A few days ago, Mike Terry reported that Nikki Teasley wasn't reporting to camp immediately because she was "attending to a personal matter." But as the OC Register reported yesterday, she's actually holding out for more money.

Teasley deserves to get paid well. Staley, Penicheiro, Johnson, and Bird all earn the league max of $89,000. Hammon gets a bit less than 80. Teasley, the W's assist leader last year, should be in the same ballpark.

Unfortunately for Teasley, the Sparks are having salary cap trouble (again).

Dixon, Hodges, Holdsclaw, Leslie, Mabika, Thomas, Wheeler, and Whitmore have combined salaries totaling over $520,000. That leaves only about $150,000 for the last three roster spots.

If the Sparks add two young players at the minimum ($31,200), they would have room to pay Nikki something in the 80s. But that's assuming they can add two at the minimum. Plus, if they get too close to the cap, they'll lose flexibility to have extra players on the IR and to add short-term contract players. It's unlikely that they'll be able to receive the sort of "emergency" cap exemption that they got last year.

In short, though Nikki is worth something in the 80s, it's not going to be easy for LA to pay her that much.

One of the functions of the salary cap is to promote parity by preventing an evil empire from buying up all the talent. LA has a powerful roster full of superstarstars... and the cap is starting to bite.

In other words, the cap is working exactly as intended.