Competitive Budgets - A Rough Guide

Figured I would actually chart out all of the budget stuff I did previously.

As before, 'best%' is roughly that which a competitive team (being a team that expects to make the post-season) should hold back in their budget to allow for injuries and deadline trades. At the bottom of the chart is the target Cap for said teams.

'Max' is maximum salary one player can make. '35%' and '50%' are percentages of that and the numbers below those are given a rounding-off effect (no one talks about players signing for $2.73 million - it's always 2.75 or 3.00, etc).

Cap .... 39.00 .. 44.00 .. 48.00 .. 52.00 .. 56.00

10% ..... 3.90 ... 4.40 ... 4.80 ... 5.20 ... 5.60

best% .... 8% ..... 6% ..... 5% ..... 5% ..... 5%

Cap space available at Day
_01 ..... 3.12 ... 2.64 ... 2.40 ... 2.60 ... 2.80
_42 ..... 4.02 ... 3.40 ... 3.10 ... 3.35 ... 3.61
_94 ..... 6.27 ... 5.31 ... 4.83 ... 5.23 ... 5.63
146 .... 14.23 .. 12.04 .. 10.95 .. 11.86 .. 12.77

max ..... 7.80 ... 8.80 ... 9.60 .. 10.40 .. 11.20
35% ..... 2.73 ... 3.08 ... 3.36 ... 3.64 ... 3.92
= ~ ..... 2.75 ... 3.25 ... 3.50 ... 3.75 ... 4.00
50% ..... 3.90 ... 4.40 ... 4.80 ... 5.20 ... 5.60
= ~ ..... 4.00 ... 4.50 ... 5.00 ... 5.50 ... 6.00

Cap space available given 35% signing mid-season
_01 ..... 3.12 ... 2.64 ... 2.40 ... 2.60 ... 2.80
_42 ..... 4.02 ... 3.40 ... 3.10 ... 3.35 ... 3.61
_94 ..... 3.52 ... 2.06 ... 1.33 ... 1.48 ... 1.63
146 ..... 7.94 ... 4.61 ... 2.97 ... 3.28 ... 3.65

Cap target at best%
target = 35.88 .. 41.36 .. 45.60 .. 49.40 .. 53.20

Notes:

a) the 'best%' numbers leave more than enough Cap space in the bank; even with injury call-ups taken into effect (2% seems about right)

b) competitive teams may spend more or less than target but the reason for such should be readily apparent (veteran heavy roster if more or a 'Crosby' effect if less)

c) the 35% and 50% numbers represent decent salary approximations for competitive players at those Cap levels - note that inflation is built into this model

d) the 35% player signing depletes Cap reserve substantially but remember that we are NOT assuming any player salary is traded away in this model

Those are all my notes for now. I may add later. I hope this is a useful reference tool. Remember - if a team is NOT spending to target then they are, absent some damn good reason (i.e. Crosby) probably not competitive.

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Have a great evening everyone.