NBA salary-cap analyst Nate Duncan pushed back forcefully this week against the growing narrative that the National Basketball Players Association got steamrolled in the 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations, arguing that the union secured tangible financial gains that outweigh the roster-construction headaches grabbing headlines.
“A lot of people are saying the union got their ass kicked in the negotiations in 2023, and that’s ridiculous,” Duncan said. “They got more money for all the players!”
The 2023 CBA, ratified in April of that year, introduced the so-called second apron — a punitive tier of salary-cap restrictions that prevents high-spending teams from using certain trade mechanisms, aggregating salaries in deals, or accessing mid-level exceptions. The rules have drawn intense scrutiny this offseason as several franchises have shed salary or traded notable players, with critics pinning the blame on the new CBA’s constraints.
Duncan’s counterargument is straightforward: the marginal cost — maybe two or three teams per year carrying one fewer roster spot — is a trade every player would make for higher compensation across the board. “Every player would rather have more money just because maybe two or three teams a year at most are going to have one fewer player than they would have before,” he said. “But everyone is getting paid more.”
He pointed specifically to the salary floor as a major union win. Under the previous agreement, teams had until the end of the season to reach the minimum payroll threshold. The new CBA requires teams to hit the floor at the beginning of the year, eliminating the accounting maneuvers that let franchises technically comply while spending less throughout the season. “Getting the salary floor was massive for them,” Duncan said. “To actually have the salary floor mean something as opposed to just, ‘oh, you had to get to the salary floor by the end of the year.’ Now you have to get to the salary floor at the beginning of the year.”
Duncan also took aim at what he considers a misattribution problem — the tendency to blame the second apron for every cost-cutting move when the simpler explanation is ownership reluctance to spend. “The owners love it when you can just say, ‘it’s all the second apron,'” he said. “No, it’s actually just the owners don’t want to pay that money. That’s really the biggest thing.”
He cited the Boston Celtics’ trade of Jaylen Brown as a case study in misplaced blame. The Celtics, Duncan argued, are not close to the second apron, and the decision to move Brown was not driven by fear of the cap restrictions. “You could say maybe that’s why Jaylen Brown didn’t have as much of a market,” Duncan acknowledged, suggesting the second apron may have depressed Brown’s trade value by making other teams hesitant to take on his salary. “But the Boston Celtics didn’t trade Jaylen Brown because they’re afraid of the second apron.”
The distinction matters for how the CBA gets evaluated. If the second apron is forcing trades of star players, the union’s critics have a case. If teams are using the apron as cover for decisions they would have made anyway — shedding payroll they no longer wanted — then the narrative shifts. Duncan lands firmly in the latter camp, and the salary data backs at least part of his claim: total player compensation has continued to rise under the new agreement, and the early-season floor requirement has compressed spending at the bottom of the league.
“I feel bad for the people who negotiated, because I thought they did a good job at the time,” Duncan said. “I think what’s happened since has actually proven they did a good job.”
Watch
Sources: