In the last few days in NBA there has been a lot of talk about Second Apronabove all because because of this point of the CBA signed in 2023, the Boston Celtics have decided to sell both Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in a few hours. Not only that: the owner of the Denver Nuggets in the past few hours he said at the press conference that due to the second apron “If a serious injury to the wrong player happens” His team should consider the possibility of selling Nikola Jokic in the future.
But what is the second apron?
It is one of the most important (if not the most important) innovations introduced by the NBA in the new collective agreement signed in 2023. In practice, It is a very rigid salary threshold designed to put a brake on the teams that spend a lot to build rosters full of stars, just like the Boston Celtics. Basically the goal of this threshold is to make unsustainable to maintain a team full of stars for more than a few years, guaranteeing the spare part of the NBA hierarchies for better competitiveness.
In NBA there is a salary cap, that is, a maximum roof that each team should respect. However, there are also “exceptions” that allow the teams to go beyond this roof, paying one Luxury Tax. Until 2023, the richest teams could take advantage of these rules to spend much more than CAP, keeping super competitive rosters. For example, the Golden State Warriors or the Celtics themselves, very rich teams, therefore had more possibilities than the small market.
To at least partially eliminate this internal disparity of the NBA, two “apron” have been introduced, that is, two precise thresholds above the Cap: the First and the Second Apron. The latter is the highest and most rigid threshold, in fact it involves heavy penalties for those teams that exceed it.
What does it involve the second apron?
A franchise that exceeds the second apron, currently projected to 207 million dollars for the next season:
- He cannot sign players with the formula of the sign-and-trade
- It cannot use one of the most useful exceptions to complete the roster, the so-called Mid-Level Exception taxpayer
- It cannot aggregate more contracts in a trade (i.e. add the wages of multiple players to exchange them with only one)
- It cannot receive more salary in return than you give in a trade
- He cannot sign players from the buyout market
And if the team remains above the second apron for several years (in particular in at least 3 of the last 5), his choice of the first round to the draft is automatically moved at the bottom of the first round. It is easy to understand that it almost never agrees to stay above the second apron, except for a couple of seasons to the maximum.
All of course goes to join the luxury taxwhich has remained inside the NBA scheme and can lead some franchises to pay crazy figures in order to maintain a super competitive roster. For example, the Warriors in the 2021-22 season paid $ 170 million of Luxury Tax, in addition to the $ 175 million in Monte Palani (which exceeded about 63 million in Salary Cap).
Milan. Graduated in work management and communication for organizations at the Catholic University, I founded Baskentierso in 2011. Yes, I cheer Orlando Magic and I do everything in order not to hide it.
