Back to Reality
The Knicks' owner talked finances yesterday, so now we must do the same.
Good morning! It’s parade day! But of course, that can’t be the only thing we worry about today…
Back to Reality
We interrupt your regularly scheduled summer of unabashed Knicks championship reveling for a momentary step back into the unpleasant reality of team-building.
Let’s start with the important caveat that just because James Dolan referred to the second apron as a “suicidal” line for a team to cross, it doesn’t mean the Knicks won’t wind up crossing it. If you listen to the interview, he actually says that this is all Leon’s call. I could certainly see a scenario where Dolan had been told something about the second apron in the past and shared his opinion based on that prior conversation, not knowing how much New York’s situation has changed since that time.
I was also encouraged by Ian Begley’s follow up tweet, which might be Begs’ way of saying Dolan misspoke:
Reading between the lines though, it appears (to me, at least) that regardless of whether or not Dolan understands the specific dangers of going above the second apron, he is under the impression that this is not a threshold the Knicks can tenably cross. Whether he got this impression from Brock Aller, Bobby Marks or Stephen A. Smith is anyone’s guess, but taking the quotes at face value, it would seem silly to dismiss the sentiment entirely.
The reason why the comments are so unfortunate is that while crossing the second apron would certainly be suicidal for some teams, for a team like the Knicks, it arguably wouldn’t carry all that many negative consequences.
The reason, without getting into every nuance of NBA cap dynamics, is that the primary result of going above the second apron is that it makes making changes to your roster incredibly difficult (although notably, not impossible. See: the 2025-26 Cleveland Cavaliers). This is a problem if you’re, say, the Phoenix Suns, who spent like drunken sailors a few years ago even though they had a mediocre roster. The Knicks are in a drastically different situation, having just proven that they have a roster capable of winning the whole damn thing. For them, stasis is a positive, not a negative.
Now, the thing about the second apron is that like the blob, eventually, the penalties get so onerous that you can’t outrun them. Staying over the second apron for multiple seasons carries far more drastic penalties, which is why it effectively functions as a hard cap at some point in your team-builidng process.
That point just hasn’t come yet for the Knicks.
All that being said, let’s take the owner of the team at his word and assume that Leon Rose will not cross the second apron threshold next season. What would that mean for the roster?
To understand that, let’s get some basics out of the way:
The second apron in the 2026-27 season is $222 million.
I’m assuming that nobody from the starting five is going anywhere.
The starting five makes a combined $192 million.
Teams must carry a minimum of 14 players on their roster for almost all of the regular season.
The NBA veteran minimum salary for a player with at least two years of experience is $2.5 million.
In other words, if the Knicks paid only their starting five and attempted to fill the other nine roster spots with 2+ year players making the least possible amount of money, they would be only $8 million away from the second apron threshold.
Currently, the Knicks have four additional players under contract next year who make a combined $4 million more than what four veteran minimum players would make in those roster spots: Jose Alvarado ($4.5 million player option), Deuce McBride ($3.96 million), Pacome Dadiet ($2.93 million) and Tyler Kolek ($2.3 million).
That last bullet point is where we can start to get into the nitty gritty. Given the production he offers, I’m betting the Knicks would love for Jose Alvarado to opt into his player option and sign an extension off that number even though he’d be eating $2 million into precious apron space. I’d also assume that they’d be very happy paying Deuce just under $4 million, although if there were another team willing to give them a more cost-controlled asset for McBride, perhaps they consider a move. Personally, I don’t see that as being very likely, and I’d just as soon pencil McBride back in.
But just for the hell of it, let’s say Jose opts out and signs elsewhere and they swap Deuce for a player making a dirt cheap rookie contract. Those defections would functionally only net them ~$3.5 million in second apron space. Even if they dump Dadiet and sign a vet minimum to his roster spot as well, that only gets you up to $4 million. Congrats…you’re back at $8 million in extra maneuverability below the apron.
Which leads us to the elephant in the room: how much money is Mitchell Robinson going to command on the free agent market?
