Are the Suns going to be right about the NBA’s 2nd apron? Or is everyone else?

A seismic trade less than 72 hours before media day for most NBA teams broke Friday night, with the core pieces involving Karl-Anthony Towns going from the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for the New York Knicks’ Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle.

On the surface level, the deal for some is easy enough to analyze. This is simply two sides swapping pieces with clunky long-term fits. Towns is a better player than Randle, so sprinkle in a solid supplementary guard like DiVincenzo and there you go.

It is much, much more than that, however, and is yet another Western Conference competitor dodging the punishing conditions of ludicrous salary cap spending, conditions Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia is confidently staring right down the barrel of.

Why did the Timberwolves trade Karl-Anthony Towns?

Minnesota is coming off a 56-win season, the second most in the 36-year history of the franchise. It is possibly the best team the Timberwolves have ever had, and the only reason it isn’t undisputed is because the other that won 58 in 2004 was led by prime Kevin Garnett, one of the greatest power forwards of all time.

Towns is right behind Garnett when it comes to his overall career and contributions in Minnesota, with those two high above anyone else. Anthony Edwards will eventually supplant both if he stays for the long haul. And given how we all know that, it was surprising going to Minnesota in the postseason and hearing Towns announced last in starting lineups, the spot for the star player.

The Timberwolves took down the Denver Nuggets in the second round, a series that in some ways felt like the NBA Finals right then and there with how well they were playing and Denver being defending champs. They ran out of steam in the conference finals but were bringing everyone back besides Kyle Anderson and certainly came into this season as one of the four teams in the West with serious title equity coming into the year.

And the Timberwolves punted on that because they were worried about the future.

Towns was signed to the same $224 million supermax extension Devin Booker got in the summer of 2022. Towns is not Booker. He is an incredibly skilled big man that also comes with flaws, most notably the tweener status of his 4/5 flexibility defensively that the Knicks now have to figure out, and also his previous playoff hiccups that included constant boneheaded fouls.

Then again, Towns is coming off a postseason where he was superb in the first two rounds, doing as good of a job possible defending Kevin Durant (arguably the best 4 on Earth) in patches and Nikola Jokic (inarguably the best 5 on Earth) in patches. Huh. Maybe the Knicks and Tom Thibodeau will figure that out, actually.

Minnesota was on pace this year for the second-highest luxury tax bill, trailing just the Suns. This trade will already save them roughly $25 million for this season, per CapSheets’ Yossi Gozlan. And if you’re not familiar with how the tax works, those penalties can multiply over time. Plus, this Timberwolves team was only going to get more expensive.

Ishbia would have shrugged and just paid for it. Most owners are not Ishbia, and the T-Wolves have been going through a nauseating ownership dispute for a few years now that is set to continue. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst dove into more of the recent details here if you’re interested.

The Minnesota side of the trade is they see basketball reasons beyond just the financial implications.

The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski detailed all of that, noting how pivotal young role players like Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Naz Red were unlikely to have long-term futures with the Timberwolves if Towns’ mammoth contract stuck around. This is a gargantuan-sized “if” with flashing text but if Minnesota indeed pays up for both and eventually tosses a mini-extension Rudy Gobert’s way, that plus DiVincenzo’s contract running through 2027 might make this worth it.

The Randle part of this equation is impossible to evaluate until we see it on the court. He is a hexagonal peg in a round hole in terms of taking a squad with heaps of continuity and implementing someone with their own style of play. Ironing out the positives there while making up for the spacing lost without Towns’ sublime shooting prowess will surely take time. There is no way Minnesota has as good of championship chances this season as it did 12 hours ago, a tremendous win for other Western Conference foes trying to win now (like the Suns).

Perhaps it works out after some serious adjusting. Or, Randle, essentially on an expiring contract if he chooses to decline his player option next summer, is traded midseason on his movable $28.9 million number. Speaking as someone with a defined indent in their couch cushion after sitting comfortably for so long on the Reid bandwagon, Minnesota could pull that off and still remain a large threat in my opinion, even without the scoring punch Randle obviously provides.

Krawczynski notes that, ala the 2024 Arizona Diamondbacks and their big-time free agent spending following a World Series berth, the only real way for Minnesota to keep this going beyond the 2024-25 season was winning a title and using those earnings on the team.

