Carolina, all teams get the MLE, but it gets subtracted from their cap space.
So if the MLE is 5M, and you have 12M under the cap, you end up with the 5M MLE + 7M unless you renounce the MLE.
So if the Sixers end up 2M under the cap they can use up the the entire MLE. They cannot first use the 2M and then the MLE. In order to use the 2M they would have to renounce 2M worth of the MLE.
Sounds more complicated than it needs to be. Basically, uless you have more cap space than the MLE, you get to use up to the MLE. The other exceptions work the same way. You just cannot double dip. The only other way to go over the cap is to use your Bird rights, but then cap holds come into play.