Franchise Salary Cap Problem/Question

[cbailey249]

I thought I had a good idea of how the NBA salary cap works but apparently not. There is that first line of salary cap and then the hard salary cap. I thought that as long as you had those certain number of bird years (3?) you could go over the regular salary cap all the way up to the hard cap. In my franchise now I just had a very good power forward, who I drafted, go into free agency as an unrestricted free agent and I have 9 million in cap room left and about 45 in hard cap left. I am unable to resign him as I would be about 5 million over the regular cap. I have the 2nd most cap room available in the league and even the team with the most would go over the regular cap if they were to sign him. What am I missing here? Why can't I sign him? And if I can't does that mean nobody else will be able to? Any help greatly appreciated as this has me very confused.

[football200414]

Once you let him go to free agency you can't go over the cap. You should have re-signed him before the re-sign deadline in February.

[cbailey249]

Wow, I never knew that. Thanks a lot.

[football200414]

Just sorry I couldn't help before you got screwed...if you have the most cap room you should be able to work out a deal when the season starts...you may have to throw in incentives to lower the size of the contract like player option & no trade, if he's worth that much to you

[lynnmacer]

Once you let him go to free agency you can't go over the cap