Briefing: July 3
Team Options. First Summer League Practice
Good Afternoon,
Knicks held their first practice in Vegas in prep of their Summer League schedule starting on Friday night vs New Orleans.
RJ Barrett on the Knicks after striking out in free agency: “I think it's a team, we've got a squad. I'm just a rookie coming in. I'm just trying to learn and do as much as I can to help the team.” [SNY]
Barrett on playing his first game vs Zion: “It’s funny that my first game ever in a uniform is against my guy. I’m just really excited to play.” [The Record]
RJ Barrett officially signed his rookie contract with the Knicks.
Rookie Scale: The NBA sets a rookie scale for how much money first round picks make on their first contracts. As the third overall pick, there is a set scale for Barrett. He was eligible to sign for 80-120% of that scale amount. In most cases, high lottery picks sign for the full 120 percent. If that is true with Barrett, we can assume his contract is structured to pay $ 7.8 million in 2019-20, $8.2 million in 2020-21, with two team options in 2021-22 and 2022-23 for $8.6M and $10.9M, respectively. (Scale calculations courtesy of Jeff Siegel)
2018-19 Knicks moving on
A flurry of signings yesterday saw former Knicks find new homes:
Noah Vonleh signed with the Timberwolves.
Luke Kornet signed with the Bulls.
Emmanuel Mudiay signed with the Jazz.
Jay Williams clarifies comment about Durant and Porzingis
Jay Williams, who is friends with Durant and business partners on The Board Room, made a comment in conversation with Zach Lowe on a recent podcast that caused some headlines.
Williams said to Lowe, “Who gave Porzingis the nickname Unicorn? Do you not think that was one of the attractive pieces that he saw and was like, 'Wow, together, (what) this could be like together, potentially?’”
Williams later clarified this comment to Marc Berman, ““It was something Stephen A. said earlier, and I referenced it. I don’t think it had anything to do with Porzingis. It was not the difference-maker with the Knicks and Kevin.”
ESPN Clarifications
This is the second time this week that ESPN reporters/personalities have made a point to clarify something they said about the Knicks.
Adrian Wojnarowski shot down the notion that his report with Ramona Shelburne that the Dolan wasn’t necessarily prepared to offer Durant the full max was simply leaked to save face.
NBA news cycle impacts MSG Networks stock
No surprise that news that impacts the Knicks would impact the television channel that broadcasts their games, but interesting to see the sharp swings based on how the offseason has unfolded. *Keep in mind the scale of this chart makes the turbulence seem a bit sharper than it actually is (about 5-10% swings).
Julius Randle’s scoring efficiency
Michael Nania took a look at the numbers to help us analyze the Julius Randle signing.
Team Options and Bad Contracts
by Jonathan Macri
Before we get to today's topic - the new roster additions, and whether the Knicks would have been better of bypassing one (or more) of them to take on another team's unwanted salary in exchange for a pick - a quick word on team options...
In case you haven't noticed, allowing a team to hold the option on the final year of a contract is somewhat rare for established players. This isn't surprising; players like to have as much autonomy as possible, which is why player options are far more prevalent. Last summer, only one team option of any note was granted: Jabari Parker's two-year, $40 million contract with the Bulls. In addition to that, among deals over $3 million annually, there were four additional contracts signed where the final year was fully non-guaranteed:
Ersan Ilyasova and Nemanja Bjelica each signed 2 + 1 deals worth $21 million total, while similar 1 + 1 pacts were handed to Tony Parker ($5 million annually) and Derrick Favors ($16 million annually). You can add Avery Bradley to that mix as well, whose two-year, $25 million contract only guaranteed him $2 million for the second season.
There are significant differences between non-guaranteed deals and team options, especially after the most recent CBA, but for the purposes of this discussion, the only one that really matters is that options must be decided on before June 30, whereas guarantee dates can be pushed back past the start of free agency. This is relevant because the Knicks (or whatever team might eventually acquire these players via trade) won't have the luxury of waiting until the start of free agency to decide on keeping them.
