Sorry, the Second Apron Isn't Going Anywhere

From LeBron James to a less, uh, I would say sexy story to talk about right now and that is the second apron which came up over the last couple of days.

Uh, well, look, this came up.

David Kelly, who is the managing director struggles.

The what I'm just the topics for this podcast.

Yeah, my media struggles LeBron James and the well, the 2nd apron is, it's obviously in the news because of some of the changes Boston had to make.

And now you've got David Kelly, who's the executive director of the NBA Players Association coming out and saying that the 2nd apron basically sucks, uh, that it should not have been.

That basically the union should not have allowed it to go into place a few years ago and that when the next round of negotiations comes up, that is going to be something that they fight against.

Adam Silver on Tuesday was asked about these comments, was asked about the second apron, and he effectively said the situate the sit the Situation, the apron is working.

The system is working exactly how it should be working.

So which side do you want on this?

Do you think the second apron is some kind of devil to the NBA?

Or do you think that Adam Silver's right that hey, we've got 8 champions in the last 8 years.

We've got parity like we've never had before.

The system is working.

The system doesn't need to change.

I think everybody's working in their own interests and that they They are exactly right for what their interests are.

I think the players association is absolutely right.

Installing what is essentially a hard cap in a league that didn't have one is bad for the players.

We used to have more free spending, now we have less of it.

You know who that affects most?

The players.

Also, by the way, it affects the fans, because it affects teams staying together or not.

Homegrown stars like Jalen Brown, do they end up leaving?

You can argue there's a lot more going on there, but money is obviously eventually going to be part of it.

Um, I think that if you are the owners, and if you are Adam Silver, who is an employee of the owners, let's not forget that Adam Silver works for the owners.

The league is not like some separate entity.

It's not like the ownership is one group, the league is another group, and the players are the other group.

The league office is funded for, paid for by the owners.

Who are Adam Silver's boss.

Adam Silver's bosses absolutely think that the second apron is a great idea because it is a hard cap on salaries that keeps them from sort of working against themselves by being so competitive that they sort of outspend each other.

That is why that was put in.

In the next collective bargaining agreement, are the players going to get any relief on this?

No, because the players have no power in collective bargaining agreements.

There is no labor negotiation in sports where the players actually have much real power at all.

We see this over and over again, because if the league shuts down for a few years, the, the billionaires take a loss, and in fact, on their taxes, and in fact, sometimes end up with more money in their pocket than they did if the league was running .

And the players, it not only costs them money, it costs them years of their life and athleticism and contract.

If the NBA shuts down for a year because the players run the hard line on no more second apron, do you know who loses out the most?

The guys in their prime who now will have 1 year less in their prime making money.

And that is why the players always quote unquote, fold in these negotiations, and they are never getting that second apron back.

So I'm here to tell you, Mr.

Kelly, that is not happening, and I'm sure he is experienced enough to know that.

Um, you know, look.

A hard cap makes it harder for fans to keep their teams, to have the teams that they love and the homegrown players that they love stay there longer.

And what we see because it makes it harder is that you then have a position where players are under pressure, and this is what I think he was talking about under to quote take less, because that is the way that we can keep these teams together.

That is the way we can have a more well rounded team that could win.

A couple of years in a row or win it all.

And that is true.

If you start to put limits on how much money can be spent, and you then get into a situation where if the players all take a little bit less or if one big player takes a lot less, you can have a more complete team and therefore have a better chance of winning.

And of course, the players association doesn't like that because it works in a couple of instances.

It works if you are Jalen Brunson.

And the guy running the front office met you as a baby before your father did.

And you guys are so close as a family that you know that if you take significantly less money, That the front office, Leon Rose, who met you as a baby before your dad did, is not going to turn around and trade that contract because he's like, aha, I've got Jalen Brown on such a discount.

I mean, Jalen Brunson on such a discount.

I'm going to screw you, Jalen Brunson.

You're not actually taking less money to play for a championship anymore.

You're on a team with a, you know, a, a completely rebuilding team that could, you know, take, use the salary cap room or whatever, and I'm trading that contract to get something else.

