2025 cap space landscape: The outlook for each NBA team

As we head into March and the doldrums of the NBA’s regular season, rosters are, for the most part, decided. Teams are permitted to still make signings and waivings up to and including the last day of the regular season, but rarely if ever do those post-deadline moves make an impact on the team’s cap pictures in future seasons. With this in mind, mostly accurate assessments of how each franchise’s salary cap position projects for the upcoming offseason can be made.

In the NBA’s most recent projections, the 2025-26 salary cap is estimated to be set at $154,647,000, a 10 percent increase from this season’s $140,588,000. This nonetheless still represents a figure that is more than double what it was as recently as 2015-16. Team spending has however grown just as much, if not more, and so while many seasons since 2016 have seen plenty of cap space available around the league – certainly much more than across the previous decade, when a far slower rate of growth meant only a handful of teams having any every year – this number has been shrinking again, to the point that – as can be seen below – there will only be one major cap space market-maker next offseason as things stand.

Nonetheless, even though offseason trades, the volatility of draft night, future extensions and contract options can all significantly change matters, there follows a look at each NBA team’s 2025-26 projected spending as things currently stand.