As of now there are six teams who've been billed for luxury-tax payments based off of last season's payroll, with the heftiest bill going to the Los Angeles Lakers.
ESPN is reporting that the Lakers will be forced to pay more than $29 million in luxury tax for a team that barely made it into the playoffs, quite possibly making them one of the biggest underachievers to date in league history.
The figures that were released Tuesday also revealed that the Miami Heat ($13.35 million), Brooklyn Nets ($12.88 million), New York Knicks ($9.96 million), Chicago Bulls ($3.93 million) and Boston Celtics ($1.18 million) join the Lakers ($29.26 million) in facing tax bills for their 2012-13 payrolls.
The six teams are expected to receive an invoice Monday and must remit their required payment by July 24.
For the 2013-14 season the salary cap is scheduled to be raised to $58.679 million, opposed to last season's $58.04 million. The tax threshold will be $71.748 million. Teams exceeding that mark will pay a penalty that starts at $1.50 for each additional dollar spent and rapidly escalates from there.
The New York Post is reporting that the Nets are expected to exceed that limit and are in stored to pay the biggest luxury tax on record.
Currently their payroll - once they complete a trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce - will be about $98 million, triggering a tax bill of about $75 million. That would be the most any team has paid since the league instituted the luxury tax in 2002-3, according to figures provided by the cap expert Larry Coon.
The $75 million alone will be more than double the total taxes paid by all 30 teams combined in the 2011-12 season.
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