How the NBA collective bargaining agreement is helping programs like Wisconsin
The Utah Jazz selected Wisconsin basketball wing John Tonje No. 53 overall in the 2025 NBA draft on Thursday. He joins Rutgers forward Ace Bailey and Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. as the team's three draftees. If the NBA's current collective bargaining agreement, signed in 2023, hadn't existed, there's a decent chance Tonje would've gone undrafted. Here's why.
In 2023, the NBA Players Association and the league agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement, which featured a brand new and impactful rule: the second apron. This new rule was designed to help combat the rising trend of 'superteams,' with the most successful example being the Golden State Warriors, who won titles with Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson all on one team.
The old CBA had a much softer salary cap than the new agreement, meaning that teams could go over the cap while only having to pay a small luxury tax as a penalty. That is different than other leagues, including the NFL, which has a hard salary cap and severe penalties for exceeding it.
The new bargaining agreement and the 'second apron' rule aimed to limit the amount of money that franchises could spend on team-building. Some of those penalties include significant fines, teams not being able to trade first-round picks from seven years out and teams not being able to use cash in trades. Those are in addition to the numerous first-apron penalties as well.
This idea sounds positive. However, it is having major consequences on the league. For example, many teams are so scared of exceeding the second apron that they are being forced to trade key rotation pieces or stars on their roster. The Boston Celtics were forced to trade both Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, two key members of their 2024 championship team. This past Tuesday, Nuggets general manager Josh Kroenke floated the idea of trading multiple-time MVP Nikola Jokic if the team come too close to exceeding the second apron. Instead of stopping teams from overspending, it is having an inverse effect which is causing NBA franchises to penny pinch.
The reason why this affects college stars like John Tonje is that NBA franchises are in dire need of inexpensive, pro-ready rotational players that can fill the gaps that were previously filled by expensive role players. Teams can only afford a couple of high-profile players before they exceed the second apron, so many NBA franchises are filling the gaps with collegiate stars like John Tonje, players who can come in and fill a bench role for a few years before reaching free agency. We've seen this trend with many different teams in the NBA including the Los Angeles Lakers, who drafted 23-year old Dalton Knecht in the first round last year, or the Memphis Grizzlies, who drafted Zach Edey with the ninth overall pick.
Players like John Tonje who played well in March Madness and have NBA tools are being giving more chances by franchises that are tiptoeing close to the second apron and are in need of cheap, low-risk and high-reward players. While there were a record number of freshman drafted in the 2025 NBA Draft, there was also a high number of senior and super seniors drafted, including Nique Clifford, Walter Clayton Jr, Johni Broome, Ryan Kalkbrenner, Chaz Lanier, Koby Brea, and Brooks Barnhizer. Very few of these players would've been drafted just a couple of years ago and even fewer would've been drafted in the first round like Clifford and Clayton.
This shift will be a positive one for college basketball programs like the Wisconsin Badgers, who tend to produce a ton of upperclassmen NBA talent. Next year, it is possible that both juniors John Blackwell and Nolan Winter enter the NBA draft process and eventually get drafted. The second apron might not be the most beneficial to the leagues' franchises, but it will definitely benefit players like Tonje and programs like Wisconsin who thrive on collegiate development.
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