A lot of NBA contracts have incentives, extra cash a player will earn if he meets a preordained level of success or if his teams reaches certain goals. Some of the bonuses are seen as “likely” if the player has met those numbers in his most recent season but “unlikely” if he hasn’t. For the purposes of the salary cap, the “likely” number is what counts. So what happens if a player doesn’t meet his numbers for even the “likely” bonuses? The team gets a cap break going forward.
As Bobby Marks writes in his update of his Sports Business Classroom, that’s what happened with Cam Johnson this season.