The Collective Bargaining Agreement of any sports league is very difficult to understand. This is why many sports agents are millionaires themselves, and teams have cadres of lawyers and analysts working with their on-field operations departments. If these people spend their entire careers working on these topics, it’s certainly not going to be easy for the average fan to understand every single nuance of every single league.

Heck, this summer alone it feels like the NBA community uncovered a gigantic find with the explainer of Chicago’s “max qualifying offer” to Jimmy Butler. That was originally from Mark Deeks, who runs the ShamSports website and was profiled by Grantland last summer. Of course, Larry Coon wrote up the invaluable CBA Faq website. And former executive Amin Elhassan had a great read on the rising cap environment for ESPN Insider.

There’s tons and tons of information we — as fans, as laypeople, as writers — all keep discovering about the NBA and contracts. One particular area of confusion lies with five-year contracts and players coming off their rookie deals. As we all know, the Cleveland Cavaliers signed Kyrie Irving to the maximum rookie contract extension during last summer’s negotiation window. That contract will be worth approximately five years and $90 million, after Irving barely missed the requirements for the “Rose rule.”

In addition, the Cavaliers also could sign a five-year contract with Tristan Thompson this summer. This is contrary to the many assumed thoughts that the Cavaliers already used their lone “designation” on Irving and could not also sign a five-year deal with Thompson, as both were 2011 draft picks. The difference lies in the terminology of the word “extension.” Here’s a snippet from Coon’s FAQ:

Rookie scale contracts may be extended for up to four seasons beyond the last option season in the contract, bringing the total contract length to five seasons. Teams can also select one player (called their “Designated Player”) who can receive a five-year extension, bringing the total contract length to six seasons. A team can have at most one player on its roster whom they have designated for a longer extension, plus at most one player designated by another team whom they acquired in trade.

Thompson and Irving both played out their last option season in 2014-15. That was their fourth campaign in the NBA. Irving’s new contract signed last summer was labeled as this specific rookie max “extension” since he had one more guaranteed year left. Teams can offer only of these rookie max “extensions” and they can only be offered during the period from the end of the July moratorium until Oct. 31 preceding the player’s last option season.

Now that Thompson has finished this last option season, he is currently a restricted free agent with $6.8 million qualifying offer. The rookie extension window passed last summer after he reportedly declined a four-year $52 million extension. At that time, the Cavaliers could only offer a four-year extension. This summer, however, they can now offer a brand new five-year contract.

Thus, the maximum deal Cleveland can offer the 24-year-old Thompson would be in fact be identical to Kyrie Irving’s five-year $90 million deal. It just wouldn’t be an “extension,” he wouldn’t be the Cavs’ “designated” player, and there’d be no potential vesting option of the “Rose rule.” As one potential guess, SB Nation’s Tom Ziller predicted a five-year $55 million agreement with Cleveland. This obviously is likely on the low end of estimates based on last summer’s offer.

The maximum offer sheet that can be extended to Thompson would be approximately four years and $67.5 million. This is the 2015-16 version of the offer sheet that Charlotte signed with Gordon Hayward last summer, but then was matched by the Utah Jazz. Similarly to the situation with Kevin Love, there’s again an incentive where the current team can offer one more year and higher annual raises to their own free agent.

For more Cavs salary explainers, check out this series of posts here at WFNY:

— It won’t be easy for the Cavaliers to acquire Dwyane Wade — Jun. 22, 2015

— Everything you need to know about the Cavs and future salaries — Jun. 1, 2015

— Summer trade of Brendan Haywood could carry 300% tax rate for Cavs — Feb. 24, 2015

— Everything you need to know about the NBA All-Star game, Kyrie Irving’s contract, and the future — Jan. 23, 2015