To be fair we were on 5 year stretch of new champions before the second apron. How do we know the continued parity is because of the apron and not the talent level of the league?

Teams are having to lose their home grown, drafted star players because of the cap, which is frustrating for sure.

Parity is great but people also want to be able to root for the same star players on their team year over year. The main issue is that the aprons have become a bigger consideration than winning.

The idea was to stop teams putting together super teams of three free agent superstars, not hamstring teams who draft into three elite talents. It’s doing the latter too much.

The Champions argument is also incredibly overrated imo. The Nuggets got hurt in 2024. The Celtics got hurt in 2025. The Thunder got hurt in 2026. If those guys are healthy I think it’s very likely that someone repeats there at the very least. And that’s got nothing to do with the apron, just health.

The 2024 Celtics were going to age out of being what it was anyways. I don’t know why people act like that roster was going to have a 5 year run or something.

They got one healthy year. And then one with Jaylen torn meniscus, Jrue hamstring and hammer thumb, KP barely able to breathe, and then Tatum tearing his Achilles.

I don’t really see how it would not have been interesting to see them stay together longer.

The problem isn’t the apron, the problem is teams giving max contracts to guys like Mitchell recently.

It puts teams in awkward positions to either pay up or destroy the relationship with the player. If they want to keep the aprons which I’m all for then they need to adjust what % of the apron the maxes are so they don’t kill teams. And also make award increases not count against the cap so teams don’t have to root against their guy winning DPOY or getting first team.

The talk about teams losing their homegrown stars is not doing it for me. Boston gave Brown a massive contract, the fact that they now feel like it’s too much is on them – not on the league.

Wolves gave KAT a massive contract, then they gave the same to Gobert and want to give one to Edwards. Once again, that’s on them.

I don’t think teams need some special carve out for homegrown talent, that just makes draft picks even more viable. Bird rights already exist for this situation.

If the second apron continues to persist, teams will need to be smarter about giving out max contracts. It’s that simple.

The second apron was introduced after the parity era started…

Because the issue is that teams that are building organically are now being punished. The point of a cap is mostly so that a team with a huge bankroll can’t pull a New York Yankees and get every good free agent that exists from smaller markets because they can wave more money in their faces.

There’s a line somewhere between trying to level the playing field for parity and punishing success so that outcomes just start randomizing. The NFL is probably the ideal scenario in the sense that well managed teams are rewarded and poorly managed teams are punished but there is no inherent advantage that is unfair. Without a cap, the Jaguars could just create a super team every year. Instead they are usually mid to lower tier.

The Celtics are a good example of why this is kind of shitty. Tatum and Brown were draft picks. They weren’t even first overall draft picks, the team just made the best evaluation when other teams easily could have gotten them. If you want to say adding Porzingis and Horford were overkill fine, but Prozingis was really a free agency piece that they had been looking to find for years to get over a hump. They weren’t some super team, they were built well with the right stars drafted and then some smart free agency moves to fill in the gaps. They had to almost instantly rip apart years of building because of the apron.

The goal is to build some sustained success, if the system just means you can get a good team capable of winning together for 1 or 2 years before needing to rip it apart, it’s not a good system.

Parity is fine, randomness isn’t

Totally agree. I love the parity. Regular season and playoffs are more entertaining this way.

Only 2 of thoses championship have been under the new cba I don’t why this sub keeps repeating. Ever single championship besides 2024 celtics has context as to why they never repeated that has nothing to due with the new cba .

Its good for league parity, yes.

The thing that some people seem uncomfortable admitting is that parity is good for competition, but nothing brings in viewers like dynasties. People love rooting for them, people love rooting against them, they love analyzing them, talking about them, it’s just interesting.

Parity also favors Betting companies which the NBA has % cut of the profits, legally.

Teams getting disbanded due to salary cap restrictions rather than any basketball reason is anti-fan imo.

Parity is nice, but if a team drafts well, trades thoughtfully, builds great team chemistry and everything else then why should they be punished? Why should mediocre teams be rewarded constantly for being shit?

Silver has not built a meritocracy, he has build a system that basically puts teams on carousels of quick rebuilding and quick collapse.

Except that people don’t actually want that.  They think they do but the viewership numbers don’t lie.  People want super teams, and then they watch to root for or against those super teams.

How is the second apron (which has been in effect for two years) a major contributor for the years prior to it existing?

That’s more LeBron and Steph than the apron rules don’t you think?

