The New York Knicks recently announced via a team spokesperson that they have paused all contract negotiations as the organization shifts its focus to the upcoming NBA season.
Key pieces to New York’s 2026 title run, such as Miles McBride, Josh Hart, and Karl-Anthony Towns, who is eligible for a four-year, $276 million maximum extension, will now enter the new season without having inked new deals to stay with the team beyond their current contracts. All are eligible to become free agents in the 2027 offseason.
To many, it comes as a surprise for the reigning champions not to do everything in their power to maintain the core that just brought them to Xanadu for the first time in 53 years, but as the Knicks, and more so owner James Dolan, have insisted time and time again, they refuse to operate in the NBA’s second apron. In his eyes, doing so would be more of a hindrance to New York’s ability to build a team than anything, and perhaps he’s right.
Whether he’s right or not, Dolan’s reasoning is why we saw a favorite in Mitchell Robinson walk over the summer. After spending eight years in New York and paying more than his fair share of dues to help transform the team from the leagueโs most notorious scumsucker into an eventual title winner, Robinson was set to hit free agency and understandably felt entitled to a bump in pay for his services.
After all, what better time to negotiate a raise with your boss?
However, the Knicks couldn’t see eye to eye with the seven-footer on a new deal that met his expectations while also keeping the team under the parameters set by the top brass. So, Robinson left for greener pastures and found someone who would pay him, ultimately landing with the Boston Celtics on a three-year, $47.4 million contract.
Damn the history between a player and the team that drafted him. Forget about celebrating the championship we just won. Pay me, or I’ll find somebody else who will and validate parking for my monster truck.
That’s the state of business in the NBA.
Again, the Knicks are tasked with keeping players whose names are already etched into the annals of their history under Madison Square Garden’s roof, this time threefold, and they’re not budging.
Admittedly, it’s not as urgent to get a deal done with McBride, Hart, and Towns as it was with Robinson, since each has this season remaining under contract before negotiations open up again at the end of the year, and possibly sooner. But perhaps the goal of finding a middle ground, particularly for Knicks’ star center Karl-Anthony Towns, should be treated more critically by both parties.
For every player who gambled on themselves and won, multiple others didn’t quite make the grade, for one reason or another. Those who were left with bruised bodies & egos, estranged relationships, and, above all else, lighter pockets.
Likewise, teams have been bitten when choosing to kick the can down the road on extending their players. Whether the player outperforms the contract they were initially negotiating, forcing the team to fork up even more money, or lose them for less than they would have paid, or the bridge was burned by simply not getting the deal done when they had the chance.
Contract negotiations are volatile, and the trajectory of NBA talent is hard to predict. Dozens of stories from NBA history will back that up, but I’ll stick with two Knicks-adjacent ones to convey my point.
Nerlens Noel
Knicks fans will remember Nerlens Noel as the stone-handed, yet serviceable starting center on the team’s first playoff roster in eight years in 2021. Yet, not everybody will remember the deal he turned down from Dallas that eventually led him to the Big Apple.
On July 1, 2017, the Dallas Mavericks extended a four-year, $70 million offer sheet to Noel’s camp for the center they had acquired midway through the prior season to remain with the team for the foreseeable future. A pretty payday for a player who hadn’t shown much in terms of growing his game beyond what it was – a rim protector and lob threat.
Noel declined the offer that same day, much to the surprise of the average NBA fan and the absolute chagrin of then-Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who then rescinded it on Dallas’ side.
After not garnering nearly as juicy an offer from other teams in restricted free agency, Noel signed a one-year, $4.1 million qualifying offer to return to the Mavericks, hoping to demonstrate his worth in a bigger role the next season.
Unfortunately for him, that role never materialized.
Despite winning the starting center job over some lackluster competitors at the start of the 2017-18 season, Noel suffered a left thumb injury in one of the team’s first games that sidelined him and later required surgery to repair a torn ligament. He returned to the Mavs lineup in late February, but was suspended for the final five games of the season for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy, finishing the year with just 30 games played and six starts.
Instead of earning close to the maximum money he hoped for, Noel spent the next two seasons on minimum contracts with the Oklahoma City Thunder before landing with the Knicks and stretching his career beyond where it was once trending. But he never came close to even sniffing the same money Dallas once offered him.
