Rest of the text from this section of the article:
“The CBA, and especially the introduction of the restrictive second apron, has had a major impact on roster-building. Just this offseason, the Phoenix Suns and Celtics escaped the second apron, and only the Cavaliers are expected to finish the 2025-26 season above it.
But history has shown that teams rarely operate in that realm.
Since the start of the 2013-14 season, when new repeater tax penalties were put in place, there have been 37 teams to finish the season far enough above the salary cap to qualify for spending into the second apron (roughly 134% of the cap).
Through the first six years of that span — leading up to the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season — there were 14 teams, and never more than three in a single season.
But since the league finished its season inside the Orlando bubble, there have been 23 teams operating over that threshold, including 17 alone in a three-year span from 2021-22 through 2023-24. The biggest driver: the salary cap flattening over a multiyear period because of the aftereffects of the pandemic.
Last year, the league was back down to three teams over the second apron: Minnesota, Phoenix and Boston.
And as the salary cap starts to regularly rise again, the increased flexibility for mid-tier teams lower down the salary structure will start to play a bigger role than it has the past couple of years as the market has been gummed up with little cap space to work with.”
34 comments
Sam Presti didn’t like it so that should say a lot
I don’t think many have an issue the new CBA. The issue is that they dropped it in the league so abruptly with a 1 year grace period then hit you with the harshest of restrictions in terms of team building completely destroying what teams already had building for years.
Time to find a new team, no hope for this franchise
-Rob Pelinka left the group
It saved parity in the NBA
Yea but it also makes difficult for the good teams to stay together and also, sorta punishes you for drafting well
It prioritizes good management over good basketball. Only people that think that’s good are losers.
“And it makes sure our spending does not grow at the same rate as other sports.”
I can’t wait to see the reaction in another yr or 2 when the Thunder are forced to blow their team up which all we hear now is the model way to do it because of the CBA
When you know Sam Ptesti didn’t like it it’s bad because he knows he won’t be able to keep his current team for much longer
I think the biggest fuck-up for implementation of this was that there was not a 3 or 4 year implementation period. It was only finalized in 2023, but then to expect teams to adjust to it after only 1 year of knowing the final details, really fucked a lot of teams over and was a little unreasonable. Now that teams understand fully the ramifications, I fully expect teams to still supermax their superstars, but they need to take a hard look at their second best player and a REALLY hard look at their third best player to determine if they can max them or if they can take a risk and let them walk, or flip for young cost controlled assets
I think the only issue I have with it is that we have long criticized teams who don’t want to spend, and this more or less puts teams that are willing to spend in a bind. Just a double standard. A few years down the road when all the teams are cleaned up and have been operating under it I think that’s when we will see what it really makes the league look like
That’s so wrong.
GSW was a well managed team and the new cba was practically tailormade to punish how they operated.
The actual poorly managed teams aren’t affected by the new cba at all because those teams weren’t going over the luxury tax anyway.
The only teams that are hurt by the new cba are the teams that tried to emulate what GSW did.
BS! Youll still lose your players that you drafted bc theres not enough money to go around bc of the BS 1st and 2nd apron
Nah fuck the new CBA, I don’t want to see good teams getting blown up for economic reasons after 1-2 years
It’s only good for owners because they’ve a reason to cheap out now.
It saved the greedy billionaire owners lots of money
Shit this current CBA can rung through until the 2030 season but the NPBA can opt out in 28-29 season.
Agree
This CBA will expose bad GMs/bad scouts
Well run teams will benefit
I love it as a fan, more parity, can’t predict the post season too much in October anymore
Its like CFB and NFL now – its more interesting
I like that there aren’t any super teams and if they are it’s for one year. I wish there was a middle ground where teams can dig themselves out of holes quickly. In the nfl teams can be bad 1 year then very good the next. Not sure that’s possible for most teams given the way drafting works.
I’m sure cheap owners are loving that their competition is punished for over spending
Some teams don’t mind being bad (Washington, Charlotte, apparently Sacramento, etc. ). I get not wanting to reward teams willing to spend like crazy, but there should be some sort of punishment for perpetually and purposely being bad too.
As a bulls fan… I don’t like the sound of this.
It’s fantastic for the league. Still would like a hard cap but it’s a step in the right direction
How is it “good for the NBA” to have several franchises “quickly stuck with a bad team” and seemingly no easy way to recover??
Unless your the lakers
Why do so many people hate players making money?
Don’t tell that to butt hurt Bill Simmons.
Why are American sports leagues so obsessed with “parity”, aka punishing good teams for being good and incentivizing failure? A rising tide will lift all boats, it’s not zero sum. No wonder the ratings are going down, every few years you have to blow up a good team just to protect the feelings of awfully run teams like the Wizards.
That actually makes no sense. Nobody care about NBA because of good “management and leadership”. People care because of good basketball and player attachments.
Sure no one want to see another KD warriors, but teams being forced to send off players they draft is also awful.
Yeah because I watch basketball for the good management.
Even with top tier management can you sustain success with this CBA? We will see, but nobody has managed it yet.
Sacramento Kings, it’s been nice knowing y’all
I actually do like as well, but the “grace period” was way too short to really fix roster construction for many teams. Only a few teams are really in the red, but a lot of good teams are kinda stuck with contracts that have suddenly changed value with those restrictions.
The only real problem with this new CBA is that dynasty will be close to impossible to achieve.
OKC is the only team in the unique position, where years of smart asset hording will allow them to transition from really good roleplayers, who want to get their (deserved) money, getting traded for cheaper players with similar impact/talent.
But even that won’t stop them from having to make tough decisions after next season.
And while I enjoy the parity in this current NBA, I also want to see really great teams be able to show their greatness over many years.