Mitch Robinson for a trade exception

[R-DAWG]

Spoiler:

From my very limited understanding of the salary cap the Knicks would be hard capped at the first apron with how the Bridges trade is currently constructed since they took in more salary than they sent out. That would make it virtually impossible to retain iHart.

If the Knicks aggregate some of their smaller salaries to balance the trade financially they are hard capped at the second apron since they combined players to complete the deal. I doubt they would want to send out McBride but I believe they have Sims, Diakite, and Cook as smaller salaries they can add.

With some of their draft maneuvers yesterday I believe they cleared enough space to give them the ability to make the max offer to iHart possible and still retain Mitch.

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If this is true then this is not an either or situation where the Knicks desperately need to get off of Mitch's contract to make an offer to iHart and teams can take advantage of it. The Knicks have the same amount of money to offer iHart no matter if Mitch's contract is on the books or not. If iHart walks the Knicks would probably need to keep Mitch.

Personally I would love to move Mitch's contract if I could pick up someone like Goga with the taxpayer's exception or less. It would allow a little wiggle room under the second apron to make small little adjustments to the roster if necessary. I also don't like the idea of having two injury prone players in Mitch and OG as key parts of the rotation of a Thibs coached team trying to contend.

Mitch is a great player to have when healthy but between the lack of availability especially in the postseason combined with the overlap between he and iHart's skill set I would be willing to move him. His interior presence is great to have but I think the Knicks could survive without it.

It's still hard for me to believe that there is no team that could find his skillet useful enough that they would take on his contract without incentives. It's a 2 year deal declining to $12M next year. It's far from crippling. As a Knicks team that just gave up a ton of assets to get Mikal I can't imagine they want to give up one of their few remaining assets just to dump Mitch's contract. I'm not saying it's impossible but if they did give up an asset I couldn't imagine it being more than a random second round pick or two.

Edit- Who is the board's CBA expert? Scoot? What triggers the cap at the first or second apron besides the use of certain exceptions?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5595937/2024/06/27/knicks-offseason-free-agency-trade-draft/

"The Knicks have searched for ways to add money to the trade in the two days since agreeing with the Nets, according to league sources. Tossing in one minimum salary would not fill in the difference between Bridges, who makes $23.3 million, and Bogdanović, who makes $19 million. The Knicks would still be hard-capped at the first apron if they included, say, Jericho Sims with Bogdanović. Adding two or more minimums would not be legal, because this is the NBA, where frustrating collective bargaining quirks disallow all your best trade ideas."

From my understanding, the Knicks are currently taking more money back than they send out in the Bridges trade, then they get hardcapped at the 1st apron. If they send out more, then they are hardcapped at the 2nd apron. So it looks like they are stuck with being a 1st apron team unless they can add more $4m of salary to the Bridges trade. The problem is that they can only aggregate Bogi with one minimum salaried player per the CBA, therefore they cannot combine Sims, Diakite, and/or Jeffries to the trade together. The other alternative would to trade Deuce McBride, but that seems to be too much value to give up IMO.

Thank you. So McBride could close the gap between Bridges and Bogey allowing the Knicks to spend all the way up the second apron? I wouldn't want to give him up on top of what was already given up for Bridges unless another asset was coming back. I hate to ask you more questions since none of us are cap experts but if Sims, Diakite, and Jeffries were not vet min guys could they be combined with Bogey legally? I know Sims was given a contract extension. Was it for the minimum?

I can't believe the Knicks would make the deal for Bridges and lock themselves in at the first apron. If push comes to shove I guess they could trade Deuce into someone's cap space for some small asset in multi-team trade. I'm not sure how many minutes are available with the Nova guys in the backcourt anyway.

By all accounts the Bridges trade came together very quickly. The Knicks probably got too excited and thought they could figure something out. This is similar to what happened to the Lakers during the AD trade, which cost them Mo Wagner

[R-DAWG]

Would any cap space teams want Mitchell Robinson and an asset?

I feel like it'll be worked into the Mikal deal somehow.

I think ORL would value his toughness, even in a reserve role…I was hoping they’d do something like DEN 25 frp for Robinson & #25, but too late

Wendall Carter Jr for Mitch, with the Knicks adding a minimum salary into the trade, would get the Knicks to the 2nd apron.

