It is how much money you have to pay if your roster is too expensive and you are losing money every week. This way people cannot save a bunch of money and then buy salary monsters and just run their money dry. The catch is that training exemption plays a role so if you are 15k in debt but you have trained up a 50k since he was younger, the training exemption makes up for the over salary on your team and you do not have to pay a tax. I hope this made sense.
Murray/Harris/MPJ/Grant/Jokic - 2020 NBA Champs