The NBA announced that the Salary Cap has been set at $123.655 million for the 2022-23 season. The Tax Level for the 2022-23 season is $150.267 million.

The Salary Cap and Tax Level go into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday, July 1. Teams were permitted to begin negotiating with free agents today at 6:00 p.m. ET -- six hours prior to the start of the league’s “moratorium period.” The moratorium period ends at noon ET on Wednesday, July 6.

The minimum team salary, which is set at 90 percent of the Salary Cap, is $111.290 million for the 2022-23 season.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement provides for three different mid-level exceptions depending on a team’s salary level. The non-taxpayer mid-level for the 2022-23 season is $10.490 million, the taxpayer mid-level is $6.479 million, and the mid-level for a team with room under the Salary Cap is $5.401 million.

The salary cap for the 22-23 NBA season is projected to come in at approximately $123.6 million, which is an $11.6 million increase from last year's figure of $112 million.

The final salary-cap number, which will be determined once the audit of the league's finances is complete and the basketball-related income for the 2021-22 season is totaled, will be sent to teams before the league's moratorium for the start of the 2022-23 league year begins, at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday.

According to Keith Smith of Spotrac, the following figures represent the max salaries:

0-6 YOS: $30,913,750
7-9 YOS: $37,096,500
10+ YOS: $43,279,250

4-year max 0-6 YOS: $138.5M
5-year max 0-6 YOS: $179.3M
4-year max 7-9 YOS: $166.2M
5-year max 7-9 YOS: $215.2M
4-year max 10+ YOS: $193.9M
5-year max 10+ YOS: $251.0M

While ratings for the NBA are down from 2019, their share of television viewing has never been higher. Ratings also rebounded from its all-time lows in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the pandemic.

Disney and Turner Sports have also brought in more advertising revenue during the playoffs.

The 2022 NBA playoffs brought in $842 million in sales revenue for the two companies, which is 19 percent more than the $705 million they brought in last year and a 54 percent increase compared to the $546 million in 2019.

The NBA is widely expected to sign its next television contracts at a significantly higher number than the one that kicked in ahead of the 16-17 season.

During an interview before the NBA draft, Adam Silver was asked whether it is fair for a team like the Golden State Warriors, who have largely built their team via the draft, to be penalized with the league's luxury tax system.

"I don't view it as penalizing them," said Silver. "In essence, when you have a system like we do, there's a player sharing component to it. There's revenue sharing and there's also player sharing.

"The system is designed to help teams keep their own drafted players and they have a big advantage in doing that. In this case, Golden State was able to keep them by paying a high luxury tax in order to do that."

Silver also cited how the draft helps bad teams improve.

"It's not as if it's 30 independent teams all separately competing with each other. The goal is to create the best competition. Sometimes creating the best competition means sharing the best talent around the league."

Golden State's core features an inordinate number of players drafted by the franchise in Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, Jordan Poole and others. 

The NBA is currently in negotiations on its next television contract and Jimmy Pitaro of ESPN hopes to continue its partnership with the league.

Pitaro was asked by The Athletic if he could see any scenario in which ESPN wouldn't have a portion of the NBA's next media rights.

"I sure hope not. It’s an incredibly important property for us," said Pitaro. "We also see that property as ascending — younger demographics. Right now I think they have more parity than we’ve seen in a long time. We see young stars who are starting to catch on in the zeitgeist. We are incredibly excited about the NBA. We also like what we’ve done. We’re very happy with our team both in front of and behind the camera. I’m talking games. I’m talking about our studio programming.

"That being said, do we need to continue to innovate? (NBA commissioner) Adam (Silver) and I have talked about this. Yes. Are these alternative broadcasts that we’ve done solid? They absolutely are. Do we need to be doing more of them? Do we need to be thinking about more innovation around the primary broadcasts? We do. We can’t just sit idle here and be complacent. I know that there’s some discussion around the (ratings) comps to 2019, but we’re very pleased with our numbers for the NBA Finals, especially when you compare them to the past few years. Our sales team has been very happy with our ratings performance. We have a great relationship with the league, and I really want it to continue. Now, we have some time here. We still have three seasons left. So there’s no urgency. But we absolutely would like to extend our partnership with the NBA."

The NBA and NBPA are set to hold preliminary CBA talks in Boston on Wednesday, June 8. Both the NBA and NBPA have the ability to opt out of the current CBA this December. That opt out would take place following the 2022-23 season.

Both parties are interested in avoiding any sort of lockout or work stoppage. The NBA and NBPA have worked together to avoid any stoppages prior to the expiration of the CBA in 2017. This meeting is to begin preparing for more serious CBA negotiations in the coming months.

There is optimism that any sort of work stoppage can be avoided this time around, as well. Both sides worked well together to complete multiple seasons impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This included a restart of the 2020 season in the bubble, as well as several concessions by both sides during the 2019-20 through 2021-22 seasons.

The NBA and NBPA will discuss eliminating the positional categories in All-NBA voting. With the award being a determining factor for contract size, the possibility of the league not rewarding the actual top-15 players in a given season takes on greater significance than a mere award.

In each of the past two seasons, Joel Embiid has finished on the Second Team despite being the MVP runner-up. 

"In terms of determinations for All-NBA, I think a fair amount of consideration is going into whether we should just — really, you, the way it works now, the media — should just be picking top players than be picking by position," said Adam Silver ahead of Game 1 of The Finals. "I think we are a league that has moved increasingly toward positionless basketball, and the current system may result in some inequities based on the happenstance of what your position is.

"So that is something we’re looking at. It’s something that we will discuss with the Players Association because it has impact on incentives and players contracts, and it has, you know, deep meaning for their legacy as well. So we will look at those things.

"In terms of the ultimate selection process and to your point that in some cases can have a direct financial impact on a player’s contract, right now we agreed with the Players Association to use those designations to trigger certain bonuses in players’ contracts, frankly because we couldn’t come up with a better way that would feel objective to everyone involved.

"I think we all recognize that doing it on a pure stats basis or just using analytics, there would be unfairness there because it doesn’t pick up the intangibles. Certainly I don’t think anyone wanted the league office to do it. And we came up with this proxy for the media to do it.

"I understand from a player’s standpoint, saying, Can’t believe the media has been given this power over me. I will say, when you have a hundred media members essentially on the panel, it seems to work its way out. We are going to discuss that with the players and sit down once again and see if there’s a better way to do it."