While the NBA is thrilled about the massive nine-year, $24 billion television deal with ESPN and TNT it announced Monday morning, the league’s job of figuring out how the influx will affect the league’s salary structure has only just begun.

Because the salary cap is set based on the league’s revenue, the NBA getting almost three times as much money from its national television deal each season – $2.66 billion per year under the new deal compared to a little over $900 million from the current one – will increase significantly bump up the cap number.

The task now facing NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the rest of the league’s higher-ups is to determine how big that increase will be, and how quickly.

There are two paths that could be taken: In one scenario, there will be a massive increase in the cap beginning in 2016-17 – which could result in the cap jumping from the projected $66.5 million for the 2015-16 season to somewhere in the neighborhood of $91 million in 2016-17.

The league would prefer to avoid such a dramatic spike in one season, which is why they have already reached out to the National Basketball Players Association and its new executive director, Michele Roberts, to begin negotiations of a “smoothing out” period that would allow the cap to rise more gradually.

“[Roberts] indicated a willingness to sit down and discuss it, but ultimately it requires two of us to reach a deal, and I think we both recognize that we’re going to have constituents on both sides of the issue,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Monday. “I’m hopeful we can reach an agreement with the union to smooth in the increases, but if we don’t, we’ll live with that as well. … We’ll both have lots of considerations when we enter into these discussions.”

By using a “smoothing out” process, the league would increase the cap by a smaller percentage initially and have it continue rising until it reaches the proper level. That would prevent players who are eligible for free agency in 2016 as opposed to 2015 from receiving dramatically enhanced salaries.

Then there’s also the issue of players potentially agreeing to sign one-year deals next summer in order to cash in when the cap explodes the following year if no agreement on a smoothing out process is reached.

“I think the players and their agents are constantly balancing long-term security versus the ability to become a free agent sooner,” Silver said. “That’s part of the reason we hope to smooth in the increases, is we would like the increase to not be so dramatic in one year. But those are issues that the players may decide to factor in.”