RealGM

ORL loves to offer contracts that start high and descend in annual salary. With rookie extensions looming over the next couple of summers, this is a really good time (and maybe last chance for a while) to do something significant in the FA market.

What are the limitations on a descending contract. For example, if ORL or whoever has unlimited cap space and they want to offer a FA a 4 yr deal, averaging $25m per...are there limitations as to what the first year salary or the rate of declining salary?

The 1st year salary limitations are the same as with flat or increasing contracts (so with the same cap space/exception/max salary you can offer more money with increasing contracts).

The rate of decrease is limited to the same rate of increase limitation - set as a % of the 1st year.

4yr100 mil is like 27.1 first year for a feee agent without bird rights. Only drops to 23~ million with the 5% drops (5% based off the first year subtracted each of the years, not a year by year 5%)

But it’s still the best option for teams in most cases.