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# The NBA’s New Definition of Player Value
- URL: https://triple-threats-takes.ghost.io/the-nbas-new-definition-of-player-value/
- Published: 2026-08-22T18:02:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-25T00:34:39.000Z
- Author: Ross Cadasse
- Tags: NBA, Deep Dive

> The modern NBA has two scarce resources: cap space and possessions. The most valuable players are the ones who can create an impact without consuming too much of either.

In my [*Jaylen Brown Trade*](https://triple-threats-takes.ghost.io/jaylen-brown-trade/)[ article](https://triple-threats-takes.ghost.io/jaylen-brown-trade/), I wrote that I did not believe Jaylen Brown was overrated in a basketball sense. Rather, I believed he had become overpaid in the NBA’s new roster-building environment.

That article was intentionally shorter than my usual articles and a bit emotional. It was about what it felt like to watch a player whose entire career I witnessed leave the Celtics after helping deliver a championship, where he departed with not only the Larry Bird award (Eastern Conference Finals MVP) and but also the Bill Russell award (NBA Finals MVP). But the distinction between “overrated” and “overpaid” probably deserved more than one sentence because, to me, it represents one of the biggest changes in how NBA players should now be evaluated.

Fans often use those two words interchangeably.

I prefer not to.

Overrated is a judgment about how good somebody is at basketball in contrast to how good public perceives he is. Overpaid should be a diagnosis of the relationship between a player’s salary, role, production and the roster surrounding him.

A player can be elite and still overpaid.

A player can deserve every dollar he receives and still be on a contract that hinders his teams ability to build a quality roster.

Those statements are not contradictions. They are the reality of a league in which one player’s salary can financially remove the tools needed to improve the other 14 roster spots.

I also want to be clear that I will never blame a player for accepting the largest contract available to him. Most people in the world would not voluntarily turn down millions of dollars so that their employer could have an easier time reorganizing the rest of its workforce. NBA players have relatively shorter careers and no guarantee that another major payday will arrive.

The onus or in some situations the burden is reserved to the front office that offered the contract and to the system that determines what happens after the contract is signed. 

The NBA did not arrive here overnight. The [1983 collective bargaining agreement created the foundation of the modern salary cap](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/article/labor-relations-in-basketball-the-lockout-of-1998-99.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), and the 1984-85 season began with a [team salary cap of just $3.6 million](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/13/NBA-Salary-Cap-Rule-Keeps-GMs-Hustling/4587466488000/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).

The 1998-99 lockout produced maximum salaries, a rookie scale and the beginning of the modern luxury-tax framework. The [2011 lockout preserved the league’s soft cap while making the tax more punitive](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/article/basketball-lockout-of-2011.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io). The [2023 collective bargaining agreement](https://nbpa.com/cba/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io) then introduced the first- and the dreaded second-apron system, adding roster-building restrictions on top of the financial cost of spending.

The original question pre 2023 was whether an owner could afford an expensive roster.

The new question is whether the roster can still function after the contracts are signed.

According to the [NBA’s official announcement for the 2026-27 season](https://www.nba.com/news/nba-salary-cap-2026-27-season?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), the salary cap is $164.961 million. The first apron is $209.015 million, while the second apron is $221.686 million.

A team can technically spend beyond those figures, which is why the second apron is not a literal hard cap. However, the consequences that occur when the cap is exceeded is where team-building matters. 

As explained in the NBA’s [CBA 101 guide](https://cms.nba.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/11/2024-25-CBA-101.pdf?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), teams can lose access to certain exceptions, face tighter salary-matching rules, lose the ability to combine multiple outgoing salaries in some trades, be restricted from sending cash and eventually face penalties involving a future first-round pick.

The team is still allowed to spend.

It simply loses some of the exits it would normally use after spending badly.

That is why raw salary is no longer enough when comparing contracts. A $30 million salary in a league with a $100 million cap is not the same as a $30 million salary under a $165 million cap.

