How are NBA GMs and executives trying to build teams and compete in the parity era?

• Part III of a five-part series before 2024-25 nba season, it explores how the league reached this era of parity and the key questions that remain. Part I , Part II

carl-anthony town Recently he was having dinner with his girlfriend at a New York restaurant when she stopped for a moment and patted Townes on the shoulder.

“Do you really believe this is our life now?” Two weeks after the surprise end of Towns’ nine-year tenure in Minnesota with a trade, Jordyn Woods asked him. nix“We’re both still in shock.”

The deal that sent Towns to New York in exchange for julius randall, donte divincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop And the first-round draft pick arrived three days before the start of training camp. the situation has also come Timberwolves’ Reaching the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 20 years, something that coach Chris Finch said would not have happened had Towns not performed in the first two rounds of the playoffs surprise And denver,

So why would Minnesota trade an All-Star player who had been there since being drafted No. 1 in 2015 and was such a key part of a promising team just days before one of the most anticipated seasons in franchise history?

The Timberwolves believe the additions of Randle and DiVincenzo will give them a chance to be as good or better than last season’s version: tougher, deeper and more versatile while chasing the team’s first NBA Finals appearance.

But another major factor in the decision was the chance to ultimately get under the dreaded second apron, a level of spending that, under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, brings such severe penalties from a financial and team-building perspective that it makes it unaffordable. Gives it’s hard to build a winning roster.

Trading Towns, who is entering a four-year, $220 million contract extension this season, provided the Timberwolves a path to getting under the apron next season, which will give them more flexibility to continue building around the rising young star . Anthony Edwards,

Executives around the league are grappling with new financial rules that are forcing them to make tough decisions with All-Star potential players sooner than they’d like, while also making trades even more difficult to complete . It played a factor in Golden State WarriorsA team that historically never blinked at massive luxury tax bills, deciding they couldn’t afford it clay thompsonOne of the most beloved players in franchise history. Thompson signed with dallas mavericks In free agency.

This is why LA ClippersEven with owner Steve Ballmer’s bottomless pockets, the All-Star won’t give up paul george He got the long-term contract he wanted and allowed him to move to Philadelphia.

“The main thing is that it forces you to move on players you don’t want to move on,” explained one Western Conference decision-maker. athletic,

If a team decides it needs to make a deal for competitive or financial reasons, it becomes much more difficult to accomplish. Teams on the second apron – set at $188.9 million this season – cannot collect to send players in trades and must make salaries from both sides in the deal match, unlike non-apron teams whose salaries are within 25. Could be each other’s percentage. They cannot use cash to help facilitate a trade and cannot trade a first-round pick for seven years in the future.

Another Western Conference executive said, “The process of how you close a deal is absolutely impossible.”

Other apron teams also cannot use the midlevel exception in free agency. If a team is above the second apron in two out of four years, its first round selection in seven years automatically moves to the bottom of the board. These conditions reduce the margin for error for general managers who always have one eye on the current roster and the other on the future.

“It’s not like you have to hit a home run on every deal,” said one of the executives. “But as you get closer to the apron, every deal leads to some other decision because they start taking stuff away for you to be able to do that. So you have to get the initial moves right.”

While this may be disappointing on the ground, in many ways this is what the league wanted when it negotiated a new agreement with the players’ union. nba Created by Commissioner Adam Silver create some sense of equality As the league evolves, a real priority is to try to counter the long-held perception of fans in some markets that the deck is stacked against them. It is now very difficult for even the richest owners in the most glamorous markets to overcome the obstacles imposed by the redistribution of talent across the league.

“What I’m hearing from teams is that, even when moving to the second apron kick, teams are realizing that those provisions,” Silver said at the Board of Governors meeting at the Las Vegas Summer League. I have real strength.”

The Timberwolves and Knicks found out how difficult it is to make a deal when attempting to execute a Towns trade. The Wolves are on top of the second apron, so the Knicks had to go through a maze of maneuvers to make all the money work, including Signing a player from abroad and trading it charlotte hornets,

This is a deal that could not be done during the regular season because players can only be signed and traded during the offseason, another pressure point that made it important for Minnesota to do it before camp opened.

