Adam Silver isn’t backing away from the second apron, even as players and fans keep hammering it.
The NBA commissioner said Tuesday in Las Vegas that the league’s current system is doing exactly what it was built to do: force teams into tough choices, spread out the talent and push the league toward more parity.
“It’s certainly not an unintended consequence,” Adam Silver said when speaking to the media after the NBA Board of Governors meeting in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “When you have a salary system in place as we do, every general manager is going to need to make mixed basketball and business decisions.
Frankly, they make them regardless of whether you have a cap. You see that in other sports.
People manage budgets. People recognize that you can’t - at some point, you can’t have unlimited resources, whether it’s for a team or any business....
“The purpose of the system is ultimately to create competition throughout the league, and from that standpoint, I think the system is working incredibly well. The goal isn’t necessarily to have a different champion every year, but we’ve had eight different champions over the last eight years.
As I’ve said previously, one of the things we were hoping to accomplish in this latest collective bargaining agreement was to dispel this notion that only certain markets were in a position to truly compete. We just saw a Finals between, essentially, the largest market in the league in New York and one of the smallest markets in San Antonio.”
That defense comes at a time when the backlash is loud. Victor Wembanyama’s decision to leave roughly $50 million on the table in his latest contract so the Spurs can keep building toward a championship has become a flashpoint, with David Kelly, the new executive director of the NBPA, saying the burden shouldn’t fall on the player.
“Our position would be that the system should not require a player to carry all that burden,” Kelly said during his introductory press conference last week. “It should not put a player in a position where he has to carry the burden in order to keep a team together. A system that does that, we have a problem.”
Kevin Love took the criticism even further, calling the second apron a de facto hard cap and pointing to the way it can shape roster decisions for teams like Boston, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.
“I’ll tell you, selfishly, what’s really f****** stupid, these aprons are f****** with the game,” Love said in an appearance on The Old Man and the Three podcast. “That’s on our side, [the owners] know exactly who they are that did it…
“You’re telling me Oklahoma City can’t keep those three guys together because of these aprons? That’s bulls***. You’re telling me Sam Presti, the greatest, all the things that he’s done, is handcuffed because of these f****** aprons?”
The frustration is easy to understand from the players’ side. Wembanyama took the same discount as Thunder big man Chet Holmgren, and both moves help their teams stay flexible under the rules.
But from the league’s perspective, that’s the point. The owners wanted parity, and the second apron has become the mechanism that nudges teams toward it.
Boston’s situation sits right in the middle of the debate. Brad Stevens reportedly felt he couldn’t keep Jaylen Brown and another supermax player together while also building a championship roster, and that kind of pressure is exactly what critics say the system creates.
There is, however, a counterproposal floating around: give teams that draft and develop a max player a salary-cap break when that player stays home. In Wembanyama’s case, the Rose Rule could allow him to earn 30% of the cap on his next deal - about an extra $10 million per year - while only counting as 25% against the team’s books.
The idea would help clubs like Boston keep players such as Brown and build around them, since both Brown and Jayson Tatum would qualify. Warriors owner Joe Lacob has also pushed that concept, back when Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were all together.
That discussion is headed for the next round of CBA negotiations. For now, though, the owners appear content with the setup they have.
They wanted a hard cap, and what they got instead is a second apron that functions much the same way. Only one team was above it last season, Cleveland, and only one is there now, Oklahoma City, which may still move to get below the line.
The real question for the players is simple: if they want the second apron changed, what are they prepared to give up in return?
In Other News...
Spurs Patience Around Wembanyama Suddenly Looks Smarter Than Ever
The Spurs spent last offseason resisting the urge to shortcut Victor Wembanyamas rise, choosing development and patience over a splashy veteran addition. Even with the franchise linked to big names such as Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio stayed on its own timeline and kept building around its young core rather than forcing a win-now move.
Now that approach looks even more deliberate. Durants market has cooled enough to make him a far less realistic target than he once seemed, and the same logic that kept the Spurs from chasing him then still applies now: the front office has been willing to wait for the right fit instead of paying a premium for a name. For a team built around Wembanyama, that kind of restraint suddenly feels less cautious and more like the clearest path forward. [Read more 🡒]
Wembanyama's Extension Could Put The Spurs Core In A Brutal Spot
Victor Wembanyamas next extension is already shaping up to be the kind of contract that changes the math for everyone around him. For the Spurs, that is less a celebration of one stars rise than a reminder of how quickly a promising young core can run into the hard edges of the NBAs current cap system, especially once Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper get close to their own big-money decisions.
The challenge is not just paying elite talent, it is fitting multiple elite deals onto the same books without squeezing the roster into an impossible corner. Wembanyama is the exception, not the template, and the leagues next round of labor talks could matter a lot for how much breathing room San Antonio has when Castle and Harper reach that point, with De'Aaron Fox also part of the long-term financial picture. [Read more 🡒]