If only we could find out who was responsible for this

This was all just an elaborate plot to split up the Jays

“Oh no..It’s the consequences of what I created”

Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

I hate that it discourages single-team legacy players the most. Moving pieces are fun and all, but I think the league will soon feel the hit of not having elite players be attached to a specific team. To take that away is to meddle in the core identity and the intended melodrama of sports.

Having a league full of superstar mercenaries sounds really boring to me, I don’t know. Let’s hope role players can take up the mantle, but I fear casual viewership won’t help that either.

This entire debate is so disingenuous.

Literally no team is being punished for drafting well. They only approach the second apron if they draft well (ie pay their homegrown players) and pay players they acquired through trades or free agency.

The example CJ is using, OKC, is great because they can pay their drafted players, but why should they also be able to give like 20-25 Million to players like Hartenstein or Caruso?

Blame the Warriors for having good ownership that was willing to dish the money for there 3 drafted superstars and added KD made like 5 finals in a row, nba and nba pa isn’t going to look to change anything soon the nfl follows a pretty similar philosophy using hard cap

Why should you be entitled to retain all the players you draft simply because you draft well? I feel like this mentality is only common in the NBA, because in the NFL we just have accepted that if you draft well it’s going to be impossible to pay everybody lol.

I think the thing I’d ask CJ, while I agree with him in theory, is… How many max contracts should the Thunder be able to give out and still have plenty to spare for other guys? They can keep those guys. But if all those guys want the very most money possible, then yes it’ll be hard to keep them.

The truth of the matter is, and players wont’ like this, is that there are too many players out there getting max contracts who are simply not worth it.

SGA? Obviously a yes. J Will? Sure but can he stay healthy? Chet? No. Has value easily but not a max contract guy. That’s on the Thunder if they want to over-pay all those guys and then complain “we don’t have enough left over for the rest of the squad.” Yes. Welcome to what’s basically a salary cap. The owners wanted a hard cap, couldn’t get it but then got this which is basically like a cap anyways. And here’s the biggest thing. The players agreed to this in the CBA.

Now that toothpaste is out and it’s never going back in. The owners will continue to push more towards a real salary cap over the years and at some point I imagine they’ll get it by simply offering the players a bigger % of the cut in exchange for it… And the players will cave.

The NFL goes through this too BTW. That’s why teams often push to win during a QBs rookie deal if he’s good. But once they pay him as much as he requires, yeah hard decisions elsewhere have to start happening.

Bro what the fuck where were all your brilliant deductions at the time?

Wait till these players find out taking the max amount of money you can get may not result in you also getting the exact teammates u wish for

Why? Why should we reward one form of team building over another? Why should we create a scenario that will ruin parity?

And what team is he even talking about? OKC could afford to sign all their home grown talent if they didn’t give Shai ⁴⁄₂₈₅ (I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done that, but a consequence of that is you have less to pay other players)

The worst thing the second apron did is generate metric fucktons of whining from two of the luckiest fanbases lmao

Retainment of superstars hasn’t even really decreased. We are talking about losing role players which has always been a thing for championship winners.

We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.

Wasn’t he the president of the players’ association at the time?

Who is this actually happening to though? Boston in 24 drafted Jayson and Jaylen but they were over the cap because they acquired Jrue, Porzingis and Derrick White - all guys they didn’t draft. OKC has signed the 3 guys they drafted, they just can’t keep signing guys like Caruso and I Hart.

Are we arguing teams should just have no restrictions? Where’s the line?

How about instead of changing the aprons back players and teams get used to the max being used on max players. Chet or Fox or Trae Young just don’t actually have to be on max contracts and we can change the trend of giving anyone with a pulse a max. That’s how you fix it.

Giving one player 25-30% of the cap is the problem

Giving Spongebob looking for the maniac vibes

the notion that CJ is personally responsible for the CBA has gotta be one of the dumbest thing i’ve seen on this sub

A team like OKC traded for a bunch of their current players, this whole discussion isn’t really the same or simple for them. If you drafted 3 to 4 players that now want max types of deals, but you’ve already traded for other players currently on max or supermax deals…then if you want exceptions to be able to keep signing a bunch more drafted players to max type deals, then you probably should have to trade away some of those players you traded for to make room.

I don’t see the issue really. Now if every player the team wants to keep signing maxes to are all drafted by them and nobody else is, then yeah I can understand this argument. Give em exceptions to sign all the draft picks they hit well on. Sure.

Disagree, money is a limited resource you don’t get to pay everybody; pick and choose

CJ gaslighting us

Nah this is ultimate parity. Deal with it and have a top heavy roster if you want them so bad

Players union signed off on it.

Fuck all the way off McCollum. Ruined free agency and now he wants to make it even easier for teams to keep guys.