The Athletic’s John Hollinger points out that by making this move, Minnesota is projected to land well below the second apron in the 2025-26 season. That would unlock some of the team-building limitations that are currently restricted and help break the second-apron streak that can eventually lead to frozen draft picks.

The T-Wolves are not alone in acting on that.

Can the Suns be right about the 2nd apron?

Earlier this summer, we saw a lot of scared money.

The Denver Nuggets let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk. The Los Angeles Clippers tossed disrespectful contract offers Paul George’s way before allowing him to bolt to Philadelphia. LeBron James was open to taking a pay cut with the Los Angeles Lakers if it meant landing certain free agents. The Dallas Mavericks used multiple second-round picks to salary dump Tim Hardaway Jr. in Detroit.

All of this had to do with the second apron. Denver, the most egregious example of all this, has insisted that is not the full motivation. The Clippers, though, went as far as bizarrely including it in their statement on George’s departure. James’ extension after the Lakers did not sign one of those desirable targets put L.A. less than $50,000 below the second apron, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks. For what it’s worth, the Towns trade will also put the Knicks under it by the slimmest of margins too, according to Hollinger.

Everyone is meticulously dancing around this thing while Ishbia is busting through it like the Kool-Aid Man with drywall.

And that’s because Ishbia doesn’t believe the constraints are as severe as teams are making them out to be. He even went as far as saying the quiet part out loud, that teams are using it as an excuse for the primary motivation — not spending as much money.

“It’s like a nice way for other teams and owners to hide behind why they don’t re-sign players,” Ishbia told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo in mid-July.

Ishbia re-signed Grayson Allen. He re-signed Royce O’Neale. He even gave Josh Okogie a substantial raise just to make his contract more tradable. Spotrac has Minnesota’s updated tax bill down to around $77 million. Whatever the figure lands at once the full parameters of the deal are finalized, even if you double it, it lands over $30 million shy of the Suns’ $188 million due.

Ishbia is doing it because he believes this team can win.

“If I didn’t feel we had a chance to win a NBA championship, I promise you we wouldn’t have the highest salary and highest luxury tax in NBA history,” Ishbia said. “We wouldn’t be doing it. I don’t say that’s not a reason for us not to build a team but I’m not silly with money, I don’t throw money away. But I’m a fan too and I want to put the best team out there.”

What the second apron effectively does is make roster construction immensely more challenging for the heavy spenders. When the challenge becomes too overwhelming is once first-round picks get “frozen,” meaning the Suns wouldn’t be able to trade that pick until they unfroze it. Even worse, the selection could later be moved all the way to the end of the first round. Ishbia spoke on that, how teams qualify for that extreme penalty once they are in the second apron three out of four years.

“Last year didn’t even count,” he said. “So, the next two years we are going to be in the second apron and we are going to be very expensive. Luxury tax is going to be high this year, it’s going to be high again next year. And we’re going to compete and we’re going to see how we do.

“And then the third year we have to try to get out of it. That would probably be the best and most intelligent decision because that would make it so our picks are not frozen and not pushed to the back of the draft.”

That third year would be the salary books for the 2026-27 season. That is notably when the extension-eligible Durant comes off the books. An important disclaimer here is the tax is not put into effect and finalized until the end of the season, so the Suns theoretically could go into that season as a second apron team before ducking out of that space by making some deals at the trade deadline. It does not mean Durant is definitely gone then, either. Ishbia did also state if the Suns are still contending it’s perhaps a different story.

But what it sounds like is that would be when the Suns would eventually and calmly hit the eject button on the second apron while their competitors have been frantically breaking the emergency glass left and right to smash it.

To answer the question in the headline, the Suns certainly can be right about the second apron.

All of this is a case-by-case basis featuring imperative context. In their case, it’s hard to imagine a better roster since the second apron limitations supposedly handcuffed them. They acquired O’Neale and Tyus Jones for pennies considering how much good players at their positions are worth. They maneuvered in the NBA Draft to acquire a second selection, using it on Oso Ighodaro, another player like Ryan Dunn that has a chance at being a reliable rotation player quickly.

Denver absolutely should have spent to keep Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown. A definitive stance on Minnesota is a little trickier to compute, particularly if it spends later on in Edwards’ prime to secure the rest of its team’s core.

If there is anything to define the short little while we’ve gotten to know Ishbia’s Suns, it’s that they aren’t afraid to defy the norm. We are going to find out real soon if that boldness is a burden.

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