He doesn't have to worry about that because Leon Rose will never do that to him.

Victor Webuyama took that made the decision that he's going to give up what is in essence, what, 10 million a year on this 5-year deal.

Should, yes, what would most likely be because he has a level of trust with the Spurs front office, partly because Tony Parker played there when Victor was a kid, and it's mostly the same people, and he just trusts and believes in them and partly because he is potentially one of the greatest basketball players ever.

And feels like he will always have enough of an upper hand with that front office that if he takes less money over the course of these next 5 years, he will still not get screwed over by , by them.

There is, it is a very short list of players that can take less money and do that sort of thing.

We've talked about it.

You know, we had, we've had guys in the past do it, been assured things by front offices, and they turn around and get traded and screwed over.

And like, I just don't think it's a work.

system to be putting pressure on these players.

Oh, you have to take less money here.

You have to take less money there because most people are not Jalen Brunson and most people are not Victor, and you cannot trust these front offices.

And why should you?

It's not their job to make the player happy.

It's their job to maximize their assets and you know, Brunson tells a very different version of this story.

I do.

I read your piece.

Bronson says that he took the most money he possibly could because he wanted the security, um.

That was interesting.

And I think he said something to that effect before, but I think in his mind, he still looked at himself back then as being somewhat disposable, that if he didn't continue this trajectory, that the Knicks, even with, you know, Leon Rose there, that they would maybe discard him, trade him, do something else.

So he wanted the max.

dollar he could possibly get in that moment that he got it turned out to be phenomenal for New York because had he waited, as we know, it would have been what, $113 million per year.

It's interesting to hear him say that.

The other thing too is, it is worth pointing out that it's not like owners are making more money here, right?

Like, and I'm not defending owners, but like, it's a split like the basketball related revenue.

Gets split over.

What, what's happening here with Brunson, with Wambayama, is that they're making decisions that are going to get other guys that they may want on their roster, the money they need to keep them on their roster.

Like, so the Brunson deal that allowed them to do a whole bunch of different things, right?

Whether it's Kat, McHale Bridges.

These guys to, to extensions that that unlocked a whole host of things that they could do.

Similarly, I would imagine, I don't know exactly how it's all going to work with the Spurs, but I would imagine that's going to unlock some things for them over the next few years as they've got to start to pay out the contracts.

So guys like Wimbayama and Brunson, they have enabled their organization.

And that's where I think the trust thing.

does come in.

They're trusting.

You have to trust that you're, you're doing all this and you're gonna be like Tom Brady did this, right?

Like for years I saw this in New England.

He, he trusted Kraft.

He trusted Belichick.

He trusted that if he took less money, they would be able to find the guys to help him win and they did that.

Like it all worked out famously for Tom Brady.

Thank you, Tom.

We, we, we love you in Boston, um.

I think that's the next level to all this where like star players moving forward are gonna feel a lot of pressure year after year.

They are, but then you better bring no trade clauses back because that's what I would ask for, right?

You can still give them out like Bradley Beal got one.

Nobody gives them out anymore.

We keep talking about how like so and so is the last person to have 10, I think LeBron get to spend a certain amount of years, isn't he, with one team, like with one team, and then there's like the de facto no trade clauses because of certain exceptions and stuff.

But if I am a player, if I am a major player.

or anyone, honestly, if I was any player in the league and I said, uh, can you give a little bit more here because it would help us with this flexibility here and it's going to help you long term because that way you could win a title.

I'm actually interested in that because I am the one who sits here and says every week, how much money do these guys need?

How many billions does Brun is like an extra $10 million would not materially change my, change my life at all.

Of course, a championship is gonna to materially change your life.

It will change in terms of how happy you are.

It will lead to more money down the road.

It will lead to, I mean, these guys spend so much, so many, I mean, we don't see behind the scenes hours of their lives dedicated to this pursuit.

And if you can make it easier on yourself in exchange for money that you won't even notice, of course, I think there's value in these guys doing it, but I would damn sure ask for a no trade clause.

And then the problem is that you then have teams.

I think what would balance this out is the teams wouldn't want to give out so many no no trade clauses because then that ruins.