OKC traded for their best player. They aren’t really going through it because their other two max players are only making 25% of the max, which is the argument people are making. If they were getting the supermax, it would be a different story.

Boston having to trade Jaylen because both he and Tatum were 35% supermax players is the real issue. Minnesota with KAT as well

Just don’t pay every player a supermax

I dont understand the notion that building through drafting has to be protected and is more sacred than free agency. you shouldnt be able to draft well for 2 years then coast off it for a decade. heavilly pushing players to re-sign with the team that drafted them without their consent, because they would have to take a heavy paycut to sign with a team they actually like, is also a form of anti-player restriction.

It really is unfortunate how much it punishes teams for simply being competent.

I enjoy the parity it has provided, but I also don’t mind seeing “dynasties” when they result from smart moves by the personnel and the players themselves. Seeing a homegrown team do well and succeed is awesome, whether I’m a fan of the team or not, and it would be a massive shame if OKC completely lost the rest of their title window due to the second apron.

That is until the Lakers or Celtics sign a bunch of players they drafted and then the rest of the league complains about parity.

This dude has worms for brains

What team has gotten blown up because of the second apron?

NBAPA Rep wants to increase player pay, frames it as competing to win championships. More news at 11.

People say parity but like outside of Milwaukee and OKC I guess you could say even tho they were really good with KD Russ and Harden. All the same teams are still good. There’s no new teams like charlotte or Sacramento or Portland that are usually not that great and not winning anything being successful.

Too many mediocre players making too much money. Pay the stars, 7-15 should be cheap as hell

Imo, they should make the amount above the base max not count against the cap if the team has bird rights when the contract is signed.

Do we want parity or not? Everyone wants it but freaks out when you have to break up good teams

This is so annoying, now everyone is piling behind the same narrative. It’s not the second apron that is breaking up teams. Unless we are talking about Balmer or the Warriors, it’s teams becoming too expensive to be kept together.

OKC had to trade their 9th and 10th man to keep their core together. Cry me a river. Denver has been overpaying his role players, some have been injured, and they didn’t plan for a summer when two of their guys would have entered their second contract.

Then don’t pay guys you didn’t draft. What are we doing here?

Parity is a big part of why people like the nba instead of the globetrotters. It’s a big part of why salaries are the ungodly amounts they are right now.

But hey, bite the hand that feeds you bc it means some guys might have to find a new team to earn the absolute maximum amount allowed under the union deal for the union they play for. 

If anything, harsher rules for the cap means more player movement and more folks watching to see how new teams do, etc. we act like breaking up championship teams is a bad thing but we’re all glued to our chairs during f5 season. If the knocks could just throw out five max contracts and dominate the league for years and years, the league would become even more garbage than it already is. If you draft really well and have three superstars, great. Use your window as effectively as you can and then let those stars go elsewhere to shine in the league. 

Truly the most reactionary league

“We want parity”

“No not like that”

You absolutely can. You just can’t every single player max / near-max money. The irony of CJ making $21M this season and not understanding why the NBA needs to do this for the sake of parity is hilarious.

I agree. If you draft someone, you should be able to go over the cap in order to help them

Is there a single instance of a star player being traded away by the team that drafted him because of the 2nd apron? BOS wasn’t even in the tax last year and they still won 56 games despite the fact that 70% of their cap was tied up in Brown and 16 games of Tatum. MIN traded KAT right before the ‘25 season but they still finished that season above the 2nd apron.

I don’t think the aprons are an issue.

Players as a whole still get their percentage of basketball revenue. It actually probably helps the guys at the end of the bench.

I think that they really should revise the supermax rules and that they should completely revamp restricted free agency rules. The restricted FAs have been getting hosed.

Nothing stops teams from retaining every player that wants to stay. They just have to pay them, and if they pay them an astronomical amount then they pay tax and have other restrictions.

“Parity is great, but if I draft an amazing young core, I should be able to keep them all their whole careers, pay them all, and still surround them with a good supporting cast.”

This is what CJ, and many others, are saying. But quite frankly, what CJ/others are arguing for is a system that produces dynasties, not parity.

If what you really want to see is dynasties, not parity, then this makes sense. But if you want parity, it means forcing stacked teams to make tough decisions, where they either have to break up their loaded core, or have a weak supporting cast, or suffer tough 2nd apron penalties. “I want parity, but also drafted superstar cores should be able to be kept together indefinitely WITH a good supporting cast,” that’s just BS, that’s how you get dynasties.

Parity and dynasties are opposite ends of a spectrum, you can’t have both. When I’m on a diet, I hate that I can’t eat lots of delicious high calorie foods, but I realize that it’s a tradeoff, there simply isn’t a “get thin while eating lots of high calorie food” option. Likewise, there’s no “keep drafted dynasty cores together with no consequences, and have parity” option. You can choose one or the other, not both.

Help me out here but didn’t he negotiate this?