Im kinda new to the salary cap rules. I only started following them once this regime of melo, stat and tyson was formed. my question is: what were the CBA rules like before the last strike? Mark Berman is on twitter talkin about how he HATES the new CBA rules becuase over-the-cap teams like the knicks have NO chance to get lower tier free agents. He understands not getting high quality free agents but getting out bid for will bynum, fransc garcia etc is really bothering him

Probably referring at least partially to the MLE(Mid level exception). Teams over he luxury tax threshold are only allowed the mini-mid level exception(around 3 mill) as opposed to the full 5.76 million non tax paying teams can use. Before this recent rule addition, every team had access to the full 5.76M(I think that number is accurate or close enough)

see larry coon