Sports are cyclical. It’s very rare for a team to stay on top for a prolonged period of time, just the same as it’s rare for a team to stay in the doldrums for a long time. Smart organizations can keep championship windows open, and dumb organizations can keep shooting themselves in the foot, but in every sport, the bill eventually comes due.
The second apron, an invention of the latest CBA, has been the NBA’s attempt to speed up the cycle. They don’t want teams like the Warriors spending five years
at the top of the sport with their all-time collection of talent. They want championship windows to be shorter, but also more volatile. It’s like a conveyor belt; they want these teams to all get a taste of glory before going back to the hunt.
As the current NBA champions, the Knicks are the latest team to fight a battle with the second apron. James Dolan says he does not want to exceed it, something that very few teams have done since it was introduced. They find themselves with a core that wants to be compensated as champions, but have a finite amount of money to get there.
It’s easy to curse the second apron for what they’re doing to muddy up the Knicks’ title defense and beyond, but in doing that, we have to remember that the construction and reason behind this team even reaching the mountaintop was the second apron.
The Minnesota Timberwolves were coming off a trip to the Western Conference Finals, but faced a massive crisis entering the 2024-25 season with their financial table. Some players needed extensions, some players had massive raises kicking in, and they were doomed to spend the season above the second apron. You can spend one year there and survive, but doing two or more years there is a death sentence. Hence, they needed to shed long-term salary.
That’s how Karl-Anthony Towns became a Knick.
The Boston Celtics were the type of unstoppable superteam that the league looked to avoid in 2023-24, boasting a starting five full of players who could create their own shot and hold their own defensively, an extremely rare blend. All of that was bolstered by an elite coach who maximized offensive efficiency with the three-pointer.
It was expensive to keep that team together the following season, and they did it in the second apron, but they knew they had to make changes after 2024-25 to avoid dooming themselves long term with a still-young superstar in Jayson Tatum. When the Knicks took out a bruised, battered Celtics team that May, they offloaded Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday and lost Al Horford and Luke Kornet to free agency, destroying that unstoppable ceiling and paving the way for the Knicks to take their place at the top of the totem pole.
The second apron unraveled the Celtics and Timberwolves, feeding a Knicks team that was excellently built and simply waited until their time to strike. Now, the Robin Hood nature of the second apron has come around to collect from the champs.
Karl-Anthony Towns wants an extension. Deuce McBride wants an extension. Josh Hart (who’s less of a priority due to a team option in 2027-28) wants an extension. Jalen Brunson is due at least $290 million down the road in a future extension (and could be up to $411 million). There’s not enough room under the second apron to keep them all happy.
The second apron already threw a right hook at the Knicks’ underbelly by forcing them to let go of Mitchell Robinson, but now they could come back and take McBride from them next season (or force them to trade him). The desire to keep the band together has caused a lowballing of Towns, something that is openly frustrating him in the media.
And now, we’re getting reports that both he and Hart could be trade chips in February if we can’t get a deal done? What happened to all the good vibes???
No matter how much “power of friendship” you have, money is the universal divider. I’m not calling Towns greedy for wanting to make more than residential losing players, Trae Young and De’Aaron Fox, but I’m also not going to call the Knicks prudish.
The second apron is extremely restrictive and, at most, you can exceed it one time before its vice grips start to sink in. I’m not sure if Dolan knows that fact, but if he does, you have to be very careful with how you use it.
It unfortunately seems like this will be a distraction for the Knicks in their title defense with how rigid the two sides seem to be. As much as it sucks, that’s the second apron.
It steals from the rich and gives to the poor.
