The new era of the NBA is here with the stricter luxury tax rules. But while the focus this year has been on unpredictability, the long-term changes will be more rooted in sustainability.
In recent years, the NBA and NHL playoffs have run at the same time and offered glimpses into completely different tournaments.
The NBA playoffs have long been about order, with few major upsets and the highest seeds normally making it deep into the postseason. The NHL playoffs have often featured teams that barely sneak into the playoffs yet go on Cinderella runs.
But the past three years have represented a shift for the NBA. Upsets have been much more common and led some to speculate the new rules have turned the NBA into the NHL.
That’s a bit of a stretch. The team with the best record in the league this season is one win away from an NBA championship. Last year, the team with the best record won the title and the year before that, the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference took home the championship.
The team with the most points in the NHL hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks. In this season’s hockey playoffs, the top four seeds all failed to advance out of the second round.
There might be more playoff upsets than people are used to in the NBA’s coming years, but it will still be common for top seeds to reach the Finals. The luxury tax restrictions may change how teams are constructed, but the best teams will still win a lot more than they lose in the playoffs.
The bigger change will be how long elite teams are able to stay elite. Contract extension decisions aren’t cut and dried anymore, as teams that pay into the second apron of the luxury tax have fewer avenues to improve their rosters. In the coming years, it will be much more difficult for teams to sustain success.
The NHL isn’t the North American league that should be used as a comparison point for the NBA’s future. Rather it’s the NFL, which features shorter contention cycles and more roster turnover, that the NBA could be emulating in its next era.
It’s hard to compare decisions that NBA teams have to make to the decisions of past NBA teams because of how different the luxury tax rules make roster building now. But by comparing NBA teams to NFL teams in the current stages of their competitive cycle, it’s easier to get an appreciation for just how difficult some of these roster decisions can be.
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It’s not easy to keep elite teams together in the NFL. Just ask the San Francisco 49ers.
At the end of the 2023 season, the 49ers lost in overtime in the Super Bowl. Just two years later, they’ve already had to let several starters and key reserves leave due to salary cap issues, largely brought on by quarterback Brock Purdy’s expensive new contract.
San Francisco’s defensive roster was the envy of the league just two years ago. Now it’s undeniably less proven. Perhaps 2025 draft picks Mykel Williams, C.J. West and Alfred Collins will work out or defensive end Bryce Huff will rebound after underwhelming with the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Eagles themselves are a good example of a team that nailed its rebuild. It’s easy to remember the shared members of the 2022 Eagles who lost in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs and the 2024 Eagles who got revenge on Patrick Mahomes and Co., including quarterback Jalen Hurts and some of his receivers and offensive linemen.
But most of the Philly defense was rebuilt in that two-year span. If Howie Roseman didn’t grab talented players with his early picks (Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean) or sign linebacker Zack Baun to a bargain contract, the Eagles probably aren’t good enough to make it back to second Super Bowl in a three-season span. There was so much roster flux that safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was on the Eagles in 2022, signed with the Detroit Lions in 2023, signed back with the Eagles in 2024, and was subsequently traded this offseason.
This kind of roster churn for good teams is normal in the NFL, where there are 22 starters (not including special teams), but it didn’t used to be in the NBA.
The Golden State Warriors had the rare chance to add Kevin Durant after a successful run, but then kept the five most-important players on the team (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and Durant) for three straight Finals runs. They also had Shaun Livingston and Kevon Looney in all three seasons.
Modern teams won’t have the luxury of keeping teams with several expensive veterans together. The Boston Celtics are the perfect example of a team that would’ve likely kept its title core together for a few more years in prior eras but now have to make some tough decisions.
The Celtics were already very likely to trade at least one of Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White this offseason even before star guard Jayson Tatum’s injury. It’s possible two of them will be on new teams next season.
The 2018-19 Warriors had five of the top 64 salaries in the league, including the highest-paid player, per Spotrac, but were still able to add DeMarcus Cousins on a taxpayer’s mid-level exception deal for $5.3 million. Cousins got injured and didn’t work out, but he represented a way expensive teams could infuse their rosters with talent. That deal is no longer available to the Celtics.
Now a team must be confident its roster will need very little outside help for multiple years when it goes into the second apron. Otherwise, the risk is a situation like the Phoenix Suns, which had to pay more than $152 million in luxury taxes for a team that missed the playoffs and now has to trade Durant to have any kind of flexibility moving forward.
The Celtics are making a decision they have to make. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible for them to remain contenders for the foreseeable future. It just means they, like the Eagles, have to nail the assets they get on any trades and hit on future draft picks.
It’s not as easy as building the backbone of a team and adding on the margins for half a decade anymore. There has to be constant retooling.
