The second tax apron that’s included in the NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement will be phased in over two seasons, sources tell John Hollinger of The Athletic.
The new financial provision is designed to discourage excessive spending by the league’s wealthiest franchises. It is set at $17.5MM above the luxury tax threshold and places severe restrictions on teams that go above that figure.
Penalties for exceeding the second apron include the loss of the mid-level exception, a ban on including cash as part of trades and the inability to accept more salary in a trade than the team sends out. A team in the second apron will also be unable to aggregate salary in trades and cannot trade its first-round pick seven years in the future (ie. its 2030 pick in 2023/24) or sign players on the buyout market.
Also, if a team exceeds the second apron and remains there in two of the four subsequent years, its frozen draft pick (the one that was initially seven years out) will get moved to the end of the first round, regardless of the team’s record in that season.
Hollinger points out that the Clippers and Warriors face the most immediate concerns about the second apron. Both teams are currently about $40MM above the luxury tax line and are locked into payrolls at the same level for next season. Hollinger notes that the only way for either team to substantially reduce its payroll over the next few years is to downgrade its roster.
He adds that the Bucks, Celtics, Mavericks, Lakers and Suns are also more than $17.5MM above the tax line this season, but they have easier paths to avoiding the second apron in the future.
There’s more on the new CBA:
- Teams that exceed the first apron by going $7MM above the tax will see their taxpayer MLE reduced to $5MM with a two-year maximum for signings, Hollinger adds. Like teams above the second apron, they will also be unable to take back more salary than they send out in any deal and will be prohibited from signing most players who get bought out.
- Any team that’s below the league’s salary floor on the first day of the 2024/25 season will not receive a tax distribution for that year, Bobby Marks points out in an ESPN writers’ discussion of the CBA provisions. That’s likely to encourage low-spending teams to add an additional free agent or two to make sure their payroll qualifies. Marks notes that the union also benefits from the addition of 30 more jobs with each team adding a third two-way slot, as well as growth in the non-taxpayer and room mid-level exceptions.
- The number of players that teams can have under contract during the offseason and training camp will increase from 20 to 21, tweets Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.ca.
Well I mean you have a Warriors team that mostly has paid the players they’ve drafted. So this penalizes teams for paying their own players but the league set up this ridiculous supermax for teams to keep their own players, just not too many of them.
Yup, and wealthy Bay Area fans should be able to donate to a gofundme to thumb their nose at this pathetic attempt to break up an extended dynasty that likely will get GSW right up with the Lakers and Celtics in terms of titles when its over (NBAs worst nightmare).
Yeah I always hated how the Warriors get punished for keeping its drafted players, there should be BIG exceptions for these players the league is incentivizing teams to blow up their roster every other year its going to hurt the fans if they don’t implement exceptions for drafted player extensions.
Or better known as the break up the warrior’s dynasty rule. So Silver is against a team that draft well and keep their own players.
The owners have to vote to accept these rules as well. And they installed Silver. So really, you can blame the rest of the league’s ownership.
Yup. Feel like the real job title should be commissioner/professional scapegoat.
He doesn’t necessarily do the best job he could, but it could be far worse. Worse even than David Stern. *cough*RobManfred*cough*
The NBA has addressed its lack of players not being able to move in the leauge in a great way.
The hoarding and future idea of being able to hoard future talent and leaving the less talented percieved as scraps and spare parts is eliminated.
More players will have their time to be a piece for a time on a team and many more will now be percieved as pieces to the puzzle that can help a team advance to the next level.
It’s been the biggest piece only or nothing leauge for to long now.
The small market teams are the big winners.
We will also see a great deal less of these kinda like a contract deals and way less partial contracts in all cases.
I kind of agree. Jordan Poole, Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga are all 35+ MPG starters in this league on every other team, I can see why both the player and league wants teams to thin out the roster. End of day the team with Curry is going to the playoffs for the next 5+ years, so….
They’re not being penalized for drafting well. In fact, this doesn’t even prevent you from keeping your drafted players and paying each of them $50 mil a year if you want to. This shouldn’t even be part of the discussion. Celtics drafted almost as well recently as the Warriors and it’s not affecting them so Warrior fans should stop crying
They haven’t won anything with those drafted players either LOL
What does that have to do with any part of the discussion?
It has everything to do with the discussion. You are acting like some loser johnny come latelys from boston who have zero rings are on the same tier as the current NBA dynasty that’s in the middle of winning probably double figures in rings. You tried to sneak in this little diss
“Celtics drafted almost as well recently as the Warriors and it’s not affecting them so Warrior fans should stop crying”
My guy, we are NOT the same. Your squad hasn’t won a damn thing AND you have ONE (1) title since 1986! That’s almost 40 years! Please silencio your voicio in this conversationo!
You think the Warriors are going to win 6 more titles with Curry/Klay/Draymond? What drugs are you on?
Who said anything about rings? When did rings come into this conversation? What does the article have to do with rings? What does the second tax apron have to do with rings?
Answer: nothing
Putz
They haven’t maxed Brown yet.
I’m still shocked that they allowed the supermax to be tied into media voting with the all-nba teams.
I think the idea of a supermax and tier players should’ve just been eliminated and just allow a free market system considering the new CBA is turning into a hard cap with the tax apron penalties.
There’s def going to be a market correction for the non-top20 players in the league for sure though.
Free market fails the majority every time… It only serves to funnel resources to a minority…
It’s why max contracts and the cap even existed in the first place…
The NBA rewards (not penalizes) teams for drafting their players, and to a ridiculous extent compared to the other major team sports. RSC rights, early extensions, higher salary increases, longer contracts, etc., assure, with redundancy, that there is NEVER an instance where a new team can enter and compete for a player on a level playing field.
It’s why Free Agency among the league’s stars is all but dead. It’s the doing of the dominant ownership group (which is comprised mostly of the owners of the so-called “small market” teams). They don’t want Free Agency; believing they won’t be destinations of choice. The players have gone along with this largely because they’ve been bought off on all fronts, security (existing teams can extend way in advance of contract expiration), salary (existing teams can pay more and for more years) and even mobility (players can’t move teams in free agency, but can demand trades without consequence, and aren’t limited in their destinations to teams with cap space). Large market teams are the minority. Anything in the CBA that’s benefitted them since 2011 has been due to smaller market owners being the single dumbest ownership sub-group in the history of American professional sports. As consistent as they’ve been at that, it’s hard to rely on it showing up when you need it.