The new CBA has changed the game, and teams are adjusting to a new landscape

LAS VEGAS — Money underlines NBA Summer League. Money underlines the NBA, really, the true green code of this 30-team Matrix — from the restrictions of the league’s collective bargaining agreement to the spending power of NIL collectives possibly keeping talent from the league. This week, this annual gathering when everyone from All-Stars to general managers to the college world’s most connected flock to the dry heat of this desert, that code blinks and flickers from the Thomas & Mack center to the hallways of the Wynn. Which swankiest hotel of the swankiest hotel does your team stay at? What lavish dinner, charged to some company card, are you attending? Look who’s holding court at the $100 tables.

The fact business is still being conducted here — veteran minimum signings, completed rookie contracts, dismissed coaches and front office staffers searching for their next gigs — underscores every event, every catch-up conversation at the top of the Cox Pavilion stands. This summer, the first offseason governed by rules of the league’s new second-apron CBA, has brought plenty of chatter among NBA personnel around Summer League about a relatively quick and quiet free agency and what looks to be the early shaping of a new era of the league’s business.

The harsher penalties and limitations that come when a team’s total cap sheet surpasses the second apron, an additional luxury tax line beginning with this 2024-25 campaign — $188.931 million for 2024-25 compared to a first apron of $178.132 million — were the Clippers’ main reasons for not competing with Philadelphia’s offer for Paul George. While fans of the Miami Heat, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Denver Nuggets have shared frustration about their all-in, supposed-to-be contending teams’ lack of significant movement this summer, there are simply limited opportunities for the Bucks, who are already locked into the second apron, while Denver is hard-capped at the second apron and Miami is tip-toeing that line by $1.6 million.

There isn’t much of a free-agency landscape to work through, anyhow, if several cap space teams like Charlotte,…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-07-15 22:25:24

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