RealGM

Looking at the Knicks salaries on hoopshype, Knicks will have $0 exactly in 2022.

The chances of creating a super team obviously increases by then.

But Knicks do want to make the playoffs and go close to atleast reaching the 2nd round or make the 2nd round in playoffs. You need to navigate through the FAs this year to give them a 2 year contract with the 1st year only guaranteed. May be Conley or Lowry. $30mlion 1st year. Or someone like Derozan (just saying).

The only way you add to that salary is by adding our draft picks this year. And I think Knicks will do all their best to make sure who ever is added via draft is a SURE THING.

That usually means either
1. you Trade all the picks for Sexton who will not be in the books unless we extend him (this is a gamble), OR
2. Trade all picks plus a few for a really top pick like Jalen Suggs or Scottie Barnes. (I think #3 pick from Cavs is more alluring than Sexton). Don’t know what Knicks have to give out to get that high. I am guessing all picks this year plus 2 2023 picks. I would still do it.

https://hoopshype.com/salaries/new_york_knicks/

Having cap space in 2022 is covered in the buzzardman cap anxiety topic.

Also, it' comes up in the "Sexton to Knicks?" topic, where there's a path to a max cat even after trading for Sexton, but obviously before paying him.

Also, starting at 58 minute mark, approximately, Macri/Cohen do a pretty good job of breaking down the cap space next couple of years, basically covering ground K-Dot has talked about on here.
- my impression is the Knicks could keep all their picks and while it would eat into the cap space of true maximum cat - the kind making 40 million per, Knicks could still draft and sign those picks and have a good bit of money in 2022.
- I think this is making an assumption that players (not picks) got signed to one year deals except Rose.

I’d much rather keep cap flexibility to at least get one max player in 2022. There is a real good chance we can nag one of Bradley Beal/Zach Lavine if we play our cards right. This doesn’t even consider that Steph, Kawhi and the Net’s big 3 can all possibly be free agents next year as well.

Since Chris Paul is choking this off-season we might be able to get him for the low if they lose, especially since Sarver is cheap and might not want to pay an aging PG 100 million. If we can’t get Paul then Kyle Lowry can be a good replacement for two years as long as we keep a max slot open.

This year we run it back with the same team plus Paul/Lowry and our picks. Then in 2022 we pitch to Beal/Lavine and hopefully one of them bites.

(Paul, Lowry)/IQ year 3
(Lavine, Beal)/ Luca
RJ year 4
Randle/Obi year 3
Mitch

Also in this scenario we have all our assets so if we still need to make a blockbuster trade (i.e Donovan Mitchell, Zion) or we need to get rid of a bad contract (i.e. Paul or Lowry breaks down, Randle regresses, Mitch gets hurt, etc.) we have flexibility.

I hope we stay patient, we can be set up for the next half a decade if we play our cards right these next two off-seasons