Four teams open the 2026-27 season hard-capped at the NBA’s second apron, up from a single team a year earlier. The Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns each triggered the league’s most restrictive spending tier through separate offseason transactions.
Where The Line Sits Now
The second apron for 2026-27 is set at $221,686,000, with the first apron at $209,015,000. Both figures rose from the prior season, part of the annual recalculation tied to league revenue.
The Threshold, Then And Now
- 2025-26 salary cap: $154.647 million
- 2026-27 salary cap: $164.961 million
- 2025-26 first apron: $195.945 million
- 2026-27 first apron: $209.015 million
- 2025-26 second apron: $207.824 million
- 2026-27 second apron: $221.686 million
Every figure in that stack climbed by roughly the same margin, but it is the second apron that carries the harshest penalties, so its roughly $13.86 million jump from one season to the next is the number that matters most for the four teams already hard-capped at it. The mechanics behind why crossing it matters so much are laid out in Playbook Wire’s earlier explainer, How Does the NBA’s Second Apron Actually Work?
How Each Team Crossed It
Golden State triggered its hard cap by using the taxpayer mid-level exception to sign De’Anthony Melton. Houston did the same with the taxpayer mid-level exception, using it to add Marcus Smart.
Minnesota tripped the line by aggregating the salaries of Julius Randle and Naz Reid inside a trade, a maneuver that automatically hard-caps a team at the second apron. Phoenix landed there differently, sending out cash in a trade, which by rule applies the same hard cap regardless of the players involved. Playbook Wire has previously detailed how those trade structures work in How NBA Sign-and-Trade Deals Actually Work.
What The Apron Locks Away
Once a team is hard-capped at the second apron, it cannot aggregate player salaries in trades, cannot send out cash in trades, cannot use any mid-level exception and cannot sign a player who was waived from a contract above the mid-level. Teams above the line also lose access to Traded Player Exceptions generated in a prior year.
There is a draft-pick cost too. A team’s first-round pick seven years out is frozen the moment it finishes a season over the second apron, and if that team stays over the apron in two of the following four seasons, the pick automatically drops to 30th overall.
Two Ways To Count The Club
The list of four hard-capped teams and the group of teams actually carrying a payroll above the second apron are not the same thing, because they answer different questions. Hoops Rumors’ count reflects triggering transactions, moves like using the taxpayer mid-level exception or aggregating salaries in a trade, that lock a team at the second apron regardless of how far under the threshold its total payroll actually sits. A dollar-based tracker asks a separate question: which teams are carrying a payroll above the $221,686,000 line, transaction history aside.
By that second measure, only Cleveland is over the line for 2026-27. Golden State, Houston, Minnesota and Phoenix are hard-capped, but hard-capped is not the same as over the line; each locked in the restriction through a single transaction while still projecting a payroll below the threshold itself.
One Team, One Year Ago
Only the Cleveland Cavaliers finished the 2025-26 season over the second apron. Cleveland remains over it entering 2026-27, by roughly $20 million, even as the offseason moves that shaped its roster are covered in Harden’s Discount Deal Becomes Cleveland’s Real Offseason Move.
Boston’s Warning
Celtics president Brad Stevens described the constraints of operating near the line without a hard cap. “We’ve been limited in what tools we can use with where we are right around the second apron,” Stevens said.
The New York Knicks project to sit about $369,736 below the second apron for 2026-27. Denver’s Nuggets project roughly $34 million below it.