Barring injuries or anti-drug-related suspensions, Karl-Anthony Towns isn’t going to see a drop in production or responsibility that would make the Knicks hesitate to give him a fair contract, but the idea remains. The NBA season is long, and freak injuries unfortunately do happen all the time.
Despite staying relatively healthy for most of his career, KAT missed 53 games for the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2022-23 with a severe right calf strain. A similar situation this season, before he has a chance to sign an extension, would be devastating.
If both parties want to revisit negotiations during the season, Towns would have to decline his player option for the 2027-28 season by Oct. 19; otherwise, contract discussions before the end of the season would violate NBA rules.
Jalen Brunson
While Nerlens Noel’s Dallas contract dispute now serves as an advisory warning for some players to take the money and run while they can, Jalen Brunson’s Mavericks tenure proves that if a team thinks it has something special in a player, it better lock him up before somebody else does.
Brunson was looking to get an extension done before the start of the 2021-22 season to the tune of four years, $55 million; the maximum he was eligible for at the time and roughly an 11% hit to the Mavs’ cap once it kicked in during 2022-23.
The young guard heading into his fourth year had already shown clear improvement each season, and with the cap expanding league-wide in the coming seasons, it wouldn’t become an albatross even if Brunson took a step back in development.
At the time, though, freshly appointed Dallas General Manager/President of Basketball Operations Nico Harrison and โ not without blame โ Mark Cuban had their sights set on maintaining financial flexibility around their way ahead of schedule 22-year-old blossoming superstar in Luka Donฤiฤ and the prospects of pairing him with a superstar, should one become available.
Brunson could discuss his future with the team, but only after they evaluate how much he’s actually worth to them over the first 25-odd games of the season.
Even the Mavericks, obviously keen on Brunson’s skills and firsthand witnesses to his process of honing them over the first three seasons of his career, were unaware of the leap he was capable of taking. Perhaps that wisdom left with Donnie Nelson, who drafted him with the 31st pick in the 2018 Draft.
Brunson started 68 games that season alone, after starting only 66 games across his first three seasons combined, and his production reflected it.
By the time Dallas’ front office looked to revisit a possible extension around the 2022 trade deadline, Brunson’s representatives, Sam Rose and Aaron Mintz of CAA, scoffed at the deal that they once brought to the table. It was decided that Brunson would hit unrestricted free agency that summer.
Once the 2022 postseason came and went, the idea of Jalen Brunson on a four-year, $55 million deal became as laughable to Brunson’s camp as it was painful for the Mavericks to think about not having signed him sooner.
With wunderkind Luka Donฤiฤ still recovering from a calf strain sustained in the regular-season finale, Brunson was thrown into the fire in Round 1 vs. the Utah Jazz. Until Donฤiฤ’s hopeful return, sole offensive duties fell on his six-foot-nothing, second-round pick draftmate, who to that point had never been “the guy” at the NBA level before, let alone in the playoffs.
As we now know, in what would become a recurring theme in Brunson’s career, he rose to the occasion.
After a 24-point (seven rebounds, five assists) performance on less-than-stellar shooting in a Game 1 loss to Utah, Brunson ignited for 41 points (eight rebounds, five assists) on 60% from the field in a Game 2 punchback by Dallas, followed by 31 points (6 assists) on 55% in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.
Luka returned to the lineup for Game 4, but the cat was already out of the bag on Brunson; he was a bona fide player.
The Mavericks went on to win the series, 4-2, en route to a Western Conference Finals run, with Jalen Brunson continuing to shine as the Robin to Luka Donฤiฤ’s Batman.
Dallas’ postseason came to a close at the hands of the eventual 2022 champion Warriors, with the chapter of Brunson’s NBA career in a Mavericks uniform following suit soon thereafter.
On July 12, 2022, Brunson signed a 4-year, $104 million contract to be the starting point guard of the New York Knicks. A final meeting with the Mavericks was never even held. The rest is history.
A reality in which KAT plays his way into his desired contract this season and forces the Knicks’ hand to pay him is plausible, and maybe even likely, with another year under his belt as a Knick and NBA champion-level confidence emanating from his pores. Let’s just hope that bridge isn’t burned when they get there, as it was with his teammate’s former team.
Towns has publicly expressed his displeasure with New York’s reluctance to get a deal done and has said he’s willing to take a pay cut and help the team, just not as large a discount as the Knicks are looking for.
With negotiations on hold for now, KAT maintains that his focus remains on the upcoming season and the possibility of New York repeating as NBA champions.
