Waiting For Godot

The Knicks have bided their time and built their team the right way. Here's why they're likely to cash in their chips this summer.

Good morning! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. It’s a big week here at KFS, as we’re going to kick off our offseason coverage in earnest. That starts today, with a big picture overview of where the Knicks sit heading into the summer, and why this offseason will be so pivotal. Later in the week, we’ll get into individual trade targets and more specific offseason questions and pivot points. First though, some quick words on the loss of a legend…

News & Notes

🏀 Bill Walton, a first ballot Hall of Famer in basketball and in life, passed away yesterday at the age of 71 following a battle with cancer.

Walton isn’t a person who can be summed up in a few paragraphs any more than he can be summed up in a Brittanica length collection of texts. If the outpouring of stories that came out yesterday are any indication, virtually every moment of his life was made more fun, unpredictable, interesting and inquisitive by his presence. If you dreamt up a personality to go with a singular life well lived, it wouldn’t hold a candle to Walton.

Following a three-year career at UCLA which contained three National Player of the Year awards, two perfect seasons and an 88-game winning streak, Walton was drafted first overall in 1974 by the Blazers. After two injury-plagued years, Bill led Portland to its only NBA championship when they beat the favored Sixers for the 1977 NBA title. They were 50-10 the next season when Walton went down with an injury, and the Blazers went 8-14 in his absence, losing to the eventual West champion Sonics in the playoffs.

The rest of his basketball career was defined by more injuries - Walton had 38 orthopedic surgeries by his count - but he did have one final moment on the mountaintop, winning 6th Man of the Year for the 1986 world champion Celtics. After retiring in 1988, Walton had a long career as a broadcaster, injecting a level of soliloquy and storytelling into his games that you’d swear was a put on if it wasn’t so obviously genuine.

“There will never be another…” is an overused axiom for obvious reasons, but it must be said that there will never be another Bill Walton. One of one, by any metric.

Knicks Summer Primer: Part 1

OK, but WHO?

At this point, I don’t blame anyone for having this response when someone brings up the notion of the Knicks trading for a star player.

Every year, content creators and national media people alike ask the same question, and every year, we go through the same boring exercise.

Make a list. Check it twice. Nothing ever comes of it, whether you’ve been naughty or nice.

Except this year, something’s different. After New York won 50 games despite having the most injury-ravaged roster in the league this side of Memphis, we can add a new question to the docket:

OK, but WHY?

We’ve been trending this way ever since Leon Rose took over the team more than four years ago. Each summer, the “who” question gets asked, and each season, the Knicks make it less and less relevant. Now, for the first time in a long time, they might just have enough in house to go all the way.

Why Bother?

Indeed, the franchise has come a long way since they couldn’t get a free agency meeting with Fred freaking VanVleet, let alone when they were left at the alter by Kevin Durant.

When they are fully whole next season, they will walk into training camp as a team capable of winning it all without making a single move (other than re-signing their own free agents, which we’ll get to in a bit). So why, then, must we do this same dance over and over and over again?

The easy answer is because the Knicks themselves are doing the same dance, and with good reason.

At this moment, the smart money says that if New York does in fact “run it back,” they will enter next season outside the top five betting favorites for the 2025 NBA title. The Celtics and Sixers will both be ahead of them in the East, and maybe the Bucks as well. Out west, Denver, Minnesota, OKC and probably Dallas will have shorter odds. Maybe the Lakers or Suns too, depending on what they do this summer.

By itself, that shouldn’t mean anything. The Mavs were outside the top 10 betting favorites entering this season, while the Wolves were outside the top 15. Only three teams had worse title odds than the Pacers, and they made the conference Finals.

More to the point, the Knicks have specialized in laying waste to outside expectations since the day Leon Rose arrived. That will not stop anytime soon.

But it is also this front office’s job to put the team in the best position not to have to defy expectations in the first place. That means leaving no stone unturned, even if it means shaking up what is undoubtedly a strong core.

(There’s also the small matter of their owner, and if you believe the latest reporting on the matter, he still expects to add talent of the highest order.)

