There will come a point during your trip where you will have to pay a toll.
You can avoid it with back roads and creative mapmaking, but ultimately, you can’t cross any body of water without firing up your E-ZPass.
Or turn around.
That’s the situation the Knicks are in right now.
The Knicks have never paid the luxury tax in four years under Leon Rose’s guidance. You can imagine the jealousy in the NBA, where teams in the biggest markets — the ones with the highest franchise valuations and the highest annual revenues — collect even more money from luxury tax levies.
In fact, the Knicks had the lowest payroll in the league in Rose’s first season (2020-21), according to Spotrac. In Year 2, they were 28th out of 30 teams. In Year 3, they were 20th. Last season, they only managed to rank 18th.
That’s unthinkable, considering that until very recently, the franchise had the worst record in the league and paid the highest luxury tax bill for more than 15 years. It was a double whammy of mismanagement.
Rose was blessed with an empty cap sheet and a bunch of draft picks when he took over, and the Knicks were cautious. They prioritized flexibility. And the Knicks were able to win because Tom Thibodeau couldn’t tell them losing was part of the rebuild. The journey over the past four years has been mostly fun, easy with little risk. The fuel economy is incredible.
But now they’re on the bridge. It’s time to pay.
If the Knicks do indeed “run it back” (which we’ll define later), it would put them in the luxury tax bracket and put them in danger of being in the second apron, which would severely limit how teams can build their rosters (teams in the second apron would lose the mid-level exception and would not be able to trade more than one player in any deal). The biggest financial decision would be regarding OG Anunoby, who is widely expected to decline his $19 million player option to become an unrestricted free agent.
That’s why the Anunoby trade in December was such a risky move: It wasn’t just swapping RJ Barrett for Immanuel Quickley — it was the promise to re-sign Anunoby at a potentially even higher price after last season.
More than three months with the Knicks has only heightened expectations and fears for the 26-year-old.
Anunoby’s ability to adapt and influence the team’s success was huge, as evidenced by New York’s 26-6 record since joining the team. But he also suffered frequent injuries, which was a problem for the 3-D forward from Toronto. Now, there are reports and rumors that Anunoby could leave the Knicks to test the free agent market and sign a big contract with the rival Sixers.
It’s hard to believe that’s more than just a negotiating ploy. The Knicks are at a disadvantage in negotiations and only have market price leverage. Whatever other teams offer, they have to beat it. They didn’t trade Barrett and Quickley in exchange for a six-month rental.
Over a decade ago, I covered another team, the New Jersey Nets, who found themselves in a similar situation. They gave up a lot of free money to acquire Gerald Wallace from the Blazers, but then had to re-sign him the following summer. Wallace used his influence to get a contract that was far more than he was worth, and it was the last contract of his NBA career. He took the money and retired on a lake in Alabama (yes, he built a 2.5-acre lake called “Lake Gerald Wallace”).
Wallace was three years older than Anunoby, a similar player with similar injury concerns, but he’s a cautionary tale. More recently, the Mavericks traded for Kyrie Irving, paid him a big contract to re-sign and made it to the NBA Finals. It paid off.
Either way, the Knicks are past the point of caring too much about the financial impact of Anunoby. Losing him for nothing would be a disaster. I don’t think that’s going to happen. So let’s say the Knicks were to do it over again — that is, re-sign Anunoby, re-sign Isaiah Hartenstein (he’s drawing interest and could move up in price), and pick up Bojan Bogdanovic’s option. They’d be willing to dabble in that stifling second apron. And that’s not even factoring in the possibility of re-signing Precious Achiuwa. That’s part of why we’re hearing trade rumors about Mitchell Robinson and shedding his remaining $27 million salary.
The Knicks suffered casualties.
