SAN ANTONIO, TX – DECEMBER 31: Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics gestures as he loses control of the ball after pressure by Victor Wembanyama #1 (R) of the San Antonio Spurs and Julian Champagne #30 (L) in the first half at Frost Bank Center on December 31, 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images)
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Victor Wembanyama might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in the NBA.
Wembanyama bypassed the chance at starting his new contract extension at 30% of the 2027-28 salary cap, which could cost him more than $50 million in total. He “chose a contract sacrifice rooted in giving him and the organization increased ability to build a sustained title contender around him,” according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
A week before Wembanyama agreed to that contract, the Boston Celtics traded Jaylen Brown to the division-rival Philadelphia 76ers for a surprisingly meager package, which infuriated much of their fanbase. Team president Brad Stevens later explained that he thought the Celtics path to getting back to championship contention “looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players [Brown and Jayson Tatum.”
That appears to have caught the attention of both the National Basketball Players Association and players around the NBA. And with the negotiations over the league’s next collective bargaining agreement fast approaching, that could prove to be the foundation of an explosive battle between the NBA and the players’ union.
‘Unintended Consequence’ Or Not?
On July 3, Milwaukee Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma posted a long tweet railing against the impact of the current CBA.
A week later, NBPA executive director David Kelly promised that the players union would “do a better job of fighting back” against the second apron moving forward.
“We are not fans of the second apron,” Kelly said, per ESPN’s Ben Golliver. “We did not propose the second apron. We should have done a better job of fighting back against the second apron. In the future, we will have a much more unified union, and we will do a better job of fighting back. … We’re seeing [the apron system] decimate teams and force decisions to be made that are not basketball decisions.”
The players are poised to run into a problem, though. The league seems perfectly content with how things are playing out.
“The purpose of the system is ultimately to create competition throughout the league, and from that standpoint, I think the system is working incredibly well,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said after the board of governors meeting Tuesday.
A reporter asked Silver whether seeing teams have to trade stars for financial reasons made him want to change something about the CBA because of that “unintended consequence.” Silver replied, “It’s certainly not an unintended consequence.”
“When you have a salary system in place as we do, every general manager is going to need to make mixed basketball and business decisions. Frankly, they make them regardless of whether you have a cap. You see that in other sports. People manage to budgets. People recognize that you can’t — at some point, you can’t have unlimited resources, whether it’s for a team or any business.
“In the case of a league, it’s in essence zero sum. So to the extent that [a team] doesn’t re-sign a player or chooses to trade a player, of course that player goes to another team.”
In other words: The NBA doesn’t care whether teams feel like they have to trade stars because they can’t afford two or three players on max contracts at once anymore. The same number of stars will be in the league, and better dispersing them throughout all 30 markets could help revive interest across the country.
Shortly before the new CBA took effect in 2023, Silver specifically addressed how he envisioned parity helping the NBA at large.
“When you think about a 30-team league, and it’s not just the fans in those markets but fans increasingly all over the world who follow a team in that particular market maybe because they have an affinity for that style of play or a particular player on that team or some created connection to that city, you want a league where everyone feels that if the team that they are rooting for is well-managed and gets a little bit lucky, too, that’s necessary, that they can truly compete for championships,” he told reporters.
“I think this increased parity we’re seeing around the league is fantastic. It’s part by design, too. Through successive collective bargaining agreements and the one we just negotiated, there’s some new provisions in that one, as well, that we hope will help even the playing field to a certain extent.”
Based on players’ reactions around the league, it’s fair to ask whether the NBA went overboard in its pursuit of that desired parity.
Did The Second Apron Go Too Far?
Stevens told reporters that the Celtics might not have traded Brown “if there was a rule in the CBA that said the guys that you drafted that you signed to 35% supermaxes count as 25% of the cap. Because then that would allow you to build out towards the aprons with a lot more flexibility.”
Building through the draft isn’t the only pathway that got more complicated after the second apron took effect, though. Trades became far more difficult for teams over the first and second apron (particularly the second), and the CBA’s extension rules largely killed what was left of free agency. All three main routes became far more challenging.
From the NBA’s perspective, that’s a feature, not a bug. The CBA was designed to encourage more parity. Silver has been saying it for years. Although the NBA’s most memorable eras tend to revolve around dynasties, the league office appears to want a more even distribution of talent throughout the league.
The roster-building restrictions for teams that cross the second apron effectively force their hands at a certain point. Even the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are still sitting on a huge haul of future draft capital, had to start trimming their supporting cast this offseason because Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams’ max extensions kicked in.
That work is just beginning for them. In 2027-28, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander begins his supermax extension, which will cause his salary to jump by roughly $20 million. Cason Wallace will also be a restricted free agent if he doesn’t agree to an extension by October. The additions of rookie first-round picks Aday Mara and Bennett Stirtz may help the Thunder patch some holes, but they have no choice but to continue sloughing off pieces from their roster for financial reasons.
The Thunder are hardly the only team that have run into this problem. The Celtics won a championship two years ago and have since blown apart the core of that team. The Orlando Magic likely aren’t far behind. That’s all by design.
The question is whether that’s what’s best for the league.
“Historically, one of the issues in our league was we didn’t necessarily want to break up teams,” Silver told reporters in 2018. “There is a different sense in the NBA than the NFL, and the chemistry and dynamic that comes together with a group of players.”
He added at the time that the league “could do more to achieve parity, but you also don’t want parity of mediocrity.”
Is the NBA trending in that direction due to the second apron? That’s a question for the players’ union to wrestle with as it prepares to battle once again with team owners and the league office in the next round of CBA negotiations.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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