The Decline of "Superteams": An Analysis of Salary Concentration, Player Production, and the Second Apron within the National Basketball Association (2017-2026)

Fans of the NBA informally label certain high-spending teams that go after top-tier, highly priced talent as superteams. The NBA’s 2023 collective bargaining agreement added a second payroll apron beginning in 2023–24, reportedly aimed at limiting the rise of often viewed negatively superteams. This study examines whether the apron coincides with changes in how teams spend and in how spending relates to winning. Using ESPN payroll data and Basketball Reference performance statistics for all 30 teams from 2016–17 through 2025–26 (n = 300), salary concentration is measured as the combined salary of each team’s three highest-paid players relative to the salary cap (“Big 3 %”). Median payrolls and Big 3 % show no measurable decline after the apron, although fewer teams exceed its thresholds. The correlation between Big 3 % and team performance measures (seeding, net rating, playoff success, and team success) weakened (R² of 0.17–0.22 before, 0.06–0.11 after), while the correlation with salary-weighted player availability strengthened, though not conclusively (p = 0.05–0.34). These descriptive results, based on only three post-apron seasons, suggest that availability and on-court production are more closely associated with team performance than contract size alone.