OK, but WHO?

And just as importantly, for what?

This is where the conversation has gotten more difficult with each passing season. Once upon a time, New York would have been happy with any star player who looked their way. That gave way to the most pivotal moment of the Rose regime, when they hemmed and hawed over Donovan Mitchell long enough for the Cavs to swoop in and nab him themselves.

Now, two years removed from the summer of Donovan, the list of NBA stars who the Knicks wouldn’t think twice about acquiring, regardless of the price tag, has gotten even shorter. Outside of the handful players who are 100 percent locked into their current franchises¹, the list is arguably just two names long: Giannis Antetokounmpo and Devin Booker.

Giannis, as of now, seems willing to stick out another season of the train crash that the Bucks have become. We’ll see if he has a change of heart. If he does, the Knicks would certainly be waiting, with an offer centered around Julius (going to Milwaukee or a third team, depending on how the Bucks wanted to approach post-Giannis life) and a bunch of draft assets. Such a move would arguably make them the title favorites next season, and with Antetokounmpo still shy of his 30th birthday, contenders for years into the future. Booker is the other easy call, but similar to the Bucks, there’s zero indication that a Suns blow-up is in the offing.

To that end, both of the situations in Phoenix and Milwaukee feel more like a year away than a month away. The easy solution for New York, it would then seem, is to bypass any lesser trade options that present themselves now, go into this season with what they have, and if one of those two big fish (or some other disgruntled superstar) presents themselves in the summer of 2025, you cross that bridge when you come to it.

Except it isn’t quite that simple. To understand why, we do what we do in life just as we do in the NBA: follow the money.

Dollars and Sense

If we assume new contracts for OG Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein at reasonable estimates (OG at $35 million and I-Hart at $16.2 million - his max with Early Bird rights - for next year), that means in the 2024-25 season, the Knicks will have about $155 million tied up in those two plus Julius, Jalen, Josh, Mitch, DiVo and Deuce.

That’s eight players. Incomplete roster charges would take them close to $160 million ($161 million if they exercise Jericho Sims’ club option) and we haven’t even discussed the possibility that they make one or both first round picks. If they keep one pick, their cap total nudges above $162 million; keep both, and it’s closer to $163.5.

Oh, and if they want to sign an actual NBA veteran or two to fill out the back end of the roster? Say, Alec Burks on the vet minimum? Each incomplete roster charge would bump up from about $1.2 million to $3.3 million.

All of the sudden, if they make both picks, keep Sims, and sign two 10+ year vets to fill out roster spots 9-13, the cap total goes up above $168 million.

That’s still about $3 million under the $172 million luxury tax and and $10 million under the $179 million first apron, but I’ve saved the biggest matzo ball for last. The Knicks have until June 28 to decide whether they want to fully guarantee Bojan Bogdanovic’s $19 million for next season or non-guarantee it and be on the hook for $2 million in dead cap.

Given the financial portrait I just painted, it’s easy to suggest they should just dispense with Bogey and stay under both the tax and and the first apron, but that ignores a vital caveat: the Bogdanovic contract is New York’s only fungible salary they can use in a trade that wouldn’t disrupt the core of their roster. Getting rid of him means any trade would require sending out a valuable rotation piece.

That goes for a star trade or, perhaps more imminently and/or likely, moving Bogey (along with some lesser draft assets) for a roster upgrade - perhaps a perimeter playmaker to support bench units; i.e., what they tried to get at the deadline but couldn’t.

If you don’t think the front office holds this salary slot in immense esteem, recall all of the reporting before last season’s trade deadline about how important it was for them to swap Fournier for salary that was not expiring. Clearly, they anticipated picking up this option.

But they’re also well aware of the financial reality staring them in the face. As Ian Begley has reported, part of the calculation that went into moving Quickley was because keeping him at his desired salary would have inhibited their ability to re-sign Hartenstein, who they certainly want to bring back. It was a subtle reminder that the Knicks are going to be very careful with their balance sheet moving forward.

