Charles Barkley, the NBA legend, recently appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast and discussed the second apron and its implications. He believes that while everyone blames NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the real ones to blame for this are NBA players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who formed super teams to avoid competition.
Barkley claimed that these players ruined the spirit of competition, and Adam Silver was only trying to maintain the competitive integrity of the sport. While Simmons was claiming that the Celtics smartly navigated out of the second apron to build a depth like the Thunder, he criticized the second apron for being “dumb” when Barkley interrupted.
“Hey! Cut the bullsh**, they ain’t got no dumb rules,” said Barkley when Simmons called the second apron ‘dumb.’
“Why did they have to come up with bullsh** rules, Bill? Because all these guys want to play together and not compete. How many great players do you need on one team? Why did Adam Silver want to put all these rules in? Because LeBron got all his guys together, KD wanted to go play with the Warriors.”
“Wait a minute, y’all don’t want to win a championship when you just play and compete against each other? Don’t get mad at Adam Silver because y’all want to get together and dominate the league and y’all don’t want to compete.”
“I hate it when I hear, ‘Man, the second apron is not fair.’ What do you mean, it’s not fair? If y’all didn’t want to play together, we wouldn’t have to make up bogus a** rules to stop y’all from playing together.”
“As much as I love LeBron, when he started doing this with Bosh and Wade, that was the first wave. The second move was KD going to the Warriors. Adam Silver had to do something; we can’t let one team hoard all the good players. I mean, they had Klay, Steph, and Draymond; they didn’t need KD.”
“They went there to dominate the league. The reason that LeBron went to Miami was so he could get him, Wade, and Bosh together. If all these guys didn’t want to play together, Bill, Adam Silver would never have had to come up with this second apron thing.”
“My Suns, they were paying KD, Booker, and Beal each $60 million. Like, how many good players do you need? You think in my heyday I didn’t want to play with KD and Bradley Beal?”
“This is a bogus rule, I agree with you, but if all these guys didn’t want to play together, Adam Silver would never have to make up these rules.”
The second apron was introduced in the NBA as a part of the 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the league and its players’ association. It is a set of harsh restrictions enforced upon a team after they cross a pre-decided threshold in player salaries given for the season.
The first apron imposes some restrictions, but the second apron essentially ties a team’s hands together. This has been a hot topic of discussion across the league as it has forced teams like the Celtics to take drastic measures to avoid it this offseason, even if they were just one season removed from winning a championship.
While most of what Barkley is saying is true, it is a common sentiment across the league that the era of making super teams is over in the NBA. Moreover, players have been making super teams ever since the 1990s. Barkley himself was a part of the Rockets’ failed super team in the late ’90s with Scottie Pippen and Hakeem Olajuwon.
One could say James orchestrated the first-ever successful super team, but he is not solely responsible for the idea. We have seen many failed attempts at making super teams like the 2003-04 Lakers, 2007-08 Suns, and more.
Therefore, while James and Durant could be credited for popularizing it in the modern era after doing it successfully, it is not their brainchild, and they should not be blamed for it.