Carter doesn’t offer the same rim protection as Mitch, but he can space the floor and hold his own defensively.

[Skybox]

Would any cap space teams want Mitchell Robinson and an asset?

I feel like it'll be worked into the Mikal deal somehow.

I think ORL would value his toughness, even in a reserve role…I was hoping they’d do something like DEN 25 frp for Robinson & #25, but too late

Wendall Carter Jr for Mitch, with the Knicks adding a minimum salary into the trade, would get the Knicks to the 2nd apron.

Carter doesn’t offer the same rim protection as Mitch, but he can space the floor and hold his own defensively.

Nobody in their right mind is trading WCJ for Robinson...that's not really the point of this exercise. ORL has the cap space to absorb Robinson into a limited role, backing up WCJ.

[basketballwacko2]

It seems to me that the Knicks need to dump Mitch for cap space to use to re-sign OG and iHart. Mitch is a defensive and rebounding beast, but he's a liability on the offensive side of the ball (especially late in games) and his availability has been suspect for his whole career.

The only teams that could absorb him completely with a trade exception are the Hawks (John Collins TE) and the Nets (Spencer Dinwiddie TE). Unless the Bridges trade is re-worked to include Mitch for a TE, I don't think Mitch is a candidate for the Nets. Nets, in theory, could let Nic Claxton go and take on Mitch instead, but I think that's highly unlikely.

The Hawks could get Mitch as a cheaper, younger option than Capela and then trade Capela for assets. Thoughts?

So why didn't they use the 2 #1's from this season to move him? Seems to me they pretty much wasted them. I know they have cap issues but that would have been the old killing 2 birds with one stone idea.

[Toine85]

It seems to me that the Knicks need to dump Mitch for cap space to use to re-sign OG and iHart. Mitch is a defensive and rebounding beast, but he's a liability on the offensive side of the ball (especially late in games) and his availability has been suspect for his whole career.

The only teams that could absorb him completely with a trade exception are the Hawks (John Collins TE) and the Nets (Spencer Dinwiddie TE). Unless the Bridges trade is re-worked to include Mitch for a TE, I don't think Mitch is a candidate for the Nets. Nets, in theory, could let Nic Claxton go and take on Mitch instead, but I think that's highly unlikely.

The Hawks could get Mitch as a cheaper, younger option than Capela and then trade Capela for assets. Thoughts?

So why didn't they use the 2 #1's from this season to move him? Seems to me they pretty much wasted them. I know they have cap issues but that would have been the old killing 2 birds with one stone idea.

I agree. They should have traded the two draft picks from this year’s draft instead of NYK’s 2025, 2027 unprotected picks. I assume the Nets wanted the 2029, 2031 picks for the potential variability.

I guess the Knicks decided not to finalize the trade with the 2024 picks so they can still work through the details after the draft.

[Toine85]

Spoiler:

From my very limited understanding of the salary cap the Knicks would be hard capped at the first apron with how the Bridges trade is currently constructed since they took in more salary than they sent out. That would make it virtually impossible to retain iHart.

If the Knicks aggregate some of their smaller salaries to balance the trade financially they are hard capped at the second apron since they combined players to complete the deal. I doubt they would want to send out McBride but I believe they have Sims, Diakite, and Cook as smaller salaries they can add.

With some of their draft maneuvers yesterday I believe they cleared enough space to give them the ability to make the max offer to iHart possible and still retain Mitch.

Read on Twitter

If this is true then this is not an either or situation where the Knicks desperately need to get off of Mitch's contract to make an offer to iHart and teams can take advantage of it. The Knicks have the same amount of money to offer iHart no matter if Mitch's contract is on the books or not. If iHart walks the Knicks would probably need to keep Mitch.

Personally I would love to move Mitch's contract if I could pick up someone like Goga with the taxpayer's exception or less. It would allow a little wiggle room under the second apron to make small little adjustments to the roster if necessary. I also don't like the idea of having two injury prone players in Mitch and OG as key parts of the rotation of a Thibs coached team trying to contend.

Mitch is a great player to have when healthy but between the lack of availability especially in the postseason combined with the overlap between he and iHart's skill set I would be willing to move him. His interior presence is great to have but I think the Knicks could survive without it.

It's still hard for me to believe that there is no team that could find his skillet useful enough that they would take on his contract without incentives. It's a 2 year deal declining to $12M next year. It's far from crippling. As a Knicks team that just gave up a ton of assets to get Mikal I can't imagine they want to give up one of their few remaining assets just to dump Mitch's contract. I'm not saying it's impossible but if they did give up an asset I couldn't imagine it being more than a random second round pick or two.

Edit- Who is the board's CBA expert? Scoot? What triggers the cap at the first or second apron besides the use of certain exceptions?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5595937/2024/06/27/knicks-offseason-free-agency-trade-draft/

"The Knicks have searched for ways to add money to the trade in the two days since agreeing with the Nets, according to league sources. Tossing in one minimum salary would not fill in the difference between Bridges, who makes $23.3 million, and Bogdanović, who makes $19 million. The Knicks would still be hard-capped at the first apron if they included, say, Jericho Sims with Bogdanović. Adding two or more minimums would not be legal, because this is the NBA, where frustrating collective bargaining quirks disallow all your best trade ideas."

From my understanding, the Knicks are currently taking more money back than they send out in the Bridges trade, then they get hardcapped at the 1st apron. If they send out more, then they are hardcapped at the 2nd apron. So it looks like they are stuck with being a 1st apron team unless they can add more $4m of salary to the Bridges trade. The problem is that they can only aggregate Bogi with one minimum salaried player per the CBA, therefore they cannot combine Sims, Diakite, and/or Jeffries to the trade together. The other alternative would to trade Deuce McBride, but that seems to be too much value to give up IMO.

Thank you. So McBride could close the gap between Bridges and Bogey allowing the Knicks to spend all the way up the second apron? I wouldn't want to give him up on top of what was already given up for Bridges unless another asset was coming back. I hate to ask you more questions since none of us are cap experts but if Sims, Diakite, and Jeffries were not vet min guys could they be combined with Bogey legally? I know Sims was given a contract extension. Was it for the minimum?

I can't believe the Knicks would make the deal for Bridges and lock themselves in at the first apron. If push comes to shove I guess they could trade Deuce into someone's cap space for some small asset in multi-team trade. I'm not sure how many minutes are available with the Nova guys in the backcourt anyway.

Yeah, I guess we could trade Deuce to another team to recoup one of the projected late picks we traded away like the NYK 2025 or MIL 2025 picks.

[Apz]

It seems to me that the Knicks need to dump Mitch for cap space to use to re-sign OG and iHart. Mitch is a defensive and rebounding beast, but he's a liability on the offensive side of the ball (especially late in games) and his availability has been suspect for his whole career.

The only teams that could absorb him completely with a trade exception are the Hawks (John Collins TE) and the Nets (Spencer Dinwiddie TE). Unless the Bridges trade is re-worked to include Mitch for a TE, I don't think Mitch is a candidate for the Nets. Nets, in theory, could let Nic Claxton go and take on Mitch instead, but I think that's highly unlikely.

The Hawks could get Mitch as a cheaper, younger option than Capela and then trade Capela for assets. Thoughts?

So why didn't they use the 2 #1's from this season to move him? Seems to me they pretty much wasted them. I know they have cap issues but that would have been the old killing 2 birds with one stone idea.

I agree. They should have traded the two draft picks from this year’s draft instead of NYK’s 2025, 2027 unprotected picks. I assume the Nets wanted the 2029, 2031 picks for the potential variability.

I guess the Knicks decided not to finalize the trade with the 2024 picks so they can still work through the details after the draft.

Did u just say that 2 future unprotected picks have the same value as pick 24, 25 in this weak draft? The value isnt even close. U cant use them for trades and they got zero upside since they are already determined to be late

[KNICKS007]

This just shows you Mitch's Value around the league, no one looks at him as some elite defensive stopper except a small portion of knick fans

[Toine85]

This just shows you Mitch's Value around the league, no one looks at him as some elite defensive stopper except a small portion of knick fans

Now that iHart signed with OKC, then this is a moot point. We need Mitch on this team now.

[cgf]

This just shows you Mitch's Value around the league, no one looks at him as some elite defensive stopper except a small portion of knick fans

tbf Mitch just played 30 games last season. If he was coming off a 60 game season, he'd be looked at differently.