Warriors start the season $347,568 under their hard cap, the tightest of 23 capped teams

Twenty-three of the league’s 30 teams start the 2026-27 season under a hard cap, and the Golden State Warriors have almost nothing left beneath theirs: $347,568, by the count of the public cap tracker JJNBA, with all 15 standard roster spots already filled.

That number decides how Golden State can react to anything before the Thursday, February 11 trade deadline, including the right ankle sprain Stephen Curry picked up at practice. A hard cap is not a tax line a team can pay its way past. It is a ceiling, and any signing or trade that would push payroll above it is simply not allowed for the rest of the league year.

The tightest teams on opening night

JJNBA, updated Sunday, October 18, before Monday’s final roster cuts, counts 18 teams capped at the first apron of $209.015 million and five at the second apron of $221.686 million. Seven teams are not capped at all. These are the tracker’s projections, built from public reporting, not the league’s own accounting.

Why the Warriors are stuck

Golden State carries the largest payroll in the league in JJNBA’s sheet, $220.84 million, led by Curry at $62.59 million and Jimmy Butler at $56.83 million. The tracker projects an $86.2 million tax bill on top of it. Because the Warriors are capped at the second apron, no trade can bring back a dollar more in salary than it ships away, and they cannot combine two contracts to match a bigger one and cannot use an old trade exception. With $347,568 to work with, even a minimum contract does not fit. Any new player would first need salary to leave in a trade.

The empty 15th spots

For the five teams behind them, the problem is the last roster place. Toronto’s $963,599 is less than the $1.36 million the Raptors pay rookie Jaden Bradley, so a full-season minimum deal would not fit without a trade. Philadelphia’s $1.83 million covers a deal like that but not the $2.45 million figure the tracker lists for veteran-minimum players such as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Indiana’s $2.24 million falls just short of that mark, Miami’s $2.57 million just clears it, and Minnesota has room for one more modest contract below its second-apron line.

Keeping a spot open is allowed, since teams only have to carry 14 standard players, and it is the cheapest choice for every team on this list. It also leaves them thin if injuries pile up in November.

What comes next

Teams had to cut down to 15 standard contracts by 4 p.m. Central on Monday, so some of these figures will move as the final waivers are counted. Golden State opens on Wednesday, October 21 against the Lakers (Game Center), and Toronto hosts the Bulls the same night (Game Center). Payroll for every team is on our NBA salaries page.