Cap share gives the number context.

According to [Basketball-Reference’s 2026-27 contract ledger](https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/players.html?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), Jayson Tatum’s approximately $58.46 million salary represents about 35.44 per cent of the cap. Jalen Brunson’s roughly $37.74 million represents 22.88 per cent, Rudy Gobert’s $36.5 million represents 22.13 per cent and Naz Reid’s $23.28 million represents 14.11 per cent.

Those percentages do not tell us whether any of those players are good or bad. They tell us how much of the roster ecosystem each contract occupies before the team pays anybody else.

Maximum salaries make the conversation even more complicated. The greatest players are often underpaid relative to their actual basketball value because the collective bargaining agreement limits what they can earn. Under the NBA’s [maximum-salary structure](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cba/maximum?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), players generally fall into maximum bands of 25, 30 or 35 per cent of the salary cap, depending on their experience and eligibility.

If there were no maximum salary, the best player in the world could probably command considerably more than 35 per cent of the cap.

The most dangerous contract, therefore, is not automatically the largest one.

A genuine championship-level superstar can justify an enormous cap share because finding another player who can produce the same value may be impossible. The greater danger is the player who occupies a superstar salary slot without producing superstar impact, or whose skills become less useful when placed beside other expensive players.

That is where normal player rankings start to break down.

Fans spend much of the season debating whether somebody is the 12th-, 23rd- or 37th-best player in the NBA. Those discussions usually reward the things that are easiest to see: self-created scoring, isolation moves, difficult shot-making and the ability to carry a high usage rate.

Those skills matter. Every serious contender needs somebody who can create a good shot when the play breaks down.

But every team has only one basketball.

A player’s ability to dominate possessions can be duplicated when he joins another ball-dominant player. Off-ball intelligence, quick decisions, shooting gravity, cutting, screening, connective passing and versatile defence are easier to stack.

Those skills allow other good players to remain themselves.

That brings me to Derrick White.

I do not believe White is more naturally talented than the majority of players people would rank between 20th and 40th in the league. He does not have the one-on-one scoring package of many of them. He is not going to lead the NBA in usage, sell himself as the centre of an offence or spend every possession hunting a favourable matchup.

I do believe he can be more valuable to a championship roster than many of those players.

[White will carry a cap hit of approximately $30.35 million in 2026-27](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/player/%5F/id/23624/derrick-white?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), or about 18.4 per cent of the salary cap. That is not a small salary, but it is meaningfully different from paying 25 to 35 per cent of the cap to a player who needs the offence arranged around him to produce his best basketball.

Even during a 2025-26 season in which his shooting efficiency dipped, White averaged 16.5 points, 5.4 assists, 4.4 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 1.3 blocks while appearing in 77 games. More importantly, he finished with 98 blocks and 88 steals and was named the [lone guard on the NBA All-Defensive First Team](https://www.nba.com/celtics/news/sideabar-offseason-20260522-derrick-white-named-lone-guard-on-2025-26-nba-all-defensive-first-team?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).

His impact did not disappear when his jumper became inconsistent because his game was not entirely dependent on making difficult shots.

He can initiate the offence without needing to control it. He can play beside another point guard or function as the nominal point guard himself. He can defend the ball, rotate away from it, protect the rim unusually well for his position and attack a closeout without holding the ball long enough to stop the rest of the possession.

White’s value is not just that he performs several jobs.

It is that he performs them without forcing his teammates to stop performing theirs.

That is the difference between individual talent and scalable talent. Some players add production. Others make the production of everybody else easier to access.

A higher-paid player may be more capable of scoring 30 points than White. But if that player needs 20 shots, contributes little when somebody else initiates the offence and becomes a target defensively, he may be less valuable once his salary and lineup fit are included in the calculation.

That does not make White the better first option.

It may make him the better third option, especially when the third option costs less and still affects the game during the possessions in which he never touches the ball.

