Second apron

The second apron is the NBA's harshest spending line, introduced in the 2023 CBA. It sits roughly $20M above the luxury-tax line.

Teams above it lose almost every roster-building tool: no mid-level exception of any kind, no aggregating player salaries in a trade, no sending out cash in trades, no using trade exceptions generated by earlier deals, and their first-round pick seven drafts out is frozen (it can't be traded).

The intent is to make sustained super-team spending painful in basketball terms, not just dollars. A team deep in the second apron can effectively only re-sign its own players (via Bird rights) and add veteran-minimum contracts.