In reality, though, this makes little difference. There are two types of teams that could potentially find non-guaranteed or team option contracts valuable: those looking to open up space for a free agent or those looking to duck the tax. For teams looking to avoid the tax, the key date is the last day of the regular season, which is when a team's salary for tax purposes is calculated. Regardless of whether a player's salary for the following season is a team option (like Parker, who was traded to Washington) or not fully guaranteed (like, say, George Hill, who was dealt to Milwaukee), it makes no differences for tax purposes whether the player is traded before the deadline or in the offseason.
The Parker trade was a good example of the value of a team option in this context. The Wizards were a tax team in 2017-18, and barely ducked the tax this season. With a Bradley Beal extension possibly looming, they wanted to have flexibility to make some moves this summer (see: Thomas Bryant, 3/25) without having to worry about going back into the tax during the year ahead (thus opening themselves up to the dreadedrepeater tax). Thus, they acquired Parker and then declined his option after the season ended. The Bulls, in exchange, got Otto Porter, a helpful if overpriced piece for their rebuild.
The other type of team that might find such a contract valuable is one looking to make a splash in free agency. While free agency doesn't technically begin until June 30, as we saw this past weekend, free agency begins far sooner in reality. Teams have an idea of who is and isn't signing with them well before they're officially allowed to know (and conveniently, the NBA doesn't seem to care).
All of this relates directly to the biggest critique the Knicks have received in the offseason thus far: "not only did New York sign role players, but overpriced ones as well."
Critics seem to be missing a couple of things here. Most obviously, of course a team is going to need to overpay to obtain this kind of flexibility. Derrick Favors' deal last summer raised a lot of eyebrows...until we discovered that the second year wasn't guaranteed. With the exception of Randle, every one of the Knicks signings, it could be argued, is making around twice as much as the market dictates they should (although Bullock probably less so). That's an issue only if there's an associated opportunity cost with it.
This summer, once the stars aligned in Brooklyn, there was no such opportunity cost, and in fact, moving forward, the more expensive salaries may actually help the Knicks a great deal.
Remember: in the NBA, you have to (roughly) match salary when you make a trade. If the Knicks want to use one of their team option contracts in such a move, the real value to another team will be that team's ability to offload a hefty amount of unwanted money. The only way to do this is if the salary the Knicks are sending out is just as large. Thus, the fact that a team can wipe away, say, $10 million worth of Taj Gibson before the 2020-21 season is more valuable than being able to wipe away $2 or $4 or $6 million worth of Taj.
(Sorry to pick on you Taj. Welcome to New York!)
Of course, the Knicks could have left the space open going into the season, thus being able to take another team's money into said open space, but this raises the possibility that you don't hit the salary floor.
Option two, as many have pointed out, is that the Knicks simply could have gotten in on one of the two salary dump trades that have been made so far this offseason. After all, why wait for a possible trade to open up down the line when you could just make such a trade right now?
There's a few reasons, actually. For one, contending teams may actually find it useful to add a shooter like Reggie Bullock or Wayne Ellington for their stretch run. We saw Milwaukee give up a first round pick for George Hill last season not only for the contract flexibility it afforded them, but because they knew he would be a helpful depth piece for them.
The primary reason though - the one ignored by all the Twitter GM's out there who like to look at NBA rebuilds simply through the prism of how many draft picks you can accumulate in the shortest amount of time - is that these signings allowed New York to accumulate flexible assets while at the same time obtaining players they wanted.
This brings us to the true comedy of the last few days. The Knicks got killed for their tanking ways and being less like the Nets, a competitive team that surrounded their young players with complementary pieces designed to raise the tide - guys like Joe Harris, DeMarre Carroll, Allen Crabbe and Jared Dudley. While it's true that Sean Marks made a few acquisitions (Carroll being one of them) which netted the team a draft pick, this was partially because he arrived to a bare cupboard. The fact that two of his first moves were trying to ink Crabbe and Tyler Johnson to absurd offer sheets (and later trading for Crabbe) showed the value he placed on getting the right vets in the building.
