According to Sean Deveney of The Sports News, the NBA salary cap may actually be decreasing this year due to the cap being tied to revenue streams, which have been declining. Of course, this is problematic given that most contracts are written assuming a cap that will continually go up. A primary cause of this is the economic climate and this is coupled with a decreasing appetite amongst NBA owners to spend to the max on their teams while their fortunes from their primary businesses are decreasing.

The NBA class of 2010 is the most talked about free agent class, in any sport, ever. Headlined by LeBron James and Dwayne Wade many teams are doing whatever they can to clear the cap space necessary to go after these and other stars. But if the cap is decreasing, as speculated, we may see even more money motivated deals happening this year. Teams may be willing to blow things up a year early just to get in the game, or at least appear so.

There is no doubt that the current economic conditions are unlike what has been felt in more than a generation. While this weekend's all star festivities in Phoenix will demonstrate the strength of the on-court product. Off the court things are not so promising.

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