The apron.
It will likely end up being the word of the 2024-25 NBA offseason, finishing just ahead of “Bronny.”
Admittedly, calling what NBA teams are dealing with this summer “the apron” (or more accurately “aprons,” since there are two) is a misnomer. The term doesn't make much sense audibly or visually to fans. It's lawyer/accounting terminology.
The bottom line is that there is a new set of rules, created almost 18 months ago when the new collective bargaining agreement was ratified, that will come into effect this summer. These new rules are designed to put the brakes on the combination of acquiring players with big spending. You can still do one or the other but it is now much more complicated to do both.
The NBA summer is when that goal is most relevant.
That's why there's a new twist that will enter numerous deals or near-deals over the next week: It's not just about how much your team can spend, but how much you're allowed to spend.
Many more trades and signings, even entry-level ones, now automatically create a hard salary cap that teams cannot exceed under any circumstances, regardless of any Bird rights or exceptions they have.
The LA Clippers are owned by Steve Ballmer, ranked by Forbes as the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of $130.7 billion. However, they remain in danger of losing their star Paul George, not because they are unwilling to sign the check to keep their star-studded team together, but because paying George market value would lead to usage-induced penalties. of the ball. Instead, as they did when they got Kawhi Leonard to take a slight pay cut in the contract extension he signed last season, they have been seeking concessions from George to avoid ball-induced penalties.
The New York Knicks made a blockbuster deal to acquire Mikal Bridges the night before the NBA draft, but they face the possibility of not being able to re-sign his valuable backup Isaiah Hartenstein. Not because they don't want to pay him, but because the Bridges trade triggered a possible “defense band” rule that wouldn't make it possible.
LeBron James, who remains a bargain even with his cap salary of just over $50 million per season, is showing interest in taking a pay cut so the Los Angeles Lakers can sign a better free agent with the mid-level exception . Not because the Lakers have a cap space problem, but because they have a team problem.
The Dallas Mavericks traded three second-round picks to shed Tim Hardaway Jr.’s salary last week. Not because they need it to open up cap space to sign a free agent, but so they can have air space to operate around the pad.
There will be many more examples like this in the coming days, months and years, and there will be an untold number of transactions that will not happen because teams will try to avoid all the new obstacles.
ESPN's trading machine needed a total rewrite of its software. The concept of fans doing something resembling rough calculations on the back of a napkin when deciding how their team is going to land a star will need a manual to go along with it.
Why has this happened?
The reason NBA owners pursued this set of parameters was to mitigate the advantage of deep-pocketed teams and force the redistribution of talent, particularly to smaller markets. It has had an immediate effect as the league's elite teams struggle with the fallout and watch players go elsewhere with “apron room.”
The tug-of-war over the wage cap began in the 1980s, when it was first instituted, and has progressed over the decades in the fine print of collective bargaining agreements.
It contributed significantly to the 1999 lockout. Then there were the “peak contracts.” The game of cat and mouse ultimately led to a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax. Then a “graduated” luxury tax and a “repetitive” tax. Then there was an “apron” and now there is a “first apron” and a “second apron.”
Essentially, all of these mechanisms are designed to tighten the wage cap. The current system contains guardrails that are the closest yet to a true hard-cap system.
However, despite all this, maximum contracts are being signed that include salaries exceeding $60 million per season, the average player salary is more than $12 million and the minimum salaries of veteran players exceed the 3 million dollars. Superstars continue to join their favorite teams and new superteams are created almost every year.
It could take a few years for everyone to adjust to the new status quo, and before that there will be a lot of unusual changes and some confusion. Not everyone who runs NBA teams fully understands how it all works yet. The consequences are real but also difficult to predict.
Welcome to the age of the apron.