This is also why one of my next articles will begin a series about underrated NBA legends with a Hall of Fame point guard whose unreliable jumper became a running joke, even though he helped transform a [26-win New Jersey team into a 52-win conference champion](https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NJN/2002.html?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io) and then took it to consecutive NBA Finals.

His greatest skill was not simply passing the ball. It was controlling what happened before and after the pass, and basketball history has not always known how to value players like that.

The same problem exists when we evaluate contracts today. Points per game and salary are convenient, but neither tells the complete story.

A fair contract evaluation should consider the percentage of the cap the player occupies, the number of years remaining, his role, his offensive burden, his efficiency, his durability, whether his skills translate to playoff basketball and how difficult he would be to replace under the team’s financial restrictions.

The last part is increasingly important.

The second apron is not only changing how teams acquire stars.

It is damaging the repair move.

In the previous version of the NBA, a wealthy team could sometimes correct a mistake by combining two contracts, adding cash, attaching a draft pick or using an exception to add another rotation player. The owner might pay an enormous tax bill, but the front office still had ways to change the basketball team.

Above the second apron, those options narrow. A bad contract no longer harms only the position occupied by the player. It can also remove the mechanisms that would have helped the team fix the mistake.

One contract can therefore affect multiple roster spots.

That is why Boston became such an important case study.

After winning the 2024 championship and trying to keep the core together for another run, the Celtics traded Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis in 2025\. Brad Stevens did not hide the reason.

“The second apron is why those trades happened,” Stevens said while [explaining Boston’s offseason decisions](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/45696842/brad-stevens-says-celtics-trades-made-avoid-second-apron?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io). “The basketball penalties associated with those are real.”

Holiday and Porziņģis did not suddenly become bad basketball players. They had helped Boston win a championship. Their contracts became part of an architecture that the organization no longer believed it could sustain, especially with Tatum recovering from his Achilles injury.

The talent remained.

The roster’s ability to carry all of the talent did not.

That context also explains, although it does not completely excuse, the Celtics’ decision-making during the Giannis Antetokounmpo negotiations.

Boston reportedly offered Jaylen Brown and two unprotected first-round picks but would not include Hugo González or Baylor Scheierman, add more picks or offer additional swaps. Milwaukee ultimately accepted Miami’s package, which included more young players and draft capital.

According to the [reporting surrounding Boston’s offer](https://www.nbcsports.com/fantasy/basketball/player-news/2026-06-23/shams-cs-wouldnt-move-young-players-for-giannis?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), the Celtics’ determination to protect their young players became one of the major differences between the two packages.

I am still not happy that the Celtics did not pull the trigger.

When a two-time MVP and championship-level superstar is available, a late first-round prospect should not be the final reason a deal fails. Players such as González and Scheierman are retained in the hope that one day they become useful members of a great team.

Antetokounmpo is already the type of player those assets are supposed to help you acquire.

The fact that Boston was willing to move Brown and later traded him anyway only makes the missed opportunity more difficult for me to accept.

At the same time, I understand the logic even though I disagree with the final decision.

González and Scheierman are not valuable only because the Celtics like their potential. According to [Boston’s current roster and contract breakdown](https://www.nbcboston.com/nba/boston-celtics/updated-roster-depth-chart-contracts-jaylen-brown-trade/3975299/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), González will count for approximately $2.92 million against the 2026-27 cap, while Scheierman will count for roughly $2.74 million.

That is around 1.8 and 1.7 per cent of the salary cap, respectively.

González also has team options that could keep him under Boston’s control through the 2028-29 season before restricted free agency. Scheierman has another team-option season available for 2027-28 before he can reach restricted free agency.

If either player becomes a dependable playoff rotation wing, Boston will have found something every expensive contender desperately needs: useful minutes that do not require a useful-player salary.

Payton Pritchard is the model.

