Amid cries that the second apron is acting as a hard salary cap, NBA commissioner Adam Sliver is standing firm on the mechanism that he reiterates was collectively bargained.
Silver addressed the subject at a news conference from the Summer League in Las Vegas Tuesday night, days after Victor Wembanyama’s new contract raised the temperature around the topic.
Wemby’s deal raised alarms
Wembanyama agreed to a five-year, $252.2 million max extension to remain with the San Antonio Spurs on Friday. He was eligible for a five-year, $302.8 million supermax extension, meaning that he left $50-plus million on the table.
He presumably did so to allow the Spurs to operate under the NBA’s punitive separate apron in an effort to maintain competitive for NBA championships.
“Spurs family, I’m here to stay,” Wembanyama wrote on social media. “Whatever it takes.”
This has raised outcry that Wembnayama is taking on the financial burden of running a competitive team rather than the Spurs as teams are reluctant to go into the second apron. The Cleveland Cavaliers were the only team to do so last season.
Silver: The system is ‘working’
On Tuesday, Silver was asked if the second apron acting as a hard cap was an unintended consequence of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with players. His response was blunt:
“It’s certainly not an unintended consequence,” Silver said. “I mean, 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.”
Silver touted the effectiveness of the current CBA that he argued was on display in the NBA Finals between the big-market New York Knicks and small-market Spurs.
Adam Silver has no interest in relitigating what’s already been collectively bargained.
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS)
“We just saw the Finals between essentially the largest market in the league in New York and one of the smallest markets in San Antonio. And you all can tell me, in terms of the media, but it seemed that there was not much of a storyline around market size, something I’ve been used to in all my years in the league.
“And during the competition, it was focused on the composition of the teams, the particular players, the style of play. To me, the storyline wasn’t big market vs. small market. And so, that’s one of the things that we set out to accomplish with the system. And from that standpoint, it’s working.”
NBPA: Second apron is bad for fans, players, basketball
Silver’s comments stood in juxtaposition to those of NBPA executive director David Kelly, who led the charge Friday against the second apron in the aftermath of the Wembanyama deal. Kelly argued that the apron is effectively breaking up championship teams.
He pointed out the Celtics’ recent decision to break up their championship core by trading Jaylen Brown and his five-year, $285 million contract two seasons removed from winning a title. He also cited owner James Dolan’s statement in June that the New York Knicks won’t go into the second apron to retain their championship core.
“I don’t know that fans in Boston would say that everyone’s making out fine, or that fans in New York would say that everyone is making out fine,” Kelly said at a news conference, per ESPN. “You have a [Celtics] team that just came off of a championship that will not have those guys together. We see that as a problem for our members, but also for the fans and for the game.”
This was collectively bargained
Kelly, who wasn’t in his role when the CBA was ratified in 2023, expressed regret that the union “should have done a better job of fighting back against the second apron” in negotiations.
Silver, to that point, isn’t interested in relitigating what’s already been ratified.
“As I said earlier, again, the current system is one that was a product of months of negotiations with this players association,” Silver said Tuesday. “I think it’s difficult to take one aspect of it and say, ‘If we just changed this one piece’ — I think I heard the word tweak. Would you will be willing to engage on that?
“I would just say, one person’s tweak is another person’s overhaul to the system.”
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