The NBA’s salary cap and luxury tax threshold was set Wednesday afternoon, with both numbers coming in higher than anticipated. The salary cap for the 2010-2011 season will be $58.044 million. The luxury tax line will be $70.307 million. That second number, in particular, should have a significant impact on how the Grizzlies conduct themselves the rest of this offseason. The team had declined to extend a qualifying offer to free agent Ronnie Brewer ostensibly because of fears of Brewer’s $3.7 million QO combining with Rudy Gay‘s new contract (estimated $13.3 million in year one) to push the team perilously close to a luxury-tax threshold that was thought to potentially be as low as $66 million.
But, with the tax line coming in more the $4 million more than that, the Grizzlies now have a decent amount of wiggle room to add more pieces to the roster, including, possibly, Brewer, whom CNNSI’s Chris Mannix reported Wednesday night the team was still interested in signing. Where exactly do the Grizzlies stand in relation to the cap and tax lines heading into the rest of the offseason? As a rule, teams do not disclose salary information, so this is an approximation based on the best available information, but the currently the team’s player payroll for the 2010-2011 season looks something like this:
