Update: Knicks miss out on landing Cam Payne, Spurs acquire Suns guard

UPDATE: The San Antonio Spurs have traded for Cam Payne, Shams Charania of The Athletic reported on Sunday, July 16. According to Charania’s sources, “Phoenix is trading G Cam Payne, a second-round pick, and cash to San Antonio.”

Just hours after Stefan Bondy reported the interest of the New York Knicks in including Evan Fournier in a multi-team trade in order to facilitate a bigger move, a fresh report emerged on Saturday involving the veteran Frenchman and a potential player landing in NYC in return.

Michael Scotto of HoopsHype wrote a new column touching on different rumors and news popping up around the Association and one of the sections of his writeup discussed a three-team deal involving the Knicks and Evan Fournier.

“New York, Phoenix, and Indiana had exploratory discussions on a three-team trade where Cam Payne would’ve joined the Knicks, TJ McConnell would’ve joined the Suns, and Evan Fournier and draft pick compensation would’ve gone to the Pacers, league sources told HoopsHype,” wrote Scotto.

First of all, this seems legit. Scotto is one of the HoopsHype honchos writing on a fairly consistent basis, and HH is one of—if not the—best places out there aggregating rumors daily all coming from trusted sources and journalists.

On top of that, it also makes sense under the “multi-team” framework already presented by Bondy a few days ago when he discussed the short-term future of Fournier and how the Knicks are trying to move out of New York by throwing him in a larger trade package involving three or more teams.

Scotto added that “there were also variations of the talks,” although he only named Jordan Nwora as the changing piece on that alternative deal, supposedly in exchange for TJ McConnell and perhaps also forcing some minor changes in the draft picks involved in the whole operation.

Finally, and on a non-so-positive note, Scoto wrapped up that part of his latest column by writing that “talks have since stalled,” without saying if they are expected to get going again or if the negotiations were broken for good and if the deal will never be revised or entertained by one, two, or all three teams part of it.

So, basically, we’re looking at something like this:

To NYK: (PG/SG) Cam Payne

To IND: (SG/SF) Evan Fournier + Draft Picks

To PHX: (PG) T.J. McConnell

That’s where you start to guess if the deal actually made sense for the Knicks, even if they would have been able to get rid of Fournier’s onerous salary (on an expiring contract, mind you) for the upcoming season.

One of the main off-season talking points regarding the Knicks franchise is the abundance of guards and the lack of (playable) forwards in the roster as things stand. Would it be reasonable to get rid of a wing in order to land another combo guard, then? That’d be debatable at the very least.

It wouldn’t be surprising if new information emerges highlighting the Knicks as the main disruptor of the negotiations. New York will most probably have to attach some picks, even if that’s second-round selections, to move Fournier away, but getting Cam Payne in return alone might have put them off this multi-team negotiation altogether as that’s not the type of player they are interested in adding to their roster as currently constructed.

No more rumors involving Fournier have been leaked to the free world, but where there’s smoke there’s usually fire and it’s been back-to-back days of reports coming from two different sources involving the Frenchman.

Will Evan Fournier dress for the France international team in the FIBA World Cup while still representing the New York Knicks? Considering the tourney is more than a month away, I’d bet that’ll not be the case.