The championship hangover is still lingering.
The Knicks’ celebration of the franchise’s first NBA title in 53 years is deservedly ongoing. Nevertheless, the work never stops.
While the frontline combatants — the players, coaches and top executives led by team president Leon Rose — marched through the postseason, the staff of the scouting and analytics departments, and the organization’s salary cap experts were busy preparing for the NBA Draft, held at the Barclays Center Tuesday evening and last night (Wednesday) and free agency, which officially begins on June 30, at 6:00 p.m.
The Knicks’ priority is maintaining their core group of players, which includes unrestricted free-agents Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shamet. With complex salary cap rules dictating decisions, notably the first and second aprons (payroll thresholds above the luxury tax line), the Knicks’ objective is to have enough cap space to first and foremost re-sign Robinson, whom they drafted in 2018 with the No. 36 pick in the second round. Robinson is one of the most sought-after free agents on the market this offseason, with several teams prepared to make enticing offers to the NBA’s best offensive rebounder.
“We cannot go into the second apron,” Knicks owner James Dolan adamantly asserted on June 17 in a radio interview on WFAN, four days after his team defeated the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the Finals to close out the best-of-seven series 4-1, and one day ahead of the Knicks’ massive victory parade down the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan.
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to,” Dolan explained. “We’re willing to stretch, but there’s certain things in the NBA that you’d have to be suicidal to do. One of them is the second apron.”
The apron system was enacted as part of the league’s 2023 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to restrict excessive spending as a means of maintaining competitive balance. The Knicks had the second-highest payroll in the NBA this season at $207,586,234, according to Spotrac, an online database that tracks player contracts and team payrolls among other financials. They are currently in the first apron. The Cleveland Cavaliers, the team with the highest payroll at $212,404,326, are the only franchise in the second apron.
Some of the penalties for entering the second are that teams in it cannot use the taxpayer Mid-Level Exception to sign free agents and cannot combine multiple players’ salaries to execute a trade for a single, higher-paid player.
Some of the moves the Knicks have made to position themselves to re-sign Robinson are agreeing to terms on a multi-year, $10 million deal with promising rookie forward Mohamad Diawara and trading their No. 24 pick, on Tuesday night — which holds a guaranteed salary slot of $3,325,000 — guard Cameron Carr, to the Los Angeles Lakers for No. 25. They selected guard Sergio De Larrea from Spain with that pick but then dealt him to the Dallas Mavericks for the Mavs’ No. 30 selection, Arizona freshman forward Koa Peat.
The Knicks then swapped with the Phoenix Suns, sending Peat back to the state of Arizona for three second-round picks. In all, the Knicks concluded the first round obtaining five second-round picks and cash. All to avert adding guaranteed salaries with the objective of re-signing Robinson.
