One year ago, the Boston Celtics won their 18th NBA championship in franchise history. Fast-forward 14 months, and their roster is hardly recognizable. Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser are their lone remaining rotation players from that championship squad.
The NBA’s second apron is largely to blame for that level of turnover.
Had the Celtics not detonated their roster this offseason, they were in line to become the NBA’s first-ever $500 million team when factoring in both payroll and luxury-tax penalties. They might have been open to shelling out that type of dough had they repeated as champions last season; after all, how can you turn down the opportunity at a three-peat? But when Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles tendon in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks, it sealed the fate for that era of the Celtics.
The Celtics aren’t the only team that has cowed in the face of the second apron, though. The Minnesota Timberwolves traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks right before training camp last year, largely for financial reasons. Doing so gave them enough wiggle room under the second apron to re-sign both Julius Randle and Naz Reid this offseason, although they still wound up losing Nickeil Alexander-Walker to the Atlanta Hawks.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers allowed Paul George to walk in free agency last summer, as they refused to give him the same four-year, $211.6 million max contract that he wound up signing with the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We wanted Paul back,” team governor Steve Ballmer told ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk last November. “We made him a big offer. We really wanted him here. We just wanted to not put ourselves in a position where we can’t consistently be good. We offered them the max for three years and Philly offered them the max for four years. OK, I get it. But in terms of our trajectory and staying really good, it was really going to be an issue for us.”
Hardcore NBA fans have become painfully aware of the new team-building realities that the second apron brought about, but casual fans might not fully grasp what makes the second apron so terrifying to teams. That’s what we’re here to explain.
The Second Apron’s Trade And Free-Agency Restrictions
The NBA’s previous collective bargaining agreement had only one apron, which was roughly $6-7 million above the luxury-tax line. Teams that went above the apron had the smaller taxpayer mid-level exception rather than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, couldn’t acquire free agents via sign-and-trade and lost access to the bi-annual exception, but those were their main restrictions.
Under the new CBA, first-apron teams are subject to all of those limitations and then some. They also aren’t allowed to take back more salary in a trade than they send out—they were previously allowed to take back 125% of what they sent out—and once the regular season begins, they can’t sign someone off the buyout market if that player was previously earning more than the non-taxpayer MLE. Lastly, they can’t use trade exceptions that were created in a previous season.
Teams that go above the second apron face all of those restrictions as well. Beyond that, they also can’t aggregate two smaller contracts in a trade to acquire a larger salary, send out cash in a trade or acquire players when they sign-and-trade their own free agents away. They also lose access to any mid-level exception in free agency, which means they can only hand out veteran-minimum contracts to external free agents.
The Phoenix Suns were effectively the NBA’s first second-apron guinea pig, and they demonstrated how quickly things can go south for teams above that line. In 2023, they quickly signed Keita Bates-Diop, Yuta Watanabe and Drew Eubanks once free agency began, and they added Eric Gordon and Bol Bol later on. Last summer, they landed one of the biggest steals of the summer by inking Tyus Jones to a one-year, veteran-minimum contract.
Some of those signings (Jones, Eubanks) worked out for the Suns. Others did not. When Grayson Allen went down two games into the 2024 playoffs with an ankle injury, the Suns didn’t have the adequate depth to replace him. The same went for whenever Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and/or Devin Booker missed time over the past two seasons.
Second-apron teams with elite college and NBA scouting departments might be able to work the margins in the draft and free agency and harvest some gems with their limited resources. However, the second-apron restrictions are effectively designed to limit teams’ ability to improve their roster via free agency or trades.
The Second Apron’s Draft Pick Penalties
Teams that go above the second apron aren’t just limited in free agency and on the trade market. They face a pair of severe draft-related penalties as well.
If a team finishes above the second apron in a given year, it is no longer allowed to trade its first-round pick seven years in the future. That means the Suns, Celtics and Timberwolves—all of whom finished as second-apron teams in 2024-25—are not allowed to trade their 2032 first-round pick for the time being.
It gets worse. If any of those teams stay above the second apron for at least two of the next four years, that first-round pick will automatically move to the bottom of the round. If multiple teams have their picks moved down in the same draft, they’ll be arranged in reverse order of their winning percentage from that season.
If a second-apron team finishes below the second apron for at least three of the following season, its first-round pick becomes trade-eligible again. However, the Suns, Celtics and Timberwolves will not be able to trade their 2032 first-round pick until 2028 at the earliest.
All three teams have already dipped below the second apron in 2025-26, which suggests they’re being mindful of those draft-pick penalties. The Cleveland Cavaliers are the only team above the second apron at the moment. If they fall short in the playoffs again, it’s fair to wonder whether they’ll be compelled to trade one of their larger contracts to escape from the second-apron restrictions that they’ll face this coming season.
The second apron increases at the same percentage as the salary cap and luxury-tax lines do on a year-to-year basis, so teams will begin to gain a bit more breathing room as the decade progresses. There was less than an $11 million gap between the first and second apron in 2024-25, whereas there’s nearly a $12 million one in 2025-26.
However, the NBA dropped an unpleasant surprise on teams just before the start of free agency when it issued an updated projection for the 2026-27 salary cap. According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, the cap is only expected to rise by 7% rather than the full 10% that it’s allowed to increase. John Hollinger of The Athletic noted that teams “had budgeted for another 10% raise, but now must change their projections downward for the luxury tax and aprons by roughly $5 million apiece.”
The league’s new national TV deals should still send the salary cap, luxury tax and aprons soaring over the coming years, but ongoing disruption with regional sports networks is cutting into the NBA’s projected revenue. Teams have to factor those variables in while plotting their long-term strategy, as the second-apron restrictions have proven to be no joke.
“I think the second-apron basketball penalties are real, and I’m not sure I understood how real until they were staring me in the face in the last month,” Celtics president Brad Stevens told reporters after the first round of the 2025 NBA draft in June. “So I do think that that can’t be overstated.”
The Celtics won’t be the last team to feel the wrath of the second apron. The Cavaliers’ day of reckoning is fast approaching, and the Orlando Magic and Oklahoma City Thunder could eventually join them in the years to come.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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