​👋 Welcome to Wednesday! From team sales to salary cap dynamics to labor battles, there’s never been a more important time to make sense of the money in sports. Tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe!In today’s edition: The NBA’s second apron noise, dollars from the Derby, multi-million-dollar sports cards, the Lakers’ new glue guy, MLB’s labor battle lines, and more.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTime to show you the money…🏀 TAX PLANNING(Joshua Gateley/Getty Images)Remarkable as it may seem, a five-year deal worth $252 million can be considered a hometown discount in today’s NBA. For a player of Victor Wembanyama’s stature, however, any penny saved relative to his maximum earning power is worthy of that description.Money on the table: Wembanyama’s extension represents the 25% maximum of the salary cap currently available to the player under the CBA. However, were Wembanyama to be named MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, or All-NBA next season (likely, if he remains healthy), he would become eligible for a higher 30% “super max” contract.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn this type of scenario, an extension would typically incorporate escalators to ensure the player is paid commensurately.Wembanyama, however, abstained from demanding those escalators, instead prioritizing the Spurs’ ability to remain competitive as his star teammates become eligible for extensions of their own.Based on current salary cap projections, the concession means Wembanyama will leave approximately $50 million on the table over the life of the contract.Apron evasion: Wembanyama’s decision reflects the realities of the NBA’s current luxury tax system, where exceeding certain payroll levels is treated so punitively that star-laden teams are forced to disband within a few seasons. The system, designed to increase parity, has made long-term roster construction more complicated than ever. Most threatening are the penalties for surpassing the second luxury tax apron, set this season at $221.7 million, which decimates roster-building flexibility.Among the second-apron penalties: Teams have no access to the midlevel exception; their first-round picks are frozen from being traded starting seven years out; they cannot use existing trade exceptions; they cannot use cash in trades; and they cannot aggregate salaries in trades. Teams that have operated above the second apron for three of the last five years have their first round pick moved to the end of the round.Those penalties are layered on top of first-apron penalties, which eliminate sign-and-trades and reduce the ability to take back salary in trades.Being a repeat payer of luxury taxes incurs harsh financial penalties. If a team has been a taxpayer in three of the previous four seasons, every dollar of payroll spent over the luxury tax is penalized with $3 in taxes, versus $1 for non-repeaters, and those numbers escalate with the size of the excess spend.Unaffordable luxu