Knicks Morning News (2026.06.26)

Repost:

I don’t buy that they were blindsided. They were $53,000 and change under the SA two years ago and $230,000 and change under the SA last year. They’ve rarely drafted and haven’t put a 1 in the regular, normal 1 draft slot number for years — clear evidence of picking and choosing your spots, and pinching pennies.

They didn’t go right up to within a rounding error of the SA, but not put their toes over the SA, by accident or coincidence. Plus it’s in the interest of the FO to paint it as them being surprised rather than not planning well. Can’t buy it. I can maybe buy “we can talk the boss out of it if and when we need to but let’s try to not need to,” but a full-on shock? No way.

They were closer two years ago than they were last year.

The Knicks’ front office knows this. And yet, it also understands that dipping below the second apron would lead to much of its depth flocking elsewhere, which is why, despite Dolan’s desires, it wants to go over the second apron, according to league sources, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. But so far, Dolan has not changed his mind.

It’s in their interest to publicly frame it this way.

You’re wrong, and it’s been explained to you in painstaking detail that you have been unable to refute.

Nope — the whole theory rests on the transactions leading to having to stay under the second apron and there’s no reason to believe — and lots of reasons not to believe — that the order was the flip-flop opposite.

Moreover, the Mikal trade is itself a pretty good example of why you’d want to preserve your ability to aggregate salaries.

That person did not exist in 2024 or 2025. There was literally no one they could have paid that would have taken them over the second apron in either year.

There were plenty of guys up. At least Bogdonovic, Hartenstein (2024), KAT and Mikal extension eligible (2025). Probably others, too, but I’m not going to spend all day on Sportrac.

They of course were limited in what they could pay Hartenstein in 2024 and lost him as a result because they didn’t pick up his Bird rights and only went two years, which never made even a tiny lick of sense — but now actually kind of does.

Everyone on this blog knows we couldn’t offer Hartenstein more money.

Yes — because of the seemingly inexplicable decision — but not so much anymore — to not give him the third year and get his Bird rights.

The 2024-25 Knicks plus Hartenstein would have been (well) over the second apron — assuming the timing and chronology would have worked to assemble it that roster under the rules, which I’m not going to bother trying to piece back together.

That’s pretty much “the defense rests” territory.

Hartenstein really should now be seen as the first asset (other than all the draft picks) they had to throw overboard, though much more indirectly than, say, Mitch.

Bigger picture, this whole argument is angels on the head of a pin stuff — when was the mandate issued, now or before???– which probably isn’t worth all the effort and the stick it up your asses. Worst case scenario for Team Trust Leon is that he went all in front-loaded and it resulted in a championship. Pretty excellent result. Doesn’t seem worth the effort to dispute every little last thing around it.

Now you’re suggesting the mandate to stay under the apron goes all the way back to the summer of 2022, when the aprons didn’t even exist.

You’re still assuming Dolan cares about the aprons per se, but he doesn’t — he cares about the tax he’d have to pay and the luxury tax has been part of the NBA for 20+ years. (Yes, he’s paid it before, but he’s clearly changed his mind about it and flat out said so in public.)

If you’re horrified about the Hartenstein idea, then you’re really going to be horrified when the suggestion is thrown out that there’s a very decent likelihood that Jalen Brunson (agents, Sam Rose/Aaron Mintz, CAA) was informed of the Dolan payroll edict and that’s why he took the option of lower money now, more money later rather than wait.

Leon and team guaranteed ran a bunch of different scenarios all along with various contracts, including targets like KAT, and projected aprons, covering Year T and then T+1, T+2, T+3, etc. That’s a big part of the job. There’s no mystery about any of this and it’s a very talented management team, and so when you then see a bunch of odd things happen — draft picks routinely incinerated/charred/seared; an already significantly-underpaid star player back-loading his paydays; not getting Bird rights on a coveted free agent that you worked hard to be able to get, etc. — and then you see the owner announce out of the blue that he has a limited payroll, at that point the odd things no longer seem that odd, but instead perfectly sensible, and a talented management team tends to do sensible things by intended choice rather than by accident or coincidence or happenstance.

This topic has now been beaten completely to death and the stakes are miniscule and so I’m going to make that my last word on the topic.

Another theory which I find pretty persuasive is that Dolan has a pathological hatred for revenue sharing, and won’t pay out big luxury tax $$ out of pure spite. It explains why he suddenly is averse to spending money now; it’s where it’s going, not the dollar amount. This tracks with what we know of his personality and character, that he’s a petty, loathsome creature prone to self-defeating outbursts.

Strong concur.

The not wanting to pay taxes theory has to be abandoned because the Knicks have been paying taxes — $38M last year, projected $45M this year.

If they’re paying taxes, that kinda flips the script back to “Maybe Leon and team really believe that the SA shouldn’t be exceeded for basketball reasons, or they hinted in that direction to Dolan and Dolan took it and ran with it to unintended points.”