NBA teams have known for a long time that the second apron provision of the collective bargaining agreement would have its day, and for the most part they tried to simply enjoy their lives until it darkened their doorsteps in earnest.
This summer, it broke down a few entrances.
And while some clubs were happy to catch the falling pieces â like, hey, break me off a piece of them Celtics â those entrusted with building a contending team and keeping it together are sweating the circumstances.
One league executive dealing with it was rather blunt.
“The second apron is a bitch, man,” he told Heavy Sports.
The Second Apron Led the Celtics to Cut Ties With Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Luke Kornet, and, in All Likelihood, Al Horford
Steven Ryan/Getty The Celtics parted ways with Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis this offseason amid second apron concerns.
The threshold is calculated at $207,824,000 for the 2025-26 season, and penalizes teams with collective salaries beyond it by imposing rules that limit the ability to make moves. There is also an increased luxury tax.
Faced with this situation â and with Jayson Tatum’s Achilles’ tendon injury severely hindering, if not ending, their shot at the 2026 NBA title â the Celts cut ties with Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Luke Kornet and, almost certainly, Al Horford.
“Before, they just kept hiking the price of being over the tax limit,” said the aforementioned exec. “The question was, ‘OK, is it worth spending this amount of money to pursue a championship?’ And for the most part, when you got close, the owner pushed his chips to the center of the table and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s worth it. Pay the money.’
“But now you have things like limitations on trades and loss of draft position [teams in the second apron for three years in a five-year span have a first round pick moved to the end of the round]. These are all new in the apron system. Now the cost gets too expensive. It’s not just money; it’s limiting to your operations.”
Much of the NBA’s salary cap system appeared designed to help teams from smaller markets compete with clubs that could derive far greater revenues from areas such as local TV and radio contracts. And while there may be some of that in the apron system, there is a measure of danger for all.
One Front Office Source Said About the Second Apron: ‘It’s Going to Kill Some of the Smaller market Teams That Go For
It
“You’ll see that it’s going to kill some of the smaller market teams that go for it,” another front office source told Heavy. “Milwaukee got a championship, but then it started costing them so much money that they had to make moves to cut back. The biggest reason to trade Khris Middleton was that it got them off some money. To be able to sign Myles Turner, they had to do the thing with (Dame) Lillard (waive and stretch his remaining money over five years). They had to do that to stay under that apron.
“I think it was designed to keep parity in the league,” he added. “I don’t know if it had as much to do with the smaller markets and all that. But those kind of teams obviously thought it would help them if the teams in the big cities couldnât just throw all kinds of money at a problem â more money than the smaller market teams could afford to do.
“You’ll still see that with some of the teams that spend into the second apron to chase a championship, but it won’t be long after that that they have to start selling off guys to avoid the penalties. And if you don’t get what youâre after â either winning it all or at least getting to the conference finals and contending â then youâre going to be stuck with a big bill and nothing to show for it.”
The Celtics got to unfurl the 2024 championship banner, but their quest to repeat was unceremoniously derailed in the second round. Their rotation once seemed locked and loaded; now there is uncertainty.
“Boston was put in an even tough position when Tatum went down, but don’t you think they’d have liked to be able to keep that group together longer?” said one exec who’s dealing with his own concerns about the future. “What happens if Tatum is able to come back late this season and for the playoffs â then he gets there and looks around, and there’s all these key guys missing?
“There’s some good parts about what they’re trying to do to make things competitive. But if you want some dominant-type teams, youâre not going to have that anymore. I mean, look, there’s been a new champion how many years in a row, seven?”
‘We Ain’t Houdinis’
The 30 owners have an obvious focus on financial health â both the league’s and their own.
“The owners are against anything that’s inflationary, and this apron system and the penalties make player movement harder,” said a team exec. “The big players will still get their money, but it’s harder to maneuver your roster once you get a bunch of veterans with serious contracts.
“What’s funny is that once they sign on to the new system and they have to operate under it, they turn to us in the front office and say, ‘Figure a way to get around it.’
“Let me tell you, those restrictions are seriously f****** chilling to those in basketball ops. You have to be a lot more careful with everything. Everything. You’ve got handcuffs.
“You know who you’d need to hire to circumvent the cap in this generation and this era? Houdini. He’s the only dude. He can get out of handcuffs and ankle cuffs. The rest of us, we ain’t Houdinis.”
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