Now, if you’ve been keeping track of my math, you’ve already deduced that keeping Bogey (or moving Bogey for a player who makes roughly the same amount of money) would not only vault the Knicks past the $178.6 million first apron, but bring them dangerously close to the $189.5 million second apron.

As I’ve said many times, life comes at you fast in the NBA.

Ticking Clock

So…what’s the big deal, exactly?

This is James Dolan’s money, after all. The Sphere has made him bigger than US Steel.

And on top of that, what do New York’s finances have to do with them potentially settling for a star trade that isn’t the ideal star trade?

To answer that, we have to get into a little CBA fun. You better put on your apron first though, because it’s going to get a bit messy.

Under the NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement, both the first and second salary cap aprons come with very real roster-building ramification. The biggest one is that any team over the first apron is limited to matching salaries in trades to 100 percent of their outgoing money.

Let’s explain this using an example. Imagine Giannis asks out a year from now. He makes $48.8 million next season and $54.3 million the year after that. If the Knicks are over the first apron, they’d need to send out at least $48.8 million in outgoing salary if they traded for the Greek Freak before July 1, 2025, and at least $54.3 million if they acquired him after July 1, 2025. If they’re below the first apron, they’d be able to take back 25 percent more money than they send out, so the outgoing salary could be as low as $39 million in the ‘24-25 fiscal year and $43.3 million starting in July of 2025.

That’s a sizable difference, and while it doesn’t completely hamstring them from making a huge trade, it’s an additional hurdle to deal with that they’d surely like to avoid if they had their druthers.

If they go over the second apron - not inconceivable given all the balls in the air - they’d be prohibited from combining multiple players’ salaries in any trade. So, to use the Giannis example again, they’d be completely unable to trade for him because they don’t have any single player on the roster who makes as much money as Milwaukee’s star.

At this point, you’re probably wondering how any of this impacts trades they should or shouldn’t make this summer. In other words, if they’re destined to go over at least the first apron this summer anyway, then why would there be a sense of urgency to consider imperfect star trades they otherwise wouldn’t?

The answer has to do with order of operations.

Yes, everyone’s favorite middle school math acronym can be the difference between building a superteam and being left out in the cold.

Every offseason, we hear about signings and trades almost immediately after the opening of free agency (and sometimes even earlier, on the night of the draft) but don’t get officially executed with the league office until weeks and sometimes months later.

That’s because holding off on completing these moves often gives teams immense flexibility. This summer’s Knicks may be the perfect example.

I wrote earlier that OG Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein, if they’re brought back, will likely earn a minimum of $51.2 million next year, and maybe more depending on how many extra dollars Anunoby can squeeze out of his agent’s dad.

Until OG and I-Hart actually sign those contracts though, they’ll be on New York’s books as “cap holds” - placeholder amounts that allow teams to retain a player’s rights before they sign their next pact - totaling $27.9 million (for Anunoby) and $10.6 million (for Hartenstein), and adding up to $38.5 million, or about $12.7 million less than what I’d expect them to be on the books for for next season.

That same concept can be applied to the difference between minimum roster charges and actually veteran minimum salaries.

Add up those differences, and if the Knicks hold off on a) re-signing their own free agents, b) signing various vet minimums, and if they have an opportunity to do so, c) swapping out Bogdanovic for a higher salaried player, not only will they be well below both aprons for a period of time, but they’d likely be a tad under the luxury tax as well (not that this matters, because teams get no brownie points for staying under the tax for a portion of the year, and New York will almost certainly be over it come July 1, 2025, which is all that matters).

Very long story short, the few weeks after the draft and the start of free agency may be the last moment for a very long time - we’re talking years - that the Knicks will be able to operate completely unencumbered by the various penalties against high spending teams under the new CBA.

For that reason, the front office may be left with an unpleasant choice:

• Bring back the team as-is (or mostly as-is, if they can swap out Bogey for someone making around the same salary) but with the caveat that making any big trade moving forward will be far more difficult than it is right now, and perhaps exponentially more difficult depending on whether they’re over the second apron by the end of this summer, or…

• Consider making a trade that checks some boxes, and maybe even most boxes, but not all boxes, because it moves the needle more than making no move at all.

