NEW YORK – The NBA salary cap for the 2003-04 season will be almost $44 million, a jump of about 9 percent from last season.

The league and the players’ union released the new figure Tuesday night on the eve of the expiration of a moratorium on free agent signings. Their financial calculations showed the average salary to be $4.917 million, which will become the starting salary for any free agent signed to the full mid-level exception. The new salary cap figure of $43.84 million is the highest in NBA history. A year ago, the figure dropped from $42.5 million to $40.27 million – the first drop since the salary cap system was adopted for the 1984-85 season.

The salary cap represents the maximum amount of payroll a team can spend on player salaries. It is known as a “soft” cap, however, as teams are allowed to use several exceptions to exceed that figure.

Teams whose payrolls exceeded $52.9 million last season will have to pay a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax on the overage.

All luxury tax money will be pooled and redistributed to teams below the threshold under a formula to be determined by the league’s Board of Governors. The players’ union said it expected next season’s tax threshold to be $57 million.

The cap has increased by an average of 8.5 percent during the current collective bargaining agreement, rising from $26.9 million in 1997-98 to the current level.

The 2003-04 minimum team salary, set at 75 percent of the salary cap, will be $32,880,000.