RJ Barrett Extension Created 'Incredible Amount Of Animus' Between Knicks, Jazz

[RealGM Wiretap]

The New York Knicks and Utah Jazz had made "some progress, some traction" on a Donovan Mitchell trade before a contract extension was agreed to with RJ Barrett, which led to a collapse to the talks.

"A wrecking ball hit when the Knicks and Jazz wouldn't come to terms," said Brian Windhorst. "I don't know who said no. I don't know if it was the Knicks who said no, or the Jazz who said no. The Knicks went ahead and signed RJ Barrett to a contract extension on Monday.

"That created an incredible amount of animus between the two organizations. I definitely felt it in talking to people over the last 24 hours. I will tell you that even though I felt that there was some scar tissue there, I was saying 'It is only August 31st, September 1st. That doesn't mean they're not going to do a deal.'"

The Cleveland Cavaliers went on to engage the Jazz on a trade for Mitchell and a deal was reached on Thursday without the Knicks being brought back to the table to improve their offer.

Via Brian Windhorst/ESPN

[Pickled Prunes]

Yeah, I'm sure they're all real upset. No more dinner parties for these guys!

[mg]

Knicks really screwed up.

In hindsight all they had to do was pick a player at #11 in the draft and combine him with 2 players of Utah's choice off their roster. Let Utah pick 3 unprotected FRP's of their choice. Deal would've been done a few weeks ago without all the drama. Knicks could then extend RJ or Robinson at that point assuming one or both were still on the roster.

[DoctorDunc]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

[Years90Suns]

Superb Knicks work:

- engage in trade talks and never made a real offer.
- sign an extension to Barrett, overpaying an average player who is the only one in the roster with a certain amount of individual talent, so he brights brighter in the roster, which does not mean he is a star (by all means).
- lose all summer in this situation.

[_txchilibowl_]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

But if you don't trade #11 then you don't have the cap space to sign Brunson....

Is there any Knicks fans out there that would prefer Brunson to Mitchell?

[kenwood3333]

There was already an incrediable amount of animus on day 1 when Knicks realize the Jazz trying to rip them off with first round picks.

[alienpick]

*Animosity

[puja21]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

First the Knicks have to get to the playoffs before they can fail there

MItchell has made the playoffs every season he's been in the league and scored more than 28 ppg in those games (not a small sample size).

He immediately replaced Gordon Hayward's production as a rookie (Jazz had only been in the playoffs twice in 7 seasons with Hayward; and only once in 4 seasons with both Hayward and Gobert). The Jazz won 260 games in Mitchell's 5 seasons vs. the Knicks had almost that many losses (243) and won just 1 playoff game in 5 years.

We'll see who the Knicks get instead of Mitchell-- could still workout better for them.

But "not a good fit with Brunson" seems like the wrong way to look at it. Are Knicks fans happy paying $104M to a guy who has just 18 playoff starts and during those games has a worse 3PT%, worse FT%, fewer pts/reb/ast than Mitchell, while only being a #2 option in shot volume and 4th on the team in minutes. Mitchell didn't have a top-5 player next to him where the defense was focused like Brunson did. And they are exactly the same age.

Signing Brunson might end up a bigger mistake than trading for Mitchell would've been.

[docholliday99]

*Animosity

Not sure animosity is accurate as it refers to violent hatred leading to opposition, which is not the case here. Animus is the creation of ill will.

As for Mitchell, elite offensive talent but one of the worst defenders in the league by any metric used. Adding him to the Cavs is a great addition for them, as stated above, they have 2 excellent rim protectors to counter his defensive ineptitude

[Slim Charless]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

First the Knicks have to get to the playoffs before they can fail there

MItchell has made the playoffs every season he's been in the league and scored more than 28 ppg in those games (not a small sample size).

He immediately replaced Gordon Hayward's production as a rookie (Jazz had only been in the playoffs twice in 7 seasons with Hayward; and only once in 4 seasons with both Hayward and Gobert). The Jazz won 260 games in Mitchell's 5 seasons vs. the Knicks had almost that many losses (243) and won just 1 playoff game in 5 years.

We'll see who the Knicks get instead of Mitchell-- could still workout better for them.

But "not a good fit with Brunson" seems like the wrong way to look at it. Are Knicks fans happy paying $104M to a guy who has just 18 playoff starts and during those games has a worse 3PT%, worse FT%, fewer pts/reb/ast than Mitchell, while only being a #2 option in shot volume and 4th on the team in minutes. Mitchell didn't have a top-5 player next to him where the defense was focused like Brunson did. And they are exactly the same age.

Signing Brunson might end up a bigger mistake than trading for Mitchell would've been.

I wouldn't be surprised if SGA demands out and ends up in NYC. If so, that's a much better fit and less selfish player.

[docholliday99]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

First the Knicks have to get to the playoffs before they can fail there

MItchell has made the playoffs every season he's been in the league and scored more than 28 ppg in those games (not a small sample size).

He immediately replaced Gordon Hayward's production as a rookie (Jazz had only been in the playoffs twice in 7 seasons with Hayward; and only once in 4 seasons with both Hayward and Gobert). The Jazz won 260 games in Mitchell's 5 seasons vs. the Knicks had almost that many losses (243) and won just 1 playoff game in 5 years.

We'll see who the Knicks get instead of Mitchell-- could still workout better for them.

But "not a good fit with Brunson" seems like the wrong way to look at it. Are Knicks fans happy paying $104M to a guy who has just 18 playoff starts and during those games has a worse 3PT%, worse FT%, fewer pts/reb/ast than Mitchell, while only being a #2 option in shot volume and 4th on the team in minutes. Mitchell didn't have a top-5 player next to him where the defense was focused like Brunson did. And they are exactly the same age.

Signing Brunson might end up a bigger mistake than trading for Mitchell would've been.

I wouldn't be surprised if SGA demands out and ends up in NYC. If so, that's a much better fit and less selfish player.

SGA has signed a Designated Player Extension and can't be traded until June of next year....I checked as I thought he would be awesome in Toronto and not wasting his time in OKC.

[jstudabaka]

The extension was a really dumb move by the Knicks. It's objectively kind of a bad contract -- no reason to do it now, could have waited till next year for RJ to prove himself as a 30 mil a year player. And the Cavs wound up getting Mitchell for the kind of package that, as a Knicks fan, I would have generally supported. So now my Knicks are stuck with, as I saw it put brilliantly on social media, a "mid-3," where they're paying three average-ish players in Randle, Barrett, and Brunson a large amount of money (not to mention 60 million for Mitch and 20+ a year for Fournier) but aren't good enough to be relevant, but aren't bad enough to tank. Unless they can convert some of their picks and prospects into an actual high-level player like Mitchell, this is a treadmill team. I think Leon Rose has been a failure for the most part.

[gavran]

The extension was a really dumb move by the Knicks. It's objectively kind of a bad contract -- no reason to do it now, could have waited till next year for RJ to prove himself as a 30 mil a year player. And the Cavs wound up getting Mitchell for the kind of package that, as a Knicks fan, I would have generally supported. So now my Knicks are stuck with, as I saw it put brilliantly on social media, a "mid-3," where they're paying three average-ish players in Randle, Barrett, and Brunson a large amount of money (not to mention 60 million for Mitch and 20+ a year for Fournier) but aren't good enough to be relevant, but aren't bad enough to tank. Unless they can convert some of their picks and prospects into an actual high-level player like Mitchell, this is a treadmill team. I think Leon