While the decision to part with some talent is easy for a team facing the Celtics’ financial situation, other teams face less clear-cut decisions this offseason.
The Houston Rockets were the No. 2 playoff seed in the Western Conference before losing in the opening round. They’re young, but the clock is already ticking.
The Rockets have a team option on Fred VanVleet this offseason for just shy of $45 million. They could give him an extension to try to lower that average value, but then they’re committing multiple years of significant money to a small 31-year-old point guard.
Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason need new extensions next year and Amen Thompson is an ascending player who will command a ton of money before the 2027-28 season. Commit to even three of these four players and the team will lose a ton of flexibility.
So if decisions need to be made on this core in a few years anyway, should the Rockets be aggressive in speeding up their timeline? They’re reportedly in on Durant and are an ideal spot for any team looking to trade a star for talented young assets. How aggressive will they be in a consolidation trade and how much of that aggression is due to the new rules?
The San Antonio Spurs are even further back in their competitive cycle than the Rockets, but are armed with budding superstar Victor Wembanyama, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2025 draft and a point guard already in his prime in De’Aaron Fox. In past eras, it would’ve been wiser for them to take their time building around Wemby.
In today’s game, they’re likely going to take a massive swing this year or next. If the Spurs decide to be aggressive, it would be reminiscent of the Houston Texans taking swings to improve the roster immediately once they had quarterback C.J. Stroud to take advantage of the years he’s on a rookie contract.
There isn’t time to waste in the NFL, and there isn’t in the NBA anymore.
The Elite Exceptions
With the new landscape of the league, assets will have different values than before.
Overpaid players on long-term contracts were always negative assets, but contending teams were willing to take on these players in consolidation trades if they had talent. Think Russell Westbrook being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
These deals will become even more toxic in the new CBA. Even if a player is properly paid, teams will think twice before acquiring a player on an expensive long-term deal if the player isn’t in the top 15 or so in the league.
The trade the Orlando Magic made for Desmond Bane this offseason is a good example of a deal with new risk involved. The Magic are banking on internal improvement from Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner with Bane adding much-needed shooting. But if their current roster stalls, there are fewer escape hatches to reset or retool.
We touched on the death of super teams last year, and that’s proved to be prescient. It’s tough to build a contender with three massive veteran contracts anymore.
But that makes the very best players in the game all the more valuable. They’ve long been the most valuable veteran contracts in the league because individuals are capped at making a certain percentage of the salary cap, meaning the best players still make close to the same as players a tier below. The Derrick Rose rule tried to correct this, but it didn’t change the fact the best players are still the most valuable.
Teams with the best players have wider margins for errors. The Denver Nuggets don’t have the ideal cap sheet, as they’re overpaying small forward Michael Porter Jr., and guard Jamal Murray hasn’t been as consistent as the team hoped due largely to injury issues. Nikola Jokic has never had an All-Star teammate, and the roster isn’t very deep as currently constructed.
Yet, the Nuggets pushed the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals and were a true contender this season. There have been good investments like small forward Aaron Gordon’s contract and the drafting of guard Christian Braun, but those only matter because Jokic is the best player in basketball. Even an average team around him has a shot at contending every year.
This has always been true, but as the degree of difficulty of building an elite team climbs, it becomes even more about who has the best few players in the world. Their teams will always be the ones with the best chance of consistent success.
That may be where the new NBA is most like the NFL. The last three Super Bowls have featured incredibly built rosters peaking at the right time on one side and Patrick Mahomes on the other. He’s won two of those matchups.
The Chiefs have made some roster-building mistakes, but Mahomes has mitigated a lot of them with his play. As long as he’s healthy and has a passable supporting cast around him, they’ll have a shot. Same with Jokic and the Nuggets.
While superstars give teams an easier path to contention, they still aren’t a guarantee (look at the current Milwaukee Bucks). More than ever before, NBA front offices need to constantly nail decisions on the margins and hope they stack up into something bigger.
The Indiana Pacers made bold trades for Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam but wouldn’t have made the NBA Finals without trading up to draft Andrew Nembhard 31st in 2022 or getting Aaron Nesmith as the secondary piece in a Malcolm Brogdon trade. T.J. McConnell was initially signed for two years, $7 million and got an extension last August for four years, $45 million, and it looks like a steal after his breakout postseason.
None of these moves had much fanfare at the time, but all were integral in shaping an Eastern Conference champion. And when some of these players get too expensive to keep, the Pacers will have to nail similar moves to keep their competitive window open.
Winning small moves like this aren’t easy, but building a championship team isn’t supposed to be. If NBA decision-makers want tips, they should call their NFL counterparts, who have been navigating a similar landscape for years.
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