Roster planning starts with one question: how much money is already committed, and how much room is left? This calculator sums your contracted salaries and compares the total to the salary cap, luxury tax line, and aprons so you can see your cap space and tax exposure at a glance.
Why the thresholds matter separately
The salary cap, tax line, and aprons are three distinct barriers with very different consequences. Being under the cap means you can sign free agents with open room. Being over the cap but under the tax means you are a normal contending team spending via exceptions. Crossing the tax means you pay a dollar tax on every dollar over the line, and that tax rate is not flat — it rises in tiers and is far steeper for teams that have been over the tax in recent seasons. The aprons add a third category where specific roster moves become restricted, which is why teams close to them often structure trades carefully to stay just below.
How it works
The tool adds every salary you enter and compares the total to each threshold:
committed = sum of all player salaries
cap space = salaryCap − committed (0 if negative)
over cap = committed − salaryCap (if positive)
over tax = committed − luxuryTax (if positive)It then flags whether the payroll is under the cap, over the cap but under the tax, into the tax, or past the first or second apron.
Example and tips
A roster with $120M committed against a $141M cap has $21M of cap space and sits comfortably below the tax. Add a $30M star and the payroll jumps to $150M — now $9M over the cap with no cap space, and the team must use exceptions or Bird rights to add anyone else. Enter the exact published cap, tax, and apron numbers for your target season; they move every year with league revenue.
Practical planning tips
When you are modelling a trade or signing, remember that cap holds count toward your committed total even for unsigned players. If a team has a first-round pick slot, the league assigns a cap hold at the rookie scale until a contract is signed. These holds can temporarily inflate your committed payroll past where you think you are.
Bird rights are the most powerful exception for teams already over the cap — they let a team re-sign its own players to max contracts even when that would push the payroll far above the cap. This is why contending rosters routinely carry payrolls at or above the tax line: they built the core when they had cap space, then used Bird rights to keep it together.
Always enter the published cap, tax, and apron numbers for the specific season you are planning around. These values change every year based on basketball-related income projections, so the defaults here are representative figures — not a substitute for the official league announcement.