The flexibility that they're trying to create in the first place.

That is how you get to where Kelly is saying, hey, I don't like this trend because players are being asked to take less now.

Someone could ask their whole roster to take less, and then our guys are being flung around willy-nilly.

What would balance that equation out is if every time a guy take or took less, he would say, OK, but then you got to give me a new trade clause.

Front office isn't going to do that for more than 1 or 2 guys.

So then more 1 or 2 guys, and they probably would do it for the guys that are taking less money.

Like the Knicks would probably give Jalen Brunson like next time.

Around when Brunson's due like a $500 million contract, if he wanted a no-trade clause, take less, the Knicks would do it.

Wimbayama, give a no-trade clause forever.

Um, I do think that there's some wiggle room to negotiate on the second airport, and I agree with you, it's not going anywhere.

Once the NBA's got it, they're not giving it up.

They have been chasing some form of a hard cap since the David Stern era.

They finally have it.

It's not going anywhere unless you're willing to lose like two seasons of basketball to fight for it, which we know is not gonna happen.

They, the owners would still come.

I mean, that is the biggest thing to remember in labor negotiations players at some point, but is that you, you just, the, the players can really only do so much.

I agree.

Um, I do think that there should be exceptions carved in for homegrown talent.

I think what happened in Boston should not be forced to happen again.

Now Boston's maybe a little bit different.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes with Jalen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and the Celtics and all that that.

That contributed to this divorce.

But fundamentally, Brad Stevens said it's hard to build a team when you've got two players making up 70% of your salary cap.

If you draft a player, if you shrewdly make a deal to get a draft pick, draft a player, and look, neither Jalen Brown or Jayson Tatum was like the number one overall pick.

They weren't like this surefire thing digging deeper.

No, I'm not, because Jalen Brown was booed on draft night for that, and Jayson Tatum was passed over twice.

Like the Celtics got a first round pick.

I don't know if the Celtics are the best example to be pulling with all of this discussion, but sure, absolutely.

Anyway, if you draft a guy, Brad Stevens acquired a guy who is now going to help take up 70% of his salary cap.

He's talking about 2 years from now, blah, blah, blah.

We can make all the exceptions, but anyway, continue.

But if you draft a player, there should be some percentage of the room.

So it maybe you pay the guy X, but it only counts against 1% against your cap.

That if I'm the union, that's what I'm fighting for.

Fighting for the abolition of a hard cap is a lost cause.

Fighting for these, you know, little tweaks to the, the, the agenda that, that's, or to the, the CBA, that's something I think they should be proactive about doing.

That's what I would focus on.

If I was David Cawley, I happen to though, agree to some extent with Adam Silver.

I kind of like the parity system.

I like there's a new team winning a championship every year.

I like that there's, you know, 12 teams per conference that are competitive every year.

I think this was the dream that David Stern has.

Adam Silver's made a reality.

I think the NBA is better for it.

Like we, we probably, I don't wanna say forever have killed off dynasties, but this system makes it really hard to develop a dynasty.

If that's the only trade-off here.

I'm OK with it.

I don't need to see a dynasty.

Dynasties were fun.

Celtics dynasty, Bulls dynasty, Lakers dynasty, all the dynasties from the last 50 some odd years.

But I kind of rather this over dynasties personally.

I think there's a lot of things that go into whether we have dynasties or not, because the second apron is only 10 number of years old, and we haven't had a repeat champion in 8 years, and those two X does not equal 8.

So I think it could be conflating a little bit here.

Um, yeah, it's great that a lot of teams are getting the chance to win.

Also, dynasties can be fun and the health of the league actually improves when there's dynasties.

Like, everyone knows who Steph Curry is because of how many times he won the title and that's good for the NBA.

The grandmas around the world love Steph Curry .

Like dynasties.

Made Michael Jordan famous and Michael Jordan being famous helped the entire NBA.

So dynasties aren't bad for the NBA just as a matter of course, but I do think it's great to have these eras where more fans get to experience winning.

Absolutely.

Do I think there's a lot of things that contribute to that?

Absolutely I do.

And the owners protecting themselves from spending too much money is only part of it.