Lockout update: What has been agreed to

From Howard Beck of the New York Times:

“Tentative agreements are already in place on the following major items: Luxury-tax rate: Teams will be charged $1.50 per $1 spent beyond a threshold, replacing the previous dollar-for-dollar tax, according to people who have seen the plan. To further discourage spending, the tax will increase for every $5 million spent beyond the threshold: to $1.75 after $5 million, $2.25 after $10 million and $3 after $15 million. Under this system, the Los Angeles Lakers would have paid $42.5 million in taxes last season, compared with $20 million under the old formula. (The rates could still change based on other tradeoffs.) Contract lengths: Players with “Bird” rights will be eligible for five-year deals, while others will be limited to four. The previous CBA allowed for six-year (Bird) and five-year deals. The 1999 C.B.A. allowed for seven-year (Bird) and six-year deals. 

Raises: Annual raises will be reduced by several percentage points, possibly as low as 5 percent for Bird players and 3.5 percent for non-Bird players. The prior deal allowed raises as high as 10.5 percent (Bird) and 8 percent. Midlevel exception: It will start at $5 million, a decrease of $800,000. The contract length and annual raises attached to the exception remain under discussion. Amnesty clause: Each team will be permitted to waive one player, with pay — anytime during the life of the C.B.A. — and have his salary be exempt from the cap and the luxury tax. Its use will be limited to players already under contract as of July 1, 2011. Stretch exception: Teams will be permitted to stretch out payments to waived players, spreading out the cap hit, over several seasons. The payment schedule will be set by doubling the years left on the contract and adding one. (Thus a team waiving a player with two years left could pay him over five years.) There are a few critical issues still under debate. The N.B.A. wants to further punish tax-paying teams by denying them use of the midlevel exception and sign-and-trade deals, and wants additional penalties for “repeat offenders.” The union opposes those measures. Nearly all of the new provisions will benefit the owners. In return, the players will gain an easing of trade rules and relaxed regulations on restricted free agents. So the broad parameters of an agreement are in place. The gap on the revenue split is significant, but manageable. As N.B.A. officials have said many times, both sides know where the deal is — they just have to get there.