This is an anti union sentiment. Not saying that players making $50 million a year need sympathy but the second apron allows owners to encourage certain players to take less money if they want to stay with the team.

That doesn’t mean the team makes any less money. In fact some billionaire team owners are raking it in more than ever before with these new rules. Especially in large market teams. The only team that exceeded the second apron in 2025-2026 season was Cleveland. It must honestly be nice as a billionaire owner making hundreds of millions each year off your nba team to tell players that you can’t pay them as much because second apron yadda yadda yadda.

Really the penalty should be just more tax money and then evenly distribute that amongst the poor teams. If steve ballmer wants to spend \(500 million to get the best players tell him it’ll cost \)1 billion after that tax then give away \(400 million to the bottom teams and the NBA can keep \)100 million as a tax. That way the players get more money to settle their gun cases and cybertruck accidents.

Idk if I like parity as much as I like dynasties and super teams tbh

I guess if you’re just a fan of basketball overall and don’t have an investment in a team: yea it’s great. It’s totally open and anyone could win it.

If you’re a fan of a team: it’s frustrating because even if your team wins it all: they’re a basically no chance they’ll repeat, and worse within a couple years it’s basically a guarantee the team will either have to trade away their superstar and completely rebuild or risk people saying said star “destroyed their legacy because they couldn’t repeat.”

Ie the Giannis and Jokic situation.

It’s a TEAM sport: a huge part of the appeal is watching a bunch of folks come together, work together and achieve something truly special.

Knowing that it won’t be the same way next year and the team will basically have to rebuild with no pick for at least 5 years because they had to trade them all away to build this one and done championship team: it kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

I mean I don’t think there’s a fan alive who when their team wins it all isn’t thinking “we gonna do it again NEXT year too!”

I guess it’s different for you.

I don’t think people were necessarily sick of Cavs/Warriors, they were sick of KD’s Warriors.

Cavs & Warriors split in ‘15 & ‘16, and neither were unbeatable. Once KD arrived, Warriors were unbeatable and made the seasons pretty much a waste of time. The Cavs ruled the East, yes, but they were beatable. Teams like the Celtics and Pacers took them to 7 games. Other teams like the Raptors and Hawks were really good, but bad matchups against the Cavs.

*Even in ‘16, the Warriors went seven games against OKC and obviously the Cavs. Had KD stayed with OKC, and with Kyrie leaving the Cavs a year later, things wouldn’t have been set in stone like they were.

Yes but it isnt working for my team so i dont like it

Why are you comparing it to the KD Warriors as if that was the norm prior to the new rules? The KD Warriors were a fluke based on Steph having a super undervalued contract due to injuries then became a top 2 player in the league + the cap spiking like 30% in one year which is also the fault of the CBA.

It sucks for teams to build around a star with great drafting and development then have to blow up the team due to the cap. Majority of NBA history good teams could try to go back to back and establish some sort of dynasty. The last time we had this kind of parity was the 70’s and the league was in a bad place. I’m not saying that’s directly comparable or that the league is in a bad place now but imo it’s pretty clear why ppl aren’t happy about the new cap rules and comparing to the KD Warriors seems like picking one extreme example (btw they only went back to back) to try to make your point seem valid

I don’t think we as a broader fanbase really like parity as much as we say we do, outside of it applying to our teams.

I think the Bird vs Magic era is way more compelling and is looked back on far more fondly than an era where nobody wins consistently enough to really establish a concrete legacy. There’s something beautiful about watching legends cement themselves in real time and appreciating it while it’s there

For me in terms of enjoyment it goes

1: Good Parity (my team wins somewhere in there)
2: bad parity but we get a legendary rivalry
3: Good Parity (my team still loses every year)

Edit: to expand a little more, we have the Russell era, the bird vs Magic era, the Jordan era, the Lakers/Spurs era (not as commonly talked about as its own thing but 5 straight rings and one of them being in almost every finals until 2015 has to count ) and the LeBron vs Steph era. Nobody is looking back and waxing poetic about the late 70s and how much they loved the Rick Barry/Bill Walton/Wes Unseld era

The counter argument against the second apron is that players fans get attached to over long stretches of time get shipped off to avoid the second apron.

The question is should that mean the apron rules are tweaked for homegrown players or if we just need time for front offices to adjust to contract sizes in this era.

They just need to give discounts for drafted players or lower the max amounts players can get through the cap. Most of these players are brands that make money elsewhere anyway.

