gradyandrew wrote:Knicks are currently 4 million under the tax line.As long as the Knicks are under the line, they could use.the full MLE to go past the line.
Obi's deal is for ~ 7 million, so after signing DDV, they would have been 3 million over the tax line with 15 guys rostered.
Since teams are only required to roster 12 players, they could have released Roby and Jeffries (2 million each) to get under the line, or make a trade saving 4 million.
I'm estimating that Roby/ Jeffries contracts are prorated by games played so the Knicks would have 20 games to release them, or roughly right before their guaranteed date of Jan 10.
One could argue that the Knicks traded Obi to make sure they can keep Roby and Jeffries.
That's a hard sell for me,but I don't watch the practices.
Hard capped. Unlikely bonues count towards hard cap.
Donte’s dazzling dealWe should have known DiVincenzo’s four-year deal with the Knicks would be offbeat. But this time, contract creativity could have negative repercussions for New York.
DiVincenzo’s agent, Jason Glushon, is known around the industry to add fun quirks to his contracts — purely because … why not? A few years back, he negotiated and wrote the cheapest bonus in league history into Spencer Dinwiddie’s contract: $1 if Dinwiddie’s team wins the title. He put together the Jericho Sims contract, too, which is loaded with far more dates that trigger guaranteed money throughout the year than your average deal has.
The DiVincenzo contract, meanwhile, is a doozy.
He is guaranteed $47 million over four years but also will receive $750,000 a season in unlikely bonuses (“unlikely” is a technical term, meaning he did not accomplish them in the previous season). It’s a fair contract for a player of DiVincenzo’s caliber. But it’s also a confusing one from the Knicks’ perspective.
First, let’s dive into the unlikely incentives, which are nothing short of glorious.
According to a league source who knows the contract details, the deal includes unlikelies for reaching the NBA Finals as well as ones for (take a deep breath if you are reading out loud and also grab some water in case you get lightheaded) winning MVP, defensive player of the year, sixth man of the year, most improved player, first team All-NBA, second team All-NBA, third team All-NBA, first team all-defense, second team all-defense and making the All-Star Game.
The technical term for these incentives may be “unlikely,” but the colloquial one is “not gonna happen.” The two sides should have placed an NBA Rookie of the Year bonus in there just for fun. But as spectacular and seemingly harmless as these bonuses are for DiVincenzo, considering he won’t garner an MVP any time soon, there should be questions about why the Knicks allowed these into the deal, especially with the way the new collective bargaining agreement works.
Unlikely incentives that teams throw into deals just for kicks, the ones that are Krispy Kreme for contract nerds such as anyone who is still somehow reading this, should become a thing of the past for teams in the Knicks’ financial position. Because New York gave DiVincenzo more than $5 million of the midlevel exception, it hard-capped itself at $172.3 million. In other words: the Knicks’ payroll, under no circumstances and at no time, can go over that number.
As The Athletic addressed last week, ever since Leon Rose took over as team president in 2020, this team has done whatever it could to establish flexibility not to sign a star but to trade for one. The Knicks have loaded up with first-round picks and tradeable, middle-class contracts. But now they are even closer to the hard cap than it appears at first glance.
They are pushing up against the luxury tax threshold, which is $165.3 million, $7 million short of the hard cap. And teams don’t get taxed on their unlikely incentives (unless a player earns them), but there is a twist: Whether DiVincenzo wins MVP or not, his $750,000 a year in unlikely bonuses still count against the hard cap. And that’s where we get into the Knicks eating into their flexibility.
Evan Fournier and Barrett already have $4.4 million combined in unlikely incentives in their deals. DiVincenzo’s now brings the team total to $5.2 million.
It means the Knicks could be pushing up against the luxury tax threshold (which, again, is $7 million short of the hard cap) but would be only $2 million short of the hard cap.
So, what happens if things go south in, say, Philadelphia midway through the season, and Joel Embiid says he wants out? The Knicks could have to include someone extra just to make the money work — and it could be because they agreed to include a series of delightful (but possibly hampering) bonuses for DiVincenzo.
7/10/2023 3:12 PM