Charles Barkley has taken a fair few shots at LeBron James and Kevin Durant over the years, and he was at it again recently. Barkley blamed James and Durant for the much-maligned apron rules being instituted, claiming that commissioner Adam Silver had to do something to stop this superteam trend they started.
Barkley’s comments came to Durant’s attention, and the Houston Rockets superstar passed on the blame to former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers on X.
“Ooh since we’re playing the blame game, I select Bob Myers as the fall guy.”
Myers, of course, was the Warriors’ GM when they signed Durant in free agency in 2016, and he was the one who pushed for the move. Adding a player of his caliber to a team that had Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, and had just gone 73-9, meant no one else stood much of a chance.
The Warriors won back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018 with their superteam. They probably would have three-peated, too, if not for Durant and Thompson going down with injuries.
Six years before Durant’s shocking move to the Warriors came James’ decision to head to the Miami Heat. He teamed up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to form a Big 3, and they’d win back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.
While one can blame James and Durant for the superteam era, they aren’t the ones who should be getting criticized for these restrictive apron rules that were brought in as part of the Collective Bargaining agreement that came into effect from the 2023-24 season. Myers perhaps takes a little bit of the blame, but not for that decision back in 2016.
The apron rules were, in part, brought in with teams like the Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers in mind. Both franchises have owners who were willing to spend enormous amounts in luxury tax in order to have the best chance of winning.
The Warriors had the highest payroll in the NBA three times between the 2020-21 and 2023-24 seasons. The only time they weren’t at the top was 2022-23, when the Clippers just sneaked ahead of them.
Owners of teams in smaller markets couldn’t really compete with that level of spending. Now with the apron, there is more of a competitive balance. Sure, you can still spend a lot of money, but being a second apron team brings with it various challenges in terms of team building.
Those teams cannot trade first-round picks from seven years out, cannot use cash or trade exceptions from previous years in trades, don’t have access to the MLE, and so on. We have seen the Boston Celtics tear their 2024 championship-winning team apart this offseason as they could not afford to be in the second apron again.
Former Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck had predicted that no team would stay in that second apron for over two years.
“You can’t stay in the second apron. Nobody will. I predict for the next 40 years of the CBA no one’s gonna stay in the second apron more than two years.”
“It’s not the luxury-tax bill. It’s the basketball penalties, OK? The new CBA was designed by the league to stop teams from going crazy.”
“And they decided that it’s not just good enough to go after the wallets because then the fans are like, ‘Hey, find someone who can afford to spend whatever, $500 million a year or whatever it is, like the English Premier League.'”
“I know seven guys that own Premier League teams in England with no spending caps and most of them are wondering what the hell’s going on. Anyway, over here, it’s basketball penalties now.”
Draymond Green had once stated that the Warriors would be the NBA’s last dynasty because of the CBA. The Oklahoma City Thunder will be hoping to prove him wrong, but it won’t be too long before the 2025 NBA champions are also forced to part with some key pieces like the Celtics just did.