In other words, they have to ask: is perfect the enemy of the good? Or do the Knicks have such a good thing going on that they should keep the powder dry, even if it means they may never be able to fire at all?

The Randle Piece

There is one other pivot point that will greatly impact what the front office decides to do, and it concerns Julius Randle in more ways than one.

Randle has another guaranteed year on his contract before he can opt out and become an unrestricted free agent in 2025. That makes him extension eligible this summer, when he’ll be able to sign for four more years after this one at $181.5 million.

That sounds like a ton of money (and to us regular folk, it certainly is) but keep in mind that we’re a year away from a world where Luka Doncic is going to sign a five-year supermax extension worth nearly $350 million.

To that point, even if Randle extends at his max amount, he may not even be among the NBA’s 25 highest paid players by the time that extension kicks in. Considering he’s still under 30 and has made three of the last four All-Star teams, even if that contract doesn’t age like a fine wine, it doesn’t figure to be an immovable albatross either.

That also doesn’t mean the Knicks are gung ho to sign him to the full amount. For one, even if the contract wouldn’t be quite as onerous as it looks at first glance, it’s still a ton of money. All that financial stuff I mentioned earlier? Giving Randle his max would make it much harder for New York to avoid the second apron for the ‘25-26 season.

More imminently, they wouldn’t be able to trade him for at least six months. The good news here is that Randle becomes extension eligible August 3, and there’s no restriction on New York’s ability to conduct extension negotiations before that because Randle is not a free agent. As Fred Katz wrote last week, there’s a sweet spot whereby they can extend him and still trade him before the 2025 deadline².

Again though, the likelihood of them extending Randle and then moving him before that extension even kicks in seems very low (and if I were Randle and I suspected the Knicks might have thoughts of trading me in the upcoming season, I might purposefully wait until late August to sign the extension. Then again, might this be a part of the negotiations? As in “we’ll give you a few more dollars, but you have to sign it today”?)

The better question for me is whether they feel comfortable giving Randle the full boat, and if they don’t, how will they factor that into potential trade discussions assuming Julius is unwilling to come off of a max demand?

There may be some star player out there who the Knicks would prefer over Randle at one salary, but not at another. If a sizable gap exists between the two sides, it could make the front office more willing to entertain trades that include their 3-time All-Star forward.

And the Verdict is…

In one sense, the Knicks are in as enviable position as any team in the NBA.

They have all of their own draft picks and a few more from other teams, a top-five MVP finisher, another multi-time All-Star, and a rotation of under-30 players who were good enough to win 50 games despite several key pieces missing major time. There’s not another team in the league who can say all of that. You can argue that outside of OKC, San Antonio and Boston, there’s no franchise better positioned for success over the next 3-5 seasons than New York.

In another sense, the Knicks are a team at a crossroads.

If they run it back, they’re likely just outside the inner circle of contenders. Worse yet, keeping this core together now could make it much harder to upgrade later. The easiest paths to maintaining flexibility would either make them worse now (non-guaranteeing Bogey, and thus not using his salary slot for a roster upgrade) or introduce a level of organizational discomfort and a ticking clock of a different sort (not extending Julius). Waiting for Giannis could start to feel like waiting for Godot, if it doesn’t already.

Alternatively, they could take advantage of their one final chance to take a big, unencumbered swing for the fences. They could cash in on all that flexibility now - before their liquidity starts to solidify - and a make a move that ups their championship odds, even if it isn’t the perfect trade.

What might that trade be? Who should they be targeting? Could Randle still be involved? And what other variables matter (including Jalen Brunson’s looming extension decision)?

I’ll tackle all that over the next three days, so stay tuned. The KFS Summer Preview is just getting started.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Nikola Jokic, Anthony Edwards, Wemby, SGA, Luka and Tatum.

2. We don’t yet know when the deadline is, but it will likely be February 6. That gives them roughly a 72-hour window.