Is the NBA’s Second Apron Preventing a Mess or Creating One?

Getty Images/Ringer illustration New rules are preventing the highest-spending teams from making moves. How will it affect the NBA? "We're already seeing it," says one NBA exec. To grasp NBA competition in the Year of Our (Time) Lord 2024, you first must embrace the apron. And not the one you wear to protect your finest designer shirt from wayward splatters of olive oil. This isn't about kitchen couture. No, skip past the primary "apron" definitions at dictionary.com, past all references to garments, golf courses, and boxing rings or conveyor belts, driveways, and dams. Scroll to the 19th entry, the one referencing "a structure erected around another structure, as for reinforcement." That, more or less, describes the apron that will shape the NBA for the foreseeable future, subtly influencing every decision, every trade, every signing, and every possible transaction. "We're already seeing it," says one longtime team executive. Look to Los Angeles, where the Clippers are weighing a divorce with Paul George. Or to San Francisco, where the Warriors might say farewell to Klay Thompson. Or to Denver, where the Nuggets could lose Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, one of the keys to their 2023...