I’m struggling to imagine iHart going somewhere he’ll get 15 minutes a game as a backup. Maybe that’s me.

Maybe it’s a smart move on OKC’s part in case Chet snaps in two. But even matrimonial discord aside, I’m having trouble seeing it without it being a transformational bag.

OG has a certain theoretical market value and that the Knicks may pay more than that, either because they are spooked or that there’s a very real offer out there? That’s pretty likely to happen, but so what? That’s life in an NBA front office.

Remember that time when the Knicks went to court to change the rules so that they could have Jeremy Lin’s bird rights, and they actually won their case, and then the Knicks GM said that they’d “match anything up to a billion dollars”, and then a week later the only Knick to entertain the fanbase in a dozen years was a Houston Rocket?

I guess the message here is, life in the NBA front office is filled with surprises.

I’d say $38M is fair, which means that’s also too low.

I’d be uncomfortable starting around $40M, so that’s probably around even.

That trade would never have been done unless OG and Rose had already agreed in principle on him returning and on the price range to come back. All that’s left is the details. Again, if there’s a gap between them based on questions about OG’s injury record and OG’s market value, they can write something into the contract on games/minutes played as incentives. The price we pay is almost irrelevant (other than to Dolan). We are not at the stage where we need to worry about overpaying because it might hurt our pursuit of free agents. We are at the stage where we need the right players and movable contracts. OG is the right player and we aren’t moving him unless for some reason he wants out. We have contracts to move in a major trade. Who cares what we pay OG? More power to him.

Hartenstein is a more legitimate concern because someone could theoretically offer him so much more than our maximum ability to pay him he’d have to at least consider it. I just don’t see that happening though unless someone sees him as the final piece to the puzzle. He’s not that for OKC. He might not even start for OKC. Chet is their C of the future. He’s going to grow and fill out into the role.

If we’re guessing, I’m guessing that OG’s first year salary will be something like $37M, and the contract will be for 4 years with max allowable raises from that starting point and with a player option in year 4. There might be a slight discount over the max he can sign for with another team because he loves it at MSG, he loves his teammates, and he is CAA. But probably just a couple of million AAV at most.

I suppose that there is a possibility that he opts in to his player option and then extends for a higher amount, but that seems far less likelu to me.

So the only actually relevant question for posters is: where is the line between being okay paying him vs. preferring to let him walk? If you aren’t willing to draw a line in the sand, then there really isn’t a point to the conversation, at least until after things play out.

lots teams would jump on og for, say, 4/155

Thanks for being the only person to answer 🙂

It’s a little higher than I’m comfortable with but you’re probably right.

Imagine you weren’t afraid of losing him to Morey. What do you think would be fair for him?

What we think is “fair” isn’t the issue. The market sets the price… We only get to decide if we want to make an offer near the market, and even that doesn’t insure landing OG. He gets to determine where he wants to play among a group of offers he might field. By the CBA he has earned that right.

One thing in Leon’s favor is he seems to understand player value. Randle, Brunson, IHart, Jhart, DDV and MR were all signed to what turned out to be outstanding contracts from the team perspective. I guess being a player agent for decades does teach you something. He clearly wanted Donovan Mitchell, but had a price point he wasn’t willing to exceed.

The Knicks were 17-15 before OG arrived with Brunson and Randle playing almost every game. They were 26-6 (including playoffs) in the games he played. OG was 12-2 with Randle and 14-4 even without Randle (including playoffs). They were 14-16 in the games OG was on the roster but didn’t play.

This just shows he had enormous an , oversized effect on wins vs losses. How much is a guy worth when a team plays exactly .500 ball when he doesn’t play and is 20 games over .500 when he does. What is that guy worth. Its a nice academic exercise, but my initial thought is a fuckton.