Anyone understand why the Knicks are limited in what they can offer Hartenstein?

[Neal Romer]

It was mentioned on here and then I saw it somewhere in an ESPN article, that the Knicks can "only" offer IH up to 16M in free agency (or something like that). Im not saying he is or isnt worth more, I just dont understand the mechanism here.

He played for them last year. Dont they have his Bird rights? I thought you could offer your own players any amount regardless of your cap standing.

What the dealy yo?

[NBAGOAT]

They don’t have bird rights because they only signed him to a 2yr deal. He can only get a certain increase in salary think it’s 140%. The same happened with Malik monk who resigned and Bruce brown last year

[Neal Romer]

They don’t have bird rights because they only signed him to a 2yr deal. He can only get a certain increase in salary think it’s 140%. The same happened with Malik monk who resigned and Bruce brown last year

Ahh, ok interesting. Thanks.

[Patrick Chewing]

NBA salaries and contracts is like ****ing Algebra to me.

MLB and NFL seem much easier to navigate.

[MMM]

They don’t have bird rights because they only signed him to a 2yr deal. He can only get a certain increase in salary think it’s 140%. The same happened with Malik monk who resigned and Bruce brown last year

I thought it was because the Knicks are hard capped at the first apron but i guess they are limited by both provisions

[highwhey]

NBA salaries and contracts is like ****ing Algebra to me.

MLB and NFL seem much easier to navigate.

algebra is quite easy, hence why it's taught at a young age. maybe your extreme obesity has caused brain rot inside you?

[Thorpesaurous]

Because the Knicks only signed Hartenstein for two years, that means that instead of full Bird Rights, the Knicks only have Early Bird Rights, so the Knicks can only offer Hartenstein a deal that starts at 175% of his previous salary or less. Essentially, that means that the Knicks can't pay Hartenstein more than roughly $16.2 million next season.

This seems to happen every year to a guy or two, and it never makes any sense.

[Hey Yo]

This article talks about their options and a trade is inevitable.


In a perfect world, the Knicks would re-sign Hartenstein. He would have to take a slight discount by accepting a four-year, $72.5 million deal, but if he's willing to do it, the Knicks are going to have to expand the Bridges trade so that they send out more money than they take in. This would allow them to use the second apron (roughly $189.5 million) as a hard cap instead of the first (roughly $178.7 million). Bridges makes roughly $4.3 million more than Bojan Bogdanovic, so the Knicks would have to make up the difference in some other way. They could potentially trade Deuce McBride and his $4.7 million salary to do so, but McBride's three-year extension is so cheap that the Knicks are going to want to keep him for when everyone else gets expensive. More likely, the Knicks are trading either Robinson ($14.3 million) or Randle ($30.3 million) to facilitate Hartenstein. These deals could potentially bring back other players. The Knicks would just have to send out less cumulative money in the expanded trade than they take in.

Let's say the Knicks lose Hartenstein. Do they want to go into next season with a health risk in Robinson as their only center? They could potentially get out ahead of this now by trading Robinson or Randle preemptively for a center. Let's say, for instance, the Knicks traded Randle, a $30 million player, for someone's $20 million center. That would restore their two-headed center rotation with a proper Hartenstein rotation, unlock the second apron hard cap and wipe $10 million off the books that could be reallocated to other players.

You'd likely be taking a talent downgrade by giving Randle away, but considering how far the Knicks made it without him, their preference may be to stick with the "four perimeter players and one big man" approach moving forward. The alternative here would to try to trade Robinson for a cheaper center in the $9-10 million range. There are fewer options at this price point, but doing so would at least give the Knicks potential access to the tax-payer mid-level exception. Would you rather have Robinson alone, or two decent but inferior centers? That is a question New York is asking itself right now. At the most extreme end of this spectrum, the Knicks could try to dump Randle outright into someone's cap space to unlock the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception at around $13 million. This could be used to pursue a starting-caliber big man like Jonas Valanciunas on the open market.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/knicks-nets-among-teams-that-need-to-make-trades-after-nba-draft-but-before-free-agency-frenzy-begins/