The Celtics selected him 26th overall in 2020 and signed him to a [four-year, $30 million rookie-scale extension](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/38604114/celtics-payton-pritchard-agree-4-year-30m-extension?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io) in October 2023, before he reached restricted free agency.

His 2026-27 salary is approximately $7.77 million, or only about 4.7 per cent of the cap.

Boston did not wait until Pritchard had established his full market value. It made an early bet on his shooting, toughness and development, giving the player security while accepting the risk that his role might never expand.

That bet now looks like one of the healthiest contracts in the league.

The current CBA gives teams an opportunity to pursue similar arrangements. A first-round pick on a rookie-scale contract can sign an extension during the offseason before the fourth year of his deal, assuming the team has exercised the relevant option.

The mechanism is different for second-round selections, but the [second-round pick exception created under the current CBA](https://nbpa.com/cba/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io) allows teams to sign those players to longer initial contracts rather than depending entirely on cap room or another exception.

As explained in [Larry Coon’s salary-cap FAQ](https://cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), certain three- and four-year veteran contracts can also become extension-eligible after their second anniversary.

The larger point is not that first- and second-round contracts work exactly the same way. It is that teams can create a longer evaluation window, preserve control and, when the timing and production align, negotiate with a young player before he reaches the unrestricted market.

That does not mean every young player should be protected from a major trade. It means inexpensive team control now has value beyond the prospect’s possible ceiling.

A young player can fail to become a star and still become an important asset if he develops into the seventh- or eighth-best player on a contender while occupying less than five per cent of the cap.

Conversely, a more talented veteran can become damaging if he is being paid 20 per cent of the cap to provide a role that a cheaper player could approximate.

That is the tension inside Boston’s Giannis decision.

Keeping González and Scheierman was financially healthy.

Passing on Giannis was still, in my opinion, the wrong basketball decision.

Both things can be true, which is why the apron era is so complicated. It forces front offices to balance the certainty of greatness against the future value of flexibility.

Sometimes flexibility protects a championship window.

Sometimes teams become so protective of optionality that they fail to use it when the championship-level opportunity actually arrives.

Boston is not the only organization experiencing this. Denver lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after its championship core became expensive. Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns trade was influenced by tax and apron pressure as well as basketball considerations. Boston broke up part of a championship rotation.

The transactions were different, but as ESPN illustrated in its examination of the league’s growing [“Apron Club”](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/45749043/nba-free-agency-which-franchises-belong-apron-club?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io), the same system was present in each decision.

The league calls that competitive balance.

Commissioner Adam Silver has defended the apron structure by saying it puts all 30 teams in a better position to compete. While discussing the new rules with ESPN, Silver said teams were beginning to realize that the apron provisions had [“real teeth”](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/40579124/adam-silver-defends-new-tax-apron-helps-all-teams-compete?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).

From that perspective, preventing the wealthiest contenders from collecting and retaining every good player creates opportunities for the rest of the league.

The players’ side sees another story.

Union leadership has criticized the second apron for producing “not basketball decisions” and forcing players to [“carry the burden” of teams’ financial choices](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/49329997/nbpa-players-carrying-burden-teams-due-second-apron?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).

A contender that already has two expensive stars may now prefer minimum contracts, rookie-scale players and one or two carefully selected mid-tier deals rather than paying several established veterans.

Both interpretations contain some truth.

The second apron can improve parity while also functioning as cost control.

It can reward good drafting while reducing the earning opportunities of dependable veterans.

It can prevent a superteam while also forcing a homegrown championship team to separate earlier than its basketball performance would require.

What it should not do is cause fans to direct all of their frustration at the player.

A contract is an agreement between a player and an organization. The player’s responsibility is to perform. The front office’s responsibility is to understand how the salary, role and surrounding roster will interact.

When the arrangement does not work, “overpaid” should describe the allocation, not the person.

That is the fuller explanation behind what I wrote about Jaylen Brown.

