NBA Trade Machine
Pick two teams. Build a trade. Real 2026-27 cap math decides if it's legal.
How the NBA Trade Machine Works
Building a real NBA trade isn't just about who wants who — every deal has to clear the league's salary-matching rules before it can happen. Our NBA Trade Machine applies the real 2026-27 cap structure to whatever trade you build, telling you instantly whether it's legal and who got the better end of the deal.
The Real 2026-27 Cap Numbers
- Salary Cap: $165 million — the baseline. Teams under this have "cap room" and can take on salary freely.
- Luxury Tax Threshold: $201 million — cross this and a team starts paying a tax penalty on every dollar over.
- First Apron: $209 million — triggers restrictions on certain roster-building tools like the full mid-level exception.
- Second Apron: $222 million — the most severe line. Teams here can't take back more salary than they send out, can't aggregate multiple outgoing salaries to match one bigger incoming player, and risk losing future first-round picks.
How Salary Matching Actually Works
A team under the cap can absorb incoming salary freely using their cap room. A team over the cap but below the second apron can take back up to 125% of what they send out, plus $100,000 — the standard trade exception used in the vast majority of real trades. A team above the second apron is locked into a strict dollar-for-dollar match — they cannot take back more than they send away, full stop.
Why Some "Fair" Trades Still Get Rejected
This is the part casual fans miss — a trade can be completely fair in terms of talent and still be illegal. A second-apron team trying to take back a $40M star for a package of $20M role players will get rejected even though the basketball logic is sound, because the dollars don't match. This is exactly why real front offices spend so much time engineering trades around contracts, not just around talent.
About the Salary Tiers
Real NBA contracts change constantly through extensions, options, and free agency — tracking exact dollar figures for 450+ players would go stale within weeks. Instead, every notable player here is grouped into one of five tiers (Max, Star, Quality, Rotation, Minimum) that approximate their real market value. League-wide cap thresholds are accurate to the verified 2026-27 numbers; individual player tiers are a simplified model, not official contract data.