Fast forward to now. The swiftness with which the Knicks went after these particular players speaks to the fact that had reasons for each. As I noted yesterday, Perry surely knew the Harkless salary dump was on the table. Whether it was a mistake not to go for it remains to be seen, but look at each signing and ask yourself, through the prism of prioritizing the development of the youth and potentially gaining a long-term piece, which was the obvious one to bypass?
Julius Randle: easily the highest ceiling player on the market available for less than a max deal, as our own Michael Nania details here. He has a legitimate All-Star ceiling, and while there are clear issues (mostly with his defense), that's why he was available for the deal he was. His presence will help take pressure off the kids as a reliable release valve late in the clock, which should help the team stay in games, which is generally a good thing for development.
Elfrid Payton: a point guard who struggles with shooting and is not the strong defender his reputation makes it seem, but he knows how to do one thing quite well: guide an offense. If Dennis Smith Jr. should falter (or show himself to be more of a two/combo guard), it was imperative to have someone else on the roster that could run the show with a steady hand for the sake of the kids.
Bullock & Ellington: The Knicks were the worst shooting team in the league last season, and Bullock and Ellington are two of 24 players who attempted at least 600 threes over the last two years while shooting above 38% from deep. Of the other guys on the list available this summer, four signed for the max, Bojan Bogdanovic got 4/73, J.J. Redick got 2/26.5, Danny Green is waiting on Kawhi, and Troy Daniels signed up to be a LeBronaire in LA for one year, $2.1 million. The phrase "you can never have enough shooting" exists for a reason, and the increased spacing should help players like RJ Barrett and Dennis Smith Jr. operate more freely.
Taj Gibson: The designated vet mentor. Is $10 million a lot to pay for that role. Hellllll yes. Does the franchise have a more important seed they need to nurture than Mitchell Robinson? Arguably not. Yes, Barrett is the better prospect, but he's been trained for the pros since he was 14. Robinson, more than anyone, needs someone who plays his position to take him under his wing and continue to teach him how to be pro (and maybe how to, you know...not slip every screen). You won't find a better dude for that than this New York-native.
Bobby Portis: the popular pick for "why couldn't they have used this money in a salary dump," mostly because a) they should probably start working Knox in at the four a bit, and even without that, a big man rotation of Randle, Mitch and Taj is good enough to soak up 96 minutes a game, b) they could have just kept Kornet if they wanted a floor spacing big, and c) Portis is, umm...not good (or at least hasn't been thus far in his career). All this is true, but if Perry has made one thing clear, it's that he bets on talent. Somewhere in Portis is a multidimensional big that's perfectly suited for the modern game. At the very least, the low basketball IQ and corresponding defensive shortcomings he displays at times are balanced out by the fact that the dude plays hard. For a Knicks team that quite frankly got pushed around last year (and may desperately need shooting from the 4/5 spot), this is important.
More than anything, what's true of all of these guys is they made an affirmative decision to be a part of this team. There's a certain symbolism to that which can't be understated, especially when there are still questions about how desirable of a location the Knicks are.
Fans may wish to ignore the recent comments by Andre Iguodala and Matt Barnes, as well as the report from Marc Stein indicating DeAndre Jordan felt Brooklyn would be a more "hospitable" environment for KD. But these sentiments still exist in the league, and perhaps getting a locker room full of guys with good reputations (Nikola Mirotic's face aside) who signed up for this team will help change that.
Would a singular salary dump have altered that? Probably not, but given the apparent thought process behind the players they signed, the flexibility those signings still affords them and the aforementioned notion of further improving this as a working environment conducive to winning, it's not something I'm losing sleep over.
That does it for today, thanks for reading!