Quoting: coga16
I don't seee it going down, they are going to finish the season and playoffs in some sort of shape or form. if they straight up cancelled the season, then maybe?
I don't think it's likely they resume the regular season. I think they will try to get the playoffs though.
Realistically, they don't have the time to finish the regular season, have a full playoff, have the draft and free agency and still have a full summer for the players to recover in time for training camp and pre season. It's either they call the 19-20 season, or they have to push the start of the 20-21 season into November, which I don't see making any more sense.
Also the Cap is based on revenue, and even if they resume play on the season it'll be in front of empty buildings, which means no ticket sales which means the revenue league wide still takes a massive hit. Even with ads and the TV deal, that's still a massive L on the year.
Most likely the cap stays the same, but there is definitely a scenario where it has to go down for a year. In that case I would suspect that each team would be given something like a compliance buyout, or a player exemption, where they can take one player contract to not count against the cap.