Think the biggest issue is the percent of the cap max and baby max players can get.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak, for I am not a socialist.

When your team drafts and develops a championship level roster and immediately has to start breaking the team apart for no reason other than avoiding the second apron you will see why the second apron is bad

You’re right, but the thing is…the parity era was already here. That era of the same 2 teams making the finals every year was due to the sudden cap spike in one particular offseason and the Warriors taking advantage of it to sign KD, combined with the possible GOAT playing at the peak of his powers on a top team. It was truly a one-off scenario. The luxury and repeater tax already was doing the job to dissuade most teams.

Far as I’m concerned, all this does it punish owners who actually wanna spend, and punished fans who want to actually see teams keep their core together. We never would’ve been able to keep Timmy, Tony and Manu together. No way Warriors could’ve kept their core (even pre-KD) together with this. It’s not good that teams are having to be broken up like this. The parity era was already coming and happening, this just punishes teams for drafting well and building talented teams. It means teams like OKC or the Spurs who have done everything right are effectively getting punished, and maybe have to trade players to teams that have done everything wrong but get bailed out of their own incompetence. It puts fans in a position to where they have real incentive to root AGAINST certain players receiving recognition for playing well. That’s not a good consequence.

Granted, I think the cap across all US/CA sports is both incredibly stupid, rewards losers and incompetence, and is very anti-labor.

The second apron rules DONT CAUSE THE PARITY. We already had the parity! Now we just have a bunch of owners with excuses to not pay players and a bunch of teams who are going to lose players. I don’t want competitive teams to lose their players in a league that ALREADY HAD PARITY.

The Wolves had to trade KAT because of the second apron. If they’d known the rule was going to be there they may have done something else the year before with the Gobert trade.

we went from Jaylen Brown isn’t good because analytics to ‘they were forced to trade him cos of salary cap’ in record time.

Boston wasn’t forced to do anything. Neither are other teams. They make choices. Don’t extend Brown. if you don’t like him then trade him before the massive contract.

OKC just gave Hartenstein a shitload of money because they maxed Chet and saw that Chet can’t play against Wemby in the playoffs. Are they going to be ‘forced to trade Chet’ or decide to trade him because they are paying him 41m to sit on the bench in the fourth quarter against the Spurs? The issue isn’t the cap. It’s not perfectly optimizing your team. No one perfectly optimizes. That’s the beauty of it. Stop saying it’s a bad thing. Fuckin warriors and Lebron in the finals every year is dogshit. Viewership numbers agree.

This was happening before the 2nd apron. The parity has more to do with LeBron and Curry (plus Dray) getting old.

I also don’t get why parity is automatically a good thing. The only truly bad superteam years were the KD Warriors which was a perfect storm of KD being a bitch and the cap jumping.

LeBron’s Heat went ²⁄₄ and got pushed to the limit both years they won. Cavs-Warriors was awesome until KD. Most other super teams don’t work at all.

I don’t care if you want to make it so teams can’t do much in free agency past a certain point. That’s fair. But teams shouldn’t need to lose homegrown talent and fan favorites who want to stay to avoid insane penalties. It’s bad for the league.

By OP’s logic, one could claim that a rock can keep tigers away.

If people in the league really want each team to be able to afford two Max contracts each than the Max number has to come down.

Max currently 30% of the salary cap or 24% of the Luxury tax. Two Max contracts then put almost half the salary into Two players, leaving the other 13 to find better pay elsewhere.

There can be an argument in favor of the Two Max concept as many teams are built around the classic Two Stars concept. But if you want that to be the model then the Max needs to come down. Reducing it to 25% of the cap and 20% of the Luxury tax would give teams two stars and more money for 3-15.

BUT the Stars would take a paycut. Maybe not an immediate one as you could phase in the lowering of the rate as the overall cap number increased, freezing it until the cap catches up.

I’m gonna be honest here, I’m not a fan of warriors or cavs but you arent a basketball fan if you didn’t enjoy watching those teams go at each other

Why is parity good? How can you build multi-season narratives and rivalries if teams are forced to completely re-write their teams every 2-3 years.

Players dont like it because they get smaller contracts. Owners of successful teams hate it because it’s far less possible to build a dynasty like the Spurs did with Duncan.

The most important part, though, is that the CBA is doing exactly what it was intended to do…create parity. You can love it, or hate it…but it’s a successful business model.