New restrictions are in place for those willing to spend too much money on their teams.
Conundrum. It’s more than a $14 bottle of wine you can find on the shelves at your local Costco. It’s what the Phoenix Suns face as they prepare to navigate the 2024 offseason. They are a team that is way over the luxury tax, having one of their primary assets living with a no-trade clause in his contract, and not of options to add anything due to league-implemented restrictions.
Ah, what a time to be a Suns fan!
One advantage they have is that most of their roster is filled out…if the four players who possess player options choose to return. Eric Gordon, Josh Okogie, Damian Lee, and Drew Eubanks all have player options, which give them the choice of whether they want to return to Phoenix or test the open market.
They have until June 29 to decide.
If all choose to opt in, the Suns would have 11 players under contract to start their offseason dealings. With 15 total players required, this is a vast difference from what we witnessed last summer. At that time, the Suns needed to fill two-thirds of their roster after trading for Bradley Beal.
So that’s a plus, right? You know what and who you have (for the most part).
If all of those players were to decline their player option, that would only cut $11.9 million off of the total cap sheet for the Phoenix Suns. That would take their projected payroll from $208.9 million (before adding the final four needed) to $197 million.
No matter what Phoenix does next season, they will be a second apron team once again.
We experienced the first season of “second apron” last year, where some restrictions were instituted. At its core, the second apron is designed to hamper teams who can continually spend money from doing just that. When restrictions are applied, the options to improve decline.
2024-25 will see more restrictions come to fruition. The new CBA instituted these rules but gave the teams in the NBA some leeway and time to adjust to this new second apron concept. They didn’t just turn a switch ‘off’ and say, “Hey, deal with it”. They’ve eased into the second apron.
For those of you who might need a refresher course, we’re here to assist. No need for a summer school session to learn how and what is instituted and how you excel through the different levels of the luxury tax, first, and second aprons.
Here are the projected financial figures for the 2024-25 season:
- Salary Cap: $141 million
- Luxury Tax: $171.3 million
- First Apron: $178.7 million
- Second Apron: $189.5 million
Luxury Tax
When you go over the luxury tax, you start to pay extra money for every dollar spent. There are varying thresholds along the way. Repeater offenders are defined as teams who have paid into the luxury tax in three of the past four seasons.
For example, if you are $1 million over the luxury tax, you pay $1.5M for going over.
That policy has been in place since 2001, but it hasn’t stopped teams from loading their teams with talent (see: Golden State Warriors Dynasty). With the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NBA instituted more deterrents to those who want to spend extra for talented players. They introduced the first and second aprons.
First Apron
The first apron is for teams who cross the (estimated) $171.3 million threshold next season. When that occurs, the following restrictions will be imparted. The Suns cannot:
- Acquire a player via sign-and-trade
- Use any portion of the bi-annual exception
- Use more than the taxpayer portion (up to two years, with a starting salary of $5MM) of the mid-level exception
- Sign a player who was waived during the current season if his pre-waiver salary for 2024-25 exceeded the amount of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($12,405,000)
- Take back more than 100% of the salary it sends out in a trade
- Use a traded player exception generated during the prior year (ie. between the end of the previous regular season and the end of the most recent regular season)
The Suns will sail the waters next season with all of these restrictions in place. It’s not the end of the world not does it handicap their ability to operate. It just makes it harder. It’s like getting a cup of coffee and not being allowed to add the little sweeteners and sugars to enhance the taste.
Second Apron
This is where the Phoenix Suns will be living. Not only will owner Mat Ishbia be forking over all of the extra coin that comes with paying the luxury tax, as well as having all of the restrictions listed above from occurring, but the team will be highly restricted as these restrictions will be enforced:
- First-round picks seven years out cannot be traded
- Teams will no longer be able to use the taxpayer mid-level exception
- If a team remains in the second apron three out of five seasons, their first-round pick will automatically move to the end of the round, beginning next season
- Outgoing salaries cannot be aggregated or combined in trades
- Cannot acquire a player in return in an outgoing sign-and-trade
- Teams can’t use trade exceptions created from a prior year.
- Teams can no longer use cash in trades
- The salary-matching rules themselves are also getting more restrictive as the CBA transitions from these franchises being able to take on 125 percent of the salaries they send out down to 110 percent now and just 100 percent (so not adding salary at all) starting July 1
You get all of that? Now it’s like having a cup of coffee, but there’s no coffee. You’re standing there with just a cup.
As of this moment, the Suns are not alone in the second apron. Other teams are facing the same restrictions that Phoenix is. Other teams must try to add to their rosters while under some of these strict restrictions. As of today, per Spotrac, the Suns have the highest returning payroll:
Hopefully, all of this helps as we begin to theorize about what the future holds for the Phoenix Suns. Acquisitions will be hard to come by outside of veteran minimum contracts, and trades are all but dead. Oh, and draft picks? I know that the Suns aren’t necessarily a fan of using draft picks to actually draft players, but if they are hampered to the point in which they cannot trade those picks, you may see a shift in philosophy.
There is the info. Now, everyone to the trade machine! Let’s try to fix this unique mess that the Suns have created fo themselves!