The NBA’s Free-Agency Apocalypse Is Not Here

Here are some things that happened in the opening days of the 2024 NBA offseason:

• A nine-time All-Star ditched a Western Conference contender for an Eastern Conference contender, where he’ll join forces with a recent MVP.
• One of the greatest shooters in history—a four-time NBA champion—joined the reigning Western Conference champions, to play alongside one of the game’s brightest young stars.
• A top-tier 3-and-D wing, who has won titles with two different teams in the past five seasons, joined one of the East’s most promising young rosters.

• A burgeoning Western Conference power, armed with two All-Stars but badly in need of playmaking, acquired an All-Star point guard.
• The West’s most potent young roster, coming off a breakthrough 57-win season, landed two accomplished veterans to bolster its title chances.
• The East’s second-place finisher added one of the league’s most versatile two-way wings.
• Oh, and six teams collaborated on a spectacularly dizzying swap of players and draft picks—the first trade of its kind in NBA history.
• All told, more than $2 billion in new contracts were handed out through this past weekend, per Jared Dubin, who writes about the league at Last Night, in Basketball. More than 50 players have changed teams so far via free agency or trades.

Here’s another thing that happened in the opening days of the 2024 offseason:

• Fans wailed, pundits groused, and columnists kvetched about a new salary cap feature—the dreaded second apron (gasp)—for fear it would stifle the market, become a de facto hard cap, and make roster-building nearly impossible.

Folks, we may have just set an NBA record for cognitive dissonance.

Look, it’s undeniable that the second apron—which will severely punish teams that spend over $188.9 million in salary next season—has already had a profound impact. Without it, Paul George might still be a Clipper, Klay Thompson might still be a Warrior, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope might still be a Nugget. (“Might” being the keyword here. Some of these divorces might have happened regardless, due to the forces of age, ego, and budgetary considerations.)

The teams that just lost their stars or key role players have a right to be salty. But if we judge the NBA each July based on fireworks, the league is still delivering a pretty good show.

Paul George is now a 76er, giving Philadelphia a veteran All-Star to support MVP Joel Embiid and rising star Tyrese Maxey. Four-time champion Klay Thompson is now a Maverick, giving Dallas an elite shooter to keep defenses from crowding Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Two-time champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is now in Orlando, giving the Magic a steady scorer/defender to complement Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.

Dejounte Murray is now a Pelican, giving New Orleans the top-tier point guard it needed to get the best out of Zion Williamson and (for now) Brandon Ingram. DeMar DeRozan is now a King, giving Sacramento the veteran scorer it needed to complement De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. Mikal Bridges is now a Knick, giving New York yet another strong two-way wing with Villanova roots. The Thunder picked up a defensive ace (Alex Caruso) and a rebounding maestro (Isaiah Hartenstein) to supplement its young core. The Spurs signed a Hall of Fame–bound point guard (Chris Paul) to feed and mentor Victor Wembanyama.

These are not minor developments! And there’s still plenty of offseason left. There’s still a chance of a Lauri Markkanen trade. Or a Darius Garland trade. Or a Zach LaVine trade. Or an Ingram deal. There’s still time for the Nuggets to recoup some talent. There’s still time for the Lakers to do, well, something.

It’s altogether possible that in future years, the second apron—which takes away all kinds of tools for acquiring players—will have such deleterious effects that GMs will storm Olympic Tower and demand revisions to the collective bargaining agreement. But don’t count on it.

Every major change to the NBA’s system in the past 40 years has triggered some degree of fretting and freakouts and forecasts of a free-agency apocalypse. But the original salary cap didn’t kill player movement back in the 1980s, nor did restricted free agency, the rookie scale, the longer rookie scale, the luxury tax, or the harsher luxury tax. There have been some tighter markets and some looser markets along the way, but the system eventually finds equilibrium, and the business of adding and subtracting players marches on.

Today’s team executives are a resilient and creative bunch, backed by an army of savvy capologists skilled at navigating any new regulation NBA lawyers can concoct. Witness the six-team trade referenced above—a marvel of cap management that allowed all those teams (the Mavericks, Timberwolves, Warriors, Nuggets, Hornets, and 76ers) to acquire their desired players while maximizing cap flexibility.

