It doesn’t matter to us because we as a collective tend to look past narratives to try to identify production, etc beyond media and fans common sense. But there’s no way we can safely say it doesn’t matter for Mills, Perry, Dolan et al. I would 100% offer him something like 4 years 80-90 million and if he feels insulted he can get the hell out of the Knicks for all I care, but I’m not making the decisions.

Is he worth the max based on all of that? No, but he’s going to get a max and if you don’t give him the 5th year you risk a Gordon Hayward situation down the line, where he signs a 4 year offer sheet from somebody else and you have to deal with him in free agency in 3 years time when you may regret not just ponying up what he wanted from the beginning.

I’d like to at least have a little hope that Mills and Perry aren’t dumb and desperate and can competently manage a negotiation with an overrated player who has no leverage.

To be clear, he’ll probably be on a minutes restriction in the beginning and will take awhile to shake off the rust. So I’m talking about him showing steady progress. If by the end of the season he’s playing well enough that people are assuming he’s picking up where he left off and not that he took a step back, that will be enough even if his overall stats are down because of the minutes restriction and rust in the first few weeks.

Butler is a different case. He still has some productive years left, but he’s probably going to be on the downside by the time the rest of the team is peaking. So you can’t give much up for him.

The only way I would consider him is if we stole him or if the only way to get Kyrie is to also sign Butler. That could involve making other moves we might not want to make. I really don’t think Butler fits all that well unless we can steal him (which is probably not going to happen).

I think management has it right.

They should focus on developing these young players, explore options for Lee and Thomas (and of course Noah), but don’t do anything foolish by giving away something trying to force a deal. We are positioned well. We drafted some talented players previously, picked up some talented young players, imo drafted well this year, still have our future draft picks, and we haven’t made any bad moves in the last 12 months other than overpay for Baker/Hardaway. We could have done better without the overpays, but Baker is pretty much a non event and Hardaway is not a disaster.

If refusing to go above that hurts his feelings so much that he wouldn’t be motivated to play here, then that’s just further evidence to me that we’re better off without him.

Of course, I’m not saying you’re wrong to assume he’ll get it. To me, it’s a test of how smart Mills and Perry really are.

It’s rough because the hype and the reputation around him and the injury creates such a weird situation… if he comes back healthy and plays well he’s immediately gonna ask for a max and the Knicks will very likely do that. If he plays badly or isn’t healthy it sucks for us because the guy we’ve been waiting for to become a star is definitely not one. So it’s a true lose – lose situation for the Knicks either way, unless he progresses a lot and truly becomes a star worthy of the max, which is still unlikely.

I don’t think this changes much for us as Porzingis’s deal will be adjusted to the new values, but it really softens the blow of stretching Noah a bit.

The absolute least that I hope for is we can manage to give Porzingis a fixed-dollar deal for twice what he’s worth when he has absolutely zero leverage and hasn’t proven to be worth half a max contract let alone a full one. I really can’t imagine a 5 year $135 million deal with a $27mm AAV being insulting to him and his camp. But I’m not optimistic.

Butler makes a lot of sense in a trade with the Lakers, and they do have some assets to give.

Butler to the Lakers, on paper, is so obvious for both teams. But I don’t think the Lakers have contracts that match up with Butler’s $20,000,000 because all their rookies are cheap, and all their vets were just signed and can’t be traded until december.