I was not arguing that he had forgotten how to play basketball. I was arguing that a salary approaching 35 per cent of the cap, combined with Tatum’s own 35-per-cent slot, would have left Boston with roughly 70 per cent of the cap tied to two players before addressing the rest of the starting lineup, bench and injury insurance.

Brown could deserve the contract as an individual and still make the overall construction too rigid.

Going forward, that is how I believe player value should be discussed.

***How much of the cap does the player consume?***

***How many possessions does he require?***

***Can he contribute when a teammate has the ball?***

***Can he defend enough positions to remain on the floor in May and June?***

***Can his production survive a cold shooting month?***

***If the contract becomes a problem, does the team still possess the tools to repair it?***

Talent will always matter most at the very top of the league. No amount of clever accounting replaces a genuine superstar.

But after the superstar, the most valuable players may not always be the next-most-talented names on a ranking. They may be players like Derrick White, whose skills make expensive teammates easier to use, or players like Pritchard, González and Scheierman, whose contracts create room for other decisions.

The NBA still pays for talent.

The second apron now charges teams for inflexibility.

That is the difference.

## Sources

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “[Labor Relations in Basketball: The Lockout of 1998-99](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/article/labor-relations-in-basketball-the-lockout-of-1998-99.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” April 1999.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “[The Basketball Lockout of 2011](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/article/basketball-lockout-of-2011.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” December 2012.

National Basketball Players Association. “[2023 NBA-NBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement](https://nbpa.com/cba/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

National Basketball Association. “[CBA 101: Highlights of the 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement](https://cms.nba.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/11/2024-25-CBA-101.pdf?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

National Basketball Association. “[NBA Sets Salary Cap for 2026-27 Season at $164.961 Million](https://www.nba.com/news/nba-salary-cap-2026-27-season?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” June 30, 2026.

Holmes, Baxter. “[Adam Silver Defends New Tax Apron: Helps All Teams Compete](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/40579124/adam-silver-defends-new-tax-apron-helps-all-teams-compete?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” ESPN, July 17, 2024.

Associated Press. “[Brad Stevens Says Celtics’ Trades Made to Avoid Second Apron](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/45696842/brad-stevens-says-celtics-trades-made-avoid-second-apron?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” ESPN, July 8, 2025.

Marks, Bobby. “[Which Franchises Belong to the Apron Club?](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/45749043/nba-free-agency-which-franchises-belong-apron-club?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” ESPN.

Boston Celtics. “[Derrick White Named Lone Guard on 2025-26 NBA All-Defensive First Team](https://www.nba.com/celtics/news/sideabar-offseason-20260522-derrick-white-named-lone-guard-on-2025-26-nba-all-defensive-first-team?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” May 22, 2026.

Wojnarowski, Adrian. “[Celtics, Payton Pritchard Agree to Four-Year, $30 Million Extension](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/38604114/celtics-payton-pritchard-agree-4-year-30m-extension?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” ESPN, October 8, 2023.

NBC Sports. “[Celtics Wouldn’t Move Young Players for Giannis](https://www.nbcsports.com/fantasy/basketball/player-news/2026-06-23/shams-cs-wouldnt-move-young-players-for-giannis?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).” June 23, 2026.

NBC Boston. “[Celtics Roster Reset: Depth Chart, Contracts and More After Jaylen Brown Trade](https://www.nbcboston.com/nba/boston-celtics/updated-roster-depth-chart-contracts-jaylen-brown-trade/3975299/?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

Basketball-Reference. “[2026-27 NBA Player Contracts](https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/players.html?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

Basketball-Reference. “[2001-02 New Jersey Nets Roster and Statistics](https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NJN/2002.html?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

Coon, Larry. “[NBA Salary Cap FAQ](https://cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”

ESPN. “[NBPA: Players ‘Carrying the Burden’ for Teams Due to Second Apron](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/%5F/id/49329997/nbpa-players-carrying-burden-teams-due-second-apron?ref=triple-threats-takes.ghost.io).”