Interesting report over at ESPN.com by Marc Stein, who obtained an NBA memo indicating the salary cap for 2010 will go down a fair amount. Here’s an excerpt:

In a memo announcing next season’s salary cap and luxury-tax threshold, sent out shortly before the league’s annual July moratorium on signings and trades was lifted at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, NBA teams also received tentative projections from the league warning that the cap is estimated to drop to somewhere between $50.4 million and $53.6 million for the 2010-11 season.

The official league memorandum, obtained by ESPN.com, forecasts a dip in basketball-related income in the 2009-10 season of 2.5 percent to 5 percent, which threatens to take the 2010-11 cap down some $5 million to $8 million from last season’s $58.7 million salary cap. …

The new figures for 2009-10 just announced by the league have set the salary cap at $57.7 million per team — down $1 million from $58.7 from 2008-09 — and the luxury-tax threshold at $69.9 million.

As you probably know, 2010 is the year the Wolves finally escape from several years of bad contracts and cap prison to be relatively free. They’ll have the ability to be major players in the free agent market. While the decreased cap appears, at first blush, to be bad news, it could actually be good news for your local club. Minnesota still projects to be well under the cap. Based on that hoopshype link, figure they’ll at least be paying Jefferson, Love (team option), Telfair (player option), Gomes and Songalia (player option) about $28.5 million. Rubio, Flynn and Ellington would get another $6.5 million combined (second-year salary scale based on draft position) with another multi-million chunk going to next year’s draftees. That still probably leaves them $12-14 million under the cap — enough to pay a couple role players and make a run at a big ticket free agent. Other teams might have needed that projected $5-8 million Stein writes about far more than the Wolves in order to have a shot at a big-dollar free agent.

Your thoughts?

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