Portland Trail Blazers
Season2026-272027-282028-292029-302030-31
Real payroll (contracts plus dead money) is $158.5M, which is $18.0M under the $176.6M cap. What erases the room is $59.7M in cap holds for their own free agents and unsigned picks; those count against the cap only, never the tax or aprons. Renouncing every free-agent hold (keeping draft picks) would open $13.8M of room, at the cost of their Bird rights.
So the Trail Blazers are "over the cap" only in the cap-room sense. Like most of the league they build through exceptions (their mid-level if their tier allows one, minimums) and Bird rights to re-sign their own players.
This is a forward look at 2027-28: it counts the contracts, options, and cap holds already on the Trail Blazers books for that season. Signings, trades, and option decisions between now and then will move these numbers.
The rule behind this
Cap space is how far a team's cap salary sits below the salary cap. It is the most flexible way to add players: cap space can absorb any contract up to its size, with no matching rules.
More Trail Blazers questions
Numbers come straight from the live Trail Blazers cap sheet, recomputed whenever the data updates.