“The new rules, some of the consequences are unintended, quite frankly,” Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Conley said, speaking in general terms and not specifically about the Towns deal. “I don’t know if anyone intended for it to be so challenging to step up, to do business when you’re up a few aprons.”

It was sad for Golden State to see Thompson go. He won four championships steph curry And draymond greenA trio that had to stay together till the end. But the Warriors devoted more resources to young players in recent seasons as Thompson worked hard to overcome two major injuries and earned him a big-money deal. Andrew Wiggins And Jordan Poole And signing Curry and Green to extensions. He Thompson was not treated wellWho signed a three-year, $50 million contract with the Mavericks in a sign-and-trade deal.

On a smaller scale, the Denver Nuggets have had to say goodbye to key role players bruce brown And Kentavius ​​Caldwell-Pope After winning the title in 2023 in consecutive years. Timberwolves also saw kyle andersonOne of Finch’s favorites, left for Golden State because he was too expensive.

Seeing the Clippers hold the line on George was almost as surprising as seeing Thompson hold up a Mavericks jersey at his introductory news conference. Ballmer has been one of the most aggressive spenders in the league since taking over the Clippers in 2014. But all these new rules are turning them into more practical bean counters.

“I think we’re going to be very good in the short term,” Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said this summer, “and we’re also going to have the flexibility in the long term that will make it a sustainable organization that’s always Always trying to win a championship.”

celtics Bringing everyone back after winning a championship last season, but the chance to potentially become one of the league’s last dynasties is also giving Boston stomach twists. The Celtics will ultimately have to make some tough decisions about a core that includes jayson tatum, jaylen brown, junior holiday And kristaps porzingisAnd it appears owner Vic Grousbach will leave those decisions to someone else after putting his majority ownership stake in the franchise up for sale.

One general manager said, “When you’re me and you’re told if you have a $75 million tax bill, we better have a parade, you need to make tough decisions.” “For teams that enter the repeater, it becomes much more challenging to put together a championship quality roster.”

Even teams that are not reaching the tax apron are having to make adjustments. There was a time when those teams were fertile ground for dealmaking, often using their cap space to acquire draft picks from playoff hopefuls to enhance their roster. But apron restrictions on trades, including a stipulation that deals be matched dollar for dollar, could make it extremely difficult for rebuilding teams to find landing spots with contenders for players who aren’t in their long-term plans. .

The choices are becoming more and more difficult.

“You’re going to see with the owners how much pain they can tolerate,” one executive said.

Whether that pain comes from paying through the nose for a star-studded roster or missing out on the many avenues a team can take to adjust its roster in the future, these next few years could be a little tough while everyone adjusts. Does.

Not everyone is blinking yet. The Phoenix Suns are going to have a roster this season that is worth over $400 million when the luxury tax is included, so new owner Matt Ishbia is doing everything he can to chase a title. philadelphia was able to connect George to the core of joel embiid And tyreese maxi Ultimately entering the Eastern Conference.

As difficult as the new scenario may be, some executives see it as just another puzzle for them to solve.

One executive said, “You learn the rules and then you figure out how to adapt to them.” “You’ll look at certain things and find various loopholes that will be exploited.”

The Knicks were able to do just that with the Towns deal, signing three players they had no intention of ever playing with on minimum $1 contracts from the league, to help them avoid some restrictions. Cap-savvy teams will find other methods along the way. Meanwhile, business as usual will look a lot different in the NBA.

That much was clear to Towns on Sunday when he faced his former team in a preseason game at Madison Square Garden. It was an emotional evening for him after spending his entire career in Minnesota. But life, and the second apron, go on.

“The business of basketball will continue,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how you feel. It doesn’t matter how life treats you. You have to come here prepared every day. Put your city on the map and do the best for your teammates and your organization.”

(Illustration: Mitch Robinson: athletic(Photos by Klay Thompson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Paul George, Julius Randle/Getty Images)