Could be. Could also be the journos making contract numbers up or Bennett not willing to pay ridiculous amounts that would stuff his salary cap. Unfortunately we will never know.
What I have most issue with is in a competition with a salary cap where every team basically spends the same amount, how can you have so much disparity in quality between the top 3 or 4 teams and the middle of the road teams let alone the bottom teams. All we seem to hear is players are willing to accept unders while the lower teams have to pay overs. On this basis the better teams are getting $1m to $2m of value while a lower team is probably spending $1m to $2m more than they should be for the quality of players they have so in effect the salary cap is creating a $2m to $4m advantage to the better sides instead of leveling the playing field which was its intended purpose. While these are my figures, I would think they are in the ballpark given the constant bragging by the better sides.
