The Brooklyn Nets Still Have a Lot of Cap Space. When Must They Spend It?
I look at the Nets fluid cap space situation, how much they'll need to spend before the season starts, and how Cam Thomas' situation factors in.
The Brooklyn Nets entered the offseason with the most cap space and spent most of it on imbalanced trades that significantly increased their payroll. Despite that, they still have a lot remaining and must spend a certain amount by the start of the regular season. They remain one of the offseason’s main unresolved situations outside of the top unsigned restricted free agents.
The Nets entered the offseason with 12 players under contract and $64.3 million in cap space. That projection factors in renouncing all free agent cap holds, except for Cam Thomas ($12.1 million). They also kept all their non-guaranteed players, except Maxwell Lewis ($100,000 partial guarantee).
They’ve used $36.1 million of their cap space so far with imbalance trades and extracted strong value with it. They used $15.5 million to acquire Terance Mann and the remaining three years, $47 million on his contract. In exchange, they also acquired the 22nd overall pick in the 2025 Draft, and selected Drake Powell with it.
They used another $17.3 million to acquire Michael Porter Jr. for Cameron Johnson and a 2032 unprotected first-round pick. This was the only first-round pick the Nuggets were able to trade due to Stepien rule restrictions from their other outgoing selections. If Nikola Jokic remains in Denver by then, good chance that also results in a mid-to-late first-round selection.
The Nets essentially have acquired a mid-to-late first-round pick for an average of $16.4 million of their cap space. It’s reasonable not to expect them to lower their asking price in negotiations over subsequent salary dumps with their remaining cap space.

How much cap space the Nets are working with is up in the air due to several factors. If we’re looking at their official cap sheet based on the moves they’ve made, they’re sitting with $28.1 million in cap space. They could be working with less or potentially much more, but it depends on how much they need.