Each team over the cap gets the oppertunnity to use the mid-level exemption or MLE to add free agents. It starts about up to 5 mil per season and can go for 5 seasons. It can also be split up, pay player x 3 mil and player Y 2 mil next year. The LLE is another exemption, but you can only use it once every 2 years. Formerly the million dollar exemption, you can sign a guy about 1.7 million now with it per year, for up to 2 years. The Rockets will use all their MLE on Swift this year, and thus can only sign other free agents with the LLE (because they didn't use it last year) or for the vet minimm (amount depends on number of years in the league). For resigning the Rocket own free agents (Deke, Barry, Padget, Bowen)--there are additional exemptions they can use so they won't be using the LLE or MLE. For more try these: -http://www5.******************/viewtopic.php?t=388555&sid=b4a9b099df81f1c67738a5c8bf529ace http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm EDIT. The realgm.com link above didn't work. Here are some comments from it below. Try realgm.com for more.
So we only have one LLE to use? How many people can we sign to the vet minimum? For someone like Spree the vet minimum would come out to about 1.6mil anyways, right?
Yes we only have one LLE, and if we use it we don't have one next year. But next year we would have another MLE. Last year the LLE was 1.6 mil. We don't know if it still exists (think it does) or for how much. I guess it will be 1.7 next year with the same 2 year limit (2 year 3.5 max contract). The league minimum for a 10+year vet was 1.1mil (it starts at 385K for a new guy, 620K for a 2nd year guy, with gradual increases thereafter to 1.1 mil max based on league years). We don't know if these numbers have changed. You can sign as many minimum players as you want, and they don't count towards the lux tax threshold in the new CBA. That way it doesn't penalize teams for adding more experienced vets.
I don't think you get a new MLE every year! I remember hearing CD saying in previous seasons, that they didn't use up their MLE, therefore they would have it next year. From the previous post, it appears teams only carry ONE MLE 5 year contract. It's not until that contract is up that the team can go out and sign another player to another MLE contract. However, the MLE can be split among 2 players.
