On July 6, in a shocking blockbuster trade, the Philadelphia 76ers traded for All-NBA and All Star forward Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics. Despite the excitement all across Philadelphia, the Boston Celtics showed the world the continued effects of the NBA’s Second Apron that started back in the 2024 offseason.
A few days after Brown was traded, the Celtics held a press conference to talk about Brown and the Celtics offseason. President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Brad Stevens explained how the current Collective Bargaining Agreement makes it very challenging to build out a roster.
“The path looked a little bit more challenging with 70 percent of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players,” Stevens said.
After the Celtics won the 2024 NBA championship, the past two seasons they have had two disappointing playoff runs. In 2025, the Celtics lost in the second round in six games against the New York Knicks as Jayson Tatum tore his achilles. This past season after Tatum was out majority of the regular season, the world thought they would go backwards and wouldn’t be great. However, the Celtics finished 2nd in the East with an 56-26 record before blowing a 3-1 lead to the Sixers and losing in Game seven of the first round of the playoffs.
“When I looked at the way we’ve finished the last couple of years and also looked at the unbelievable way we’ve played in the regular season in the last couple of years, the path looked a little bit more challenging to me,” Stevens said.
Stevens was concerned of his two star players Tatum and Brown and both of them making big time money. Starting with $58 million for Tatum and $57 million for Brown going into next year with their contracts increasing each season. If Stevens gave the indication of himself and the front office being concerned about the CBA with the Second Apron, imagine what the other 29 teams are thinking.
With the Sixers locked in with Brown for the next three seasons and the team’s current roster, the Sixers have to capitalize now to win a championship before the apron causes the team questions. The Big 3 of Brown, Embiid, and Maxey are combined to make $155.6 million in 2026-2027, $167.1 million in 2027-2028, and $178.4 million in 2028-2029. With Joel Embiid’s health always being a question, the Sixers will be paying him some big time money.
Embiid’s contract goes from $57.9 million to $62.6 million to $67.2 million in the last year of his deal. Despite Embiid arguably being one of the dominant and talented centers in history, the Sixers can look to move him if the team disappoints or if Embiid misses time due to injuries. If the Celtics’ Brad Stevens can move on from the Tatum and Brown duo as they were the two top paid players, why wouldn’t Philly do the same?
For the next three years, Embiid and Brown will be the top two paid players on the team. Why would the Sixers want to pay Embiid $62.6 million in two years when he hasn’t been on the court a period of time or had a deep playoff run? Or when the young guard ‘Maxey has taken big time leaps each season with the team turning to him more and more? The Sixers have a great foundation going as well with the starting backcourt of Maxey and Edgecombe and the Sixers can turn to them fully if things don’t shake up. These are the type of questions that will loom the Sixers front office with the apron in the back of all teams minds. At the end of the day, the NBA is a business and no one should be shocked that a player can be moved at any time.
With the addition of Brown and the other Sixers offseason acquisitions, the team has a chance to go all the way and win an championship. However, the Sixers must act fast right away to make it all worth it or else the front office will have to shake up this very talented team.
