Trade & FA 2024-25:

[F Gump]

I’m confused by how this is legal? Weren’t there apron restrictions? Is it because they signed and traded the scrub? Weren’t they a second apron team after Bridges? Doesn’t that mean you can aggregate salary/players? Is F Gump in the house?

The tweet said: "The New York Knicks managed to increase their payroll in both the Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges trades despite being an apron team. They did this by inflating their outgoing salary required with every remaining free agent from last year they had some form of Bird rights to. Excellent work by their front office for their creativity and execution of all this within the second apron. "

That tweet is confusing in that it uses muddled terminology. What is being called "an apron team" doesn't mean all that much. As he uses it, he means they did something that would make them stop at either Apron 1 or Apron 2, if they happen to get in that vicinity of salary. But if we use that term as he uses it, most teams would properly be called an "apron team" -- including ones miles below either apron.

NY's various moves in the summer gave them a hard cap at the 2nd apron line but not before. IIRC they were generally at about $177M (BELOW the 1st apron, and about 12M below the 2nd apron). So they had a lot of flexibility. 

After adding more salary by signing SNT-eligible players to use in the trades as outgoing matching salary, they are now about 1M below the 2nd Apron, I think.

The prohibition on aggregating players applies to teams above Apron 2, which they are not.