Trade Machine
apron
Where every team stands · 2026-27
Trade Radar →Payroll = sum of 2026-27 cap hits on the books in our cap database (built from public contract data, updated daily). Cap $165.0M · tax line $200.4M · first apron $209.0M · second apron $221.7M · minimum team salary $148.5M, as announced by the league.
The rules the machine applies
Salary matching
A team under the cap after the trade simply absorbs incoming salary into its room. A team over the cap has to send salary out to bring salary in, and the allowance depends on what it sends: up to $7.50M out lets it take back 200% plus $250k; between $7.50M and $29.00M out, it can take back the outgoing amount plus $7.50M; above $29.00M out, 125% plus $250k. A team that finishes above the first apron gets none of that cushion: it can take back at most 100% of what it sends.
The first apron ($209.0M)
Above it, a team cannot acquire a player through a sign-and-trade, cannot use a trade exception created in a previous season and cannot take back more salary than it sends. It can still aggregate contracts and still attach cash.
The second apron ($221.7M)
Above it, the restrictions bite: no aggregating two or more salaries to bring back one bigger contract, no cash in trades, no trade exceptions at all, no sign-and-trade acquisitions, no taxpayer mid-level exception, and the team's first-round pick seven years out is frozen (it becomes untradeable, and drops to the end of the round if the team stays above the line).
Roster and tax
A team can carry at most 15 standard contracts (two-way deals don't count) and must be back to 14 within two weeks of dropping below. The luxury tax is paid on every dollar above $200.4M, in rising bands: $1.50 per dollar for the first $5M over, $1.75 for the next $5M, $2.50, then $3.25, and half a dollar more for each further $5M. Repeater teams pay more; the machine shows the non-repeater bill.
What the machine leaves out
Player consent (no-trade clauses, one-year Bird rights), the waiting periods after a signing, trade kickers, unlikely bonuses and mid-season proration. Those change a handful of trades a year; the four rules above kill the rest. When a real trade lands on the Trade Radar, the same engine tells you whether the reported framework is even legal.