an All-Star player like Marc Gasol.

A Case Study

Free agent-to-be LaMarcus Aldridge is eligible for a five-year, $109 million deal from the Portland Trail Blazers this summer.  With a 2016 max, the figure balloons to nearly $158 million over the same five seasons (calculating one year under the 2015 cap and the first four years of his new contract with Portland) -- a difference of almost $50 million.  With Portland holding his Bird Rights, he would also be eligible for a final, fifth season of a whopping $40 million (six seasons from now). 

Even if Aldridge leaves and signs with a new team, applying the same principle of one year followed by an opt-out and a 2016 max (in this case non-Bird), he could earn over $152 million over the same five years -- still a $43 million incentive to not sign a 2015 max with Portland this summer.  

The typical risks of forgoing immediate guaranteed money are always obvious: Age and injury. But in this case, with the cap rising so dramatically, a player like Aldridge, who will be only 31 in 2016, would be much more likely than not to be able to get at or near the 2016 max starting salary of about $31 million.  

Even if he tore his ACL, he could probably approach that number. If he tears an ACL and has another major injury in the same season -- a low probability indeed -- he might still be likely to cash in at a sum greater than the $109 million over five years that he would be giving up this summer. 

It would be reasonable to argue that that old 2015 max sets a floor, or nearly so, for any player of this much accomplishment and skill who is not in the later, post-prime stage of his career. Some GM or owner will ante up in this ultimate seller's market. 

With the exploding cap, for teams there is simply too much spending power, and not enough player talent to spend it on, for this to present a real dilemma for the max player's agent this summer. That is usually the case, anyway, in a regular salary-cap year with modest increases in BRI, something that fails to describe the sea change coming in 2016 and beyond.

The Conclusion

The risks of passing up a five-year, maximum-salary contract under the 2015 cap are small compared to the higher payoff on a 2016 max deal.  It shouldn't come as any surprise if this is the direction -- much closer to a deferred guarantee, at worst, than a true gamble -- some or most of the top 2015 free agents take. 

The reality is that the usual paradigm is turned on its head: Taking the security of a maximum long-term deal in 2015 leaves a lot -- eight figures worth -- of money on the table, something we know players and their agents almost never do.