The NBA rarely responds publicly to comments made by a player, much less one who may not even play in the league this season. But remarks made last week by Bruce Brown, an eight-year NBA veteran fighting for a roster spot with the New York Knicks, garnered enough attention online that the league piped up.
Asked if there was frustration among players about the second apron, introduced in the 2023 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), Brown said: “I’m sure there is. The new CBA is good for certain players: max guys, top free agents and maybe rookie extension guys. The middle guys, it kind of sucks for us. As you see, there’s not a lot of people getting that full mid-level anymore.”
The NBA responded with a statement on X last Friday. “Recent reports asserted that the second apron is hurting ‘lower’ and ‘middle’ class players,” the NBA wrote. “That’s untrue. Since the implementation of the second apron, the number of players on team rosters has remained the same and annual salaries have increased by nearly $1.3 billion resulting in pay increases of approximately 30% for all classes of players.”
These data points are only tangential to the specific conversation. Annual salaries would have risen due to inflation and growing revenues even without the second apron, and the final statistic regarding 30% pay increases doesn’t show that all tiers of players benefitted equally. Users on X wrote a community note calling the NBA’s numbers “misleading,” although they also failed to provide sufficient evidence for their claims to the contrary.
Despite the NBA’s poorly worded post, its conclusion is correct. According to data a league representative shared with Sportico, when players are divided into four tiers by opening night salary—the top-paid 10%, the next 30%, the next 30% and the bottom-paid 30%—each tier’s average salary increased between 31% and 33% from 2022-23 to 2026-27.
Sportico’s analysis of publicly available salaries via Spotrac slices the data differently but reaches the same finding. In the 2021-22 season, exactly 38 players earned at least 25% of the salary cap (i.e. the “max guys” to whom Brown referred), for a combined $1.31 billion. This season, the same number will exceed that cutoff, making $1.88 billion combined, a 43% increase.
Non-stars, however, have actually gained more than the stars. The “upper middle class”—71 players in both seasons earning between 10% and 24.99% of the cap—saw aggregate salaries jump 57%. The total pay of the “lower middle class”—the roughly 100 players earning between 4% and 9.99% of the cap—rose an even greater 59%.
Brown’s vexation may stem from no longer being one of the “middle guys” despite self-identifying in that category. Two seasons ago he made $22.5 million with the Indiana Pacers, but he is now signed to a one-year, non-guaranteed training camp deal that pays $3.5 million if he makes the team. Brown failed to score double-figures in any of the Denver Nuggets’ six playoff games last season and ranked in the 10th percentile among all players in the advanced metric EPM.
Where Brown has a point is that teams are using the full mid-level exception (MLE) less frequently under the current CBA. The MLE allows a team to sign one or more players despite its payroll exceeding the salary cap, and the amount varies depending on whether that team is a taxpayer. Per Spotrac, 24 players were signed using the MLE last year, down from 42 three seasons earlier.
Several factors contribute here. Adjustments in the CBA have made it more common for elite players to sign extensions before they hit free agency, which has left teams with less cap space to sign those who do hit the market.
More generally, franchises’ attitudes toward player contracts have changed. The second apron is a penalty level set above the luxury-tax threshold (this season, $21.3 million above). Teams that finish a season with a payroll over the apron face a long list of roster-building restrictions. They can’t send out cash or aggregate contracts in a trade, can’t sign players bought out by other teams, and can have their first-round draft picks frozen (i.e. made untradable).
Because of those potential penalties, teams that used to willingly “overspend” on payroll have pulled back. In the 2022-23 season, before the new CBA, seven teams spent above where the second apron theoretically would have been. In 2025-26, one team did.
“We cannot go into the second apron,” Knicks owner James Dolan said on WFAN in New York in June, shortly after his team won the NBA title. “There’s certain things in the NBA that you’d have to be suicidal to do.”
Boston Celtics general manager Brad Stevens explained his trading of 2024 Finals MVP Jaylen Brown in salary cap terms, citing roster flexibility. Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti called his trade of championship starter Lu Dort “a financial decision” in an interview with The Oklahoman.
The past four NBA champions have all lost key rotation players for financial reasons. With owners of successful teams unwilling to cross the second-apron threshold, players must either take less money to keep their team together, or leave to get the full amount they can earn.
“I look at various different guys making the decision to keep their team together and take less money,” executive director of the National Basketball Players Association David Kelly said in an interview with Front Office Sports. “All of that burden has shifted onto the player, and it shouldn’t all rest with the player.”
Victor Wembanyama signed a five-year, $255 million extension (25% of the cap) with the San Antonio Spurs this offseason rather than the $306 million (30% of the cap) for which he was eligible. Coming off a surprise run to the NBA Finals, the deal gives the franchise more flexibility to build around their superstar.
“I’m here to stay. Whatever it takes,” Wembanyama wrote in a post on X in July.
The previous year, Chet Holmgren similarly signed an extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder just after winning the title valued at 25% of the cap rather than the 30% he could’ve earned.
The defending champion Knicks face numerous difficult payroll decisions, and Karl-Anthony Towns was reportedly offered a four-year, $200 million extension this summer—well short of the $276 million for which he is eligible.
Such contract negotiations can be uncomfortable, creating tension that derails a team. It’s easy to see why players are frustrated.
Still, total player pay across the league is set at 51% of basketball-related income (BRI) no matter how stingy owners are about the luxury tax and aprons. The league withholds 10% of players’ salaries during the season in escrow, and after BRI is calculated, a portion of that is returned to ensure the proper revenue split between players and owners. If a bunch of owners blew past the second apron, all player salaries would likely be decreased once the escrow amounts were settled.
The NBA’s current CBA expires after the 2029-30 season, with a mutual option to opt out one year earlier. The second apron will surely be a key point of discussion, and both sides will want to have their facts straight.