Suns are trying to beat second apron by ignoring it entirely with their massive salaries, luxury taxes

Josh Okogie has never been much more than a minimum-salary-caliber player in the NBA. He reached the league as the No. 20 overall pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2018 and has never started a full season or averaged double-figures in scoring. The most he’s ever earned in a single season is around $4 million in the last year of his rookie-scale contract. He’s a stellar defender that can’t stay on the court because he can’t shoot. That has even been true for the Phoenix Suns, a team with nearly infinite shooting and a desperate need for defense. Okogie has averaged only 17.5 minutes per game in two seasons in Phoenix. The Suns gave him only 29 minutes total in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Timberwolves in April. Nothing about this screams much more than “fringe NBA player.”

So… why did the Suns reportedly just give Okogie a two-year, $16 million contract that nearly doubles the highest salary he’s ever earned? Well, the simple answer: They could.

If you’ve read any story about roster-building this offseason, you know that this is the part where we bring up the second apron. The Suns haven’t just crossed the line. They can barely even see it anymore. The second apron line is $188,931,000. Phoenix, according to Yossi Gozlan’s cap sheets, owes its players $223,058,128 this season in salaries alone. Luxury taxes nearly double that figure. All told, Gozlan projects this roster to cost $428,421,459 in combined salaries and taxes this season, and as we covered even before the Okogie contract, there are scenarios in which Phoenix enters the 2025-26 season with a total payroll exceeding $500 million. At a time when the entire NBA has tightened its collective belt, Ishbia is seemingly doing everything in his power to spend $1 billion in payroll over the next two seasons. Why? Because the second apron is forcing his hand.

The Suns won only 49 games last season with a roster that figures to decline with age. They have to improve if they plan to meaningfully compete in the Western Conference, and frankly, there is no way to justify these expenditures, both financially and in terms of the draft picks they’ve already invested in trades, if they don’t genuinely contend. 

Here’s the problem: the second apron has effectively cut them off from most methods of improving their roster. They can’t aggregate salaries in trades. They can’t trade for more money than they send out. They…