Exceptions
The room mid-level exception belongs to teams that went under the cap and used cap space. Once their space is spent, the room MLE lets them sign one more player above the cap, on a smaller and shorter deal than the full mid-level.
A team must choose its lane each season: use cap space (and get the room MLE), or stay over the cap (and get the regular MLE and bi-annual exception).
See it live: pick any team and tap the numbers on its cap sheet.