The lesson? Smart teams find a way. The Thunder built a young, affordable core of talent over several years, and built in enough wiggle room to add Caruso and Hartenstein this summer. The 76ers went old-school, clearing the books of every player except Embiid and Maxey, so they could splurge on George, luring him from the Clippers with a four-year, $212 million contract (and making Philly the first team since 2019 to sign a max free agent).

And of course, the Celtics won the championship last month by surrounding stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown with top-tier role players on manageable contracts—a formula that should withstand the new rules for now.

Will the second apron allow those teams—or, for that matter, the Knicks, Timberwolves, Cavaliers, and Pelicans—to keep their cores together for the long haul? Will every contender be forced to break up its roster after three or four years? Or can the elite teams find a way to retool on the fly, swapping out expensive players for cheaper (and perhaps less proven) substitutes? Are dynasties already dead? These are all open questions.

But GMs are a lot like players when faced with a new officiating wrinkle: First they complain. Then they adapt.

It’s true that the second apron is as close to a hard cap as the league has ever come—but it is not, in fact, an actual hard cap, nor a death knell. “It’s not as much teeth as people have made it sound like,” said a longtime team executive. It just requires more foresight and financial gymnastics.

An important reminder: The second apron only impacts the league’s most profligate spenders—a few teams per year, as a historical matter. To put it another way: 20-plus teams per season would never have been impacted by the new rules if they existed in the past. Also worth noting: The NBA’s salary cap is projected to rise at a steady 10 percent annually once the league signs its new national broadcast deal, which will give teams, even the high spenders, plenty of wiggle room in the future.

That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some real anguish, or justifiable wailing.

It’s legitimately painful to see the Warriors part with Thompson after all he has meant to that franchise. It’s unfortunate the Clippers and George couldn’t find a way forward, given the massive investment the team made to get him five years ago. And it’s sad to see the Nuggets, just a year removed from a championship, lose yet another key piece of their title team due to cap concerns. Nikola Jokic is running out of friends to catch all those amazing passes.

The second apron may yet force the Timberwolves to move Karl-Anthony Towns. It’s making it difficult for the Bucks to bolster their rotation around Giannis Antetokounmpo. Or for the Suns to do much of anything to help Kevin Durant and Devin Booker.

But, well, that’s the point of the exercise. The NBA is leaning harder than ever into a system that promotes parity and forces teams—especially the highest-spending teams—to make hard choices. Your view of that philosophy might vary depending on your team allegiance, your home market size, or your view of modern labor dynamics.

In another era, the Warriors and Clippers would have kept spending into oblivion to retain their stars and keep adding role players—luxury taxes be damned. That’s great for Warriors and Clippers fans, but maybe not so much for fans in Memphis or Salt Lake City, where revenues aren’t robust enough to support deficit spending for years on end.

Yes, the Warriors lost a franchise legend and perhaps a little luster after nearly a decade of dominance. But it led to the Mavericks and Spurs getting a little stronger. The Clippers’ loss was the Sixers’ gain. The much-maligned Eastern Conference now has multiple teams stocked to chase the Celtics. That’s objectively good for business. And it’s a vivid manifestation of the (somewhat Orwellian) phrase coined by the late commissioner David Stern over a decade ago, when describing the goals of an earlier labor deal: “player sharing.”

So, yes, we might see talent more evenly distributed in the years to come. We might see a further extension of the wild parity of the past six years. We might not see another dynasty any time soon. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Just a thing? Again, that might depend on your personal values as a fan.

I’ll leave the last word here to someone far more experienced and wise in these matters, a figure who presided over one of the world’s most successful and glamorous franchises and was renowned as well for his poker skills.

“What they’re trying to do is say, ‘Let’s all have the same number of chips and we’ll see who can build a team the best.’” That was former Lakers owner Jerry Buss, in 2000, after the NBA first introduced the luxury tax. “I like the concept of having the same number of weapons, and just see who can run the ship the best,” Buss said. “That’s competition.”