Sports

Timberwolves' second apron blueprint is at the center of NBA offseason

Minnesota Timberwolves On SI · Jul 21, 2026 18:37 · 3 min read

Timberwolves' Second Apron Blueprint Is at the Center of NBA Offseason — Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) drives to the basket against Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort (5) during the second quarter in game five of the Western Conference Finals for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Paycom Center. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Timberwolves first grappling with the second apron dilemma has now laid a foundation that are other teams are following this offseason.

In the fall of 2024, fresh off the franchise's first trip to the Western Conference Finals in 20 years, the Minnesota Timberwolves made a stunning trade.

Instead of running it back with the organization's best team in two decades, the Wolves decided to send out their longest-tenured player, Karl-Anthony Towns, in exchange for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, and a first-round pick.

The primary reason the Timberwolves decided to make the trade was the NBA's new second apron, a salary cap threshold that, combined with the punitive luxury tax, puts large trade and signing restrictions on teams that go over it.

Heading into the 2024-25 season Karl-Anthony Towns was set to begin a four-year $220 million contract that would pay him $49 million in the first season and go as high as a $61 million player option in 2027-28.

With Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels contract extensions set to kick along with new deals for Rudy Gobert and eventually Naz Reid, the Timberwolves knew they had to shed salary and fast. The best and most obvious candidate to do that was Towns as he would garner the best trade return.

Though the Wolves did spend the next season above the second apron, which prevented them from making a meaningful addition at the trade deadline, no longer having Towns contract on the books allowed the Wolves to decrease their salary number for the following season as after Randle's new contract, him and DiVincenzo combined to make $12 million less than Towns last season.

While the Timberwolves may have been the first team to grapple with the NBA's new second apron, they are far from the last. A few weeks ago, the Boston Celtics traded away their own franchise pillar, Jaylen Brown, for Paul George and draft picks.

Similar to the trade of Towns, the transaction for the Celtics seems to be far more driven by Brown's contract than his play on the court. Even with Jayson Tatum coming back fully healthy to a team that won 56 games last season, the Celtics appear to have determined that having both Brown and Tatum making more than $60 million would eventually become untenable.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, just a season removed from a championship, have made multiple cost-cutting trades. They started by sending out Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe before trading away Lu Dort on Sunday to the Atlanta Hawks for three second-round picks.

Those moves allowed the Thunder to cut their player salary total by $45 million, bringing them under the second apron while lowering their luxury tax bill from close to $300 to a much more affordable roughly $30 million.

The Timberwolves, Celtics, and Thunder are among the recent trend of teams to duck the second apron. Regardless of whether it meant trading away the player who had been with the team the longest, or breaking up a group that either won the championship or came close.

What was once a common salary number for a team to reach is now incredibly taboo as no teams are currently projected to go into the second apron for this upcoming season.

It can be argued whether or not any of this is good from a league-wide fan perspective. The NBA is experiencing the most amount of parity the league has ever seen. For the first time, the NBA saw eight unique champions in eight years. Gone are the days of LeBron James winning the Eastern Conference eight straight times while the Golden State Warriors won the West five times in a row.

To achieve that, though, NBA teams are being forced to trade away local favorites while basketball fans and media are required to pull open a new spreadsheet tab at every new transaction cycle.

What is clear is that the owners got what they wanted. NBA teams no longer have to spend obscene amounts of money to win at the highest level, as the second apron has become a virtual hard cap that NBA c-suites are either unwilling or unable to outspend.