As teams around the NBA weigh potential trades or signings that would add a maximum-salary (or near-max) veteran to their roster, they’ve become increasingly wary of navigating the tax aprons, as well as maintaining enough flexibility to build a deep roster, according to executives who spoke to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps.
“There are two major shifts happening,” a Western Conference general manager explained to Windhorst. “We have everyone being very mindful of the aprons and carefully slotting their players to fit. Then you have the nature of the game, where you need deep rosters to play this volume of games at the speed the league is playing.”
Stars are still considered vital to building a championship-caliber roster, Windhorst writes, but front offices are more concerned than ever about the potential availability of a player who will be earning upwards of 30-35% of the salary cap, as well as the cost of acquiring and retaining that player, in terms of either salary, draft picks, or both.
“The max-level guys who make tons of money can’t play as many minutes as they could before, so they become less valuable,” an Eastern Conference executive told Bontemps. “You can’t be committing that much of your money to guys who won’t play at all or cannot sustain the same number of games and minutes.”
“You just can’t paper over a guy on your roster that isn’t delivering value at the highest levels,” another Eastern exec added, per Bontemps. “You can manage missing the lower-end guys, but the long-term salaries making $30, $40, $50 million? There’s no getting over that. Those guys bury you in this system.”
Windhorst recently broached this topic in an episode of The Hoop Collective podcast, expressing some skepticism that there will be teams willing to make massive offers for Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. However, in today’s ESPN article, Windhorst acknowledges that Antetokounmpo – a two-time MVP who is on the wrong side of 30, is on a super-max contract, and will likely warrant another huge extension in the near future – is among the potential exceptions, writing that the “old rules” still apply to a player of that caliber.
“I don’t think you’d see 29 teams make an offer like if, say, Victor (Wembanyama) was available, but there would be plenty of interest (in Antetokounmpo) and probably two to three teams would be willing to go all-in right now,” an East executive told ESPN. “Every player has risk, and he’d have some risk, but this is one you don’t have to work too hard to talk yourself into.”
Conversely, Mavericks big man Anthony Davis, whose 2025/26 salary is identical to Antetokounmpo’s and who is a year-and-a-half older, is the sort of player whose market would be less robust due to concerns about his availability and the percentage of a team’s cap he’d take up, says Bontemps.
“For a guy like Anthony Davis,” a Western Conference executive said, “it’s hard to justify them getting a 35 percent max when they aren’t playing a ton of minutes and games.”
Execs around the NBA may view Philadelphia as a cautionary tale. The Sixers are paying Joel Embiid and Paul George a combined $107MM this season — they’ve appeared in nine and eight games, respectively, and haven’t performed at their usual level.
Bontemps also points to Kings center Domantas Sabonis, Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr., and Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen as examples of players whose recent pay raises might make some teams less inclined to give up significant hauls for them if they were available. Sabonis will make $94MM in the two seasons after this one; Jackson has a four-year, $205MM extension starting in 2026; and Markkanen will make nearly $50MM annually through 2028/29.
“On their last contracts, they had good value,” an executive said of that trio. “(Now) they are all at a whole new threshold, where you look at them totally differently.”
While front offices may be proceeding with an abundance of caution on certain trade targets, that doesn’t mean that every star who ends up on the trade block will be available at a discount. Even for players with red flags, there could always be one team willing to make a more aggressive offer than what 28 others would consider rational. Still, Windhorst and Bontemps suggest this evolving league-wide sentiment is a factor that could impact the NBA’s trade market going forward.
“The aprons are causing people to think and act differently,” a scout told ESPN. “But there will always be teams that decide to strike while the irons are hot. … It’s an even bigger risk-reward calculation than it has ever been.”
“The max-level guys who make tons of money can’t play as many minutes as they could before, so they become less valuable,” an Eastern Conference executive told Bontemps. “You can’t be committing that much of your money to guys who won’t play at all or cannot sustain the same number of games and minutes.”
That is THE critical insight into how the NBA has changed over the last few years. The league is getting younger, not older. It’s based on actual player statistics and roster construction.
Despite LeBron and Steph, on the whole, the league is getting younger, not older. On the average, per dollar, older players increasingly provide less value than younger players.
This is why OKC is the new standard and GSW represents the obsolete.
Most teams in the NBA is at the cap level so there is no wiggle room to bring in a max player. Why signing your #2 or #3 player to a max deal hurts you in the long run.
It’s extremely player dependent. AD, Embiid, Zion and Leonard have been missing games their whole careers, and Steph is not in the conversation of health and availability in comparison to LeBron. Shooting well will always extend your career longer than athleticism will.
> It’s extremely player dependent
Yes, but the point is that statistically speaking (all players considered, and over the last few years) there are clear trends.
The article mentions the increase in the “speed of the game”. Just as the increase in 3 point shooting influenced roster construction from 2016-2023, the increase in speed of game is the new driver. But whereas shooting ability is largely unrelated to age, increased pace favors youth.
This isn’t a novel analysis, it’s all over the web if you look for it.
Credit to the NBA, this is the new system working as-intended. Teams loading up with superstars and filling out the rest of the roster with vet min. salaries, only to burn it all down and bottom out when they don’t win a title is terrible for fans. It also meant that young guys only got opportunities to develop in small markets like Charlotte. I really don’t see a downside to the shift that’s taking place.
The NBA salary structure, where max contracts are simply expected for players beyond a certain skill level or they force themselves out, is so destructive. And I think the league knows it. The aprons are a back door way to clean that up without reducing those max numbers. I think pretty soon we’ll start seeing very good not great players earning very good (like 1/2 max or 2/3 max) salaries again, like in other sports.
No one forces you to sign players. Teams do it to themselves. Half the time they sign a player so they won’t lose him. Then can’t trade him tor a few yrs. Or have to attach picks to move him.
Who cares about billionaires who can’t manage NBA money. Numnuts who hire GMs like Morey to give away their money.
If depth is so valuable then the bench guys need to start getting paid better.
> If depth is so valuable then the bench guys
> need to start getting paid better.
See OKC. Their 9-14 guys are all on long-term contracts far above the league average. Aaron Wiggins, Isiah Joe, Kenrich Williams, Jaylin Williams.
You can’t do that way with a core of expensive guys in their mid- to late-30’s.
The owners shld put that in their contract coz they are paying them bec of what they’ve achieved in the past and but not what they can do now.
They should put what in the contract?
To tell them to play more?
Or a punishment to not play more?.
There could be an incentive to play more.
A contract is usually the minimum of what you expect to make, plus bonuses.
And punishments that could terminate employment.
I often hear people say additions to a law or contract needs to take place.
But not explain further
This new tax system is working… for now…
There is always a way to exploit it but at least now we have a real sense of parity within the NBA in terms of how money is spent…
“You just can’t paper over a guy on your roster that isn’t delivering value at the highest levels,” another Eastern exec added, per Bontemps. “You can manage missing the lower-end guys, but the long-term salaries making $30, $40, $50 million? There’s no getting over that. Those guys bury you in this system.”
Fans have know these top contracts were killing teams for 35 years. How are GMs learning this now. 🤣