Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
There’s been so much complaining about the second apron over the past several weeks that as a chronically disagreeable person who’s skeptical of consensus, and particularly internet consensus, I do find myself tempted to zag. Unfortunately, I can’t get there. I’ve been mad at the second apron since the day the CBA was agreed upon in 2023. I remember this vividly. My son had been born the day before and I was in an exhausted fog, parsing the details from the hospital, baffled that people weren’t more upset about what the league had just done. So yes, I hated it then as much as everyone else does now, and three years later I remain resolutely annoyed.
In lieu of a zag, then, let me tell you that some of the Johnny-come-lately apron haters who have emerged this summer seem to be mad for the wrong reasons. The problem isn’t that a few players are taking less money, that owners are spending less, or that fans are being betrayed (that’s been happening for quite some time). The problem with the second apron is that it’s working predictably and effectively to engineer parity that will render the whole league less meaningful over time—and potentially less profitable, too.
