The Knicks have agreed to a two-year contract with point guard Langston Galloway.
Ian Begley has the details at ESPN:
The Knicks have agreed to a contract with point guard Langston Galloway for the remainder of this season and the 2015-16 season, league sources told ESPNNewYork.com.
Galloway’s second 10-day contract with the Knicks expired earlier Tuesday, so he had been free to sign with any team.
His contract for the 2015-16 season contains a partial guarantee, according to league sources. Galloway has impressed the Knicks’ coaches since being signed to his first 10-day contract Jan. 7.
The stumbling block as to this deal getting done was that Phil Jackson didn’t want to commit any of his upcoming cap space unless he had to. A cap hold is $500,000. A fully guaranteed second-year contract is $800,000. So that’s just $300,000, but I guess Jackson believed that $300,000 might turn out to be very valuable. So my guess is that the partial guarantee for next season is $500,000.
I saw someone note that the Knicks are in danger now of losing Galloway after next season, but I don’t think that’s much of a worry. The Knicks will have a lot of cap space, so if Galloway somehow develops into a star (which seems unlikely), they’ll be able to keep him. I don’t see Galloway getting even a MLE offer next season. Galloway is a bright spot on this team, but he’s more of a back-of-the-team player on a better team. Still worth a roster spot, of course, but I wouldn’t worry too much about losing him in two years. I’d be irked about losing him this year over $300,000, but that’s about it. And there, Jackson called Galloway’s bluff (that Galloway would just try to sign somewhere else) and got the deal he wanted. So good for Phil there.
Along those lines, though, many of us were presuming that the Knicks would pick up Quincy Acy’s relatively cheap qualifying offer for next season ($1,181,348), but I would imagine that the odds are better than not that Acy does not get an offer now. Jackson seems to be valuing cap space over pretty much anyone not named Melo on this roster (it is also why Prigioni will likely be traded this season, as well) so I suspect Acy’s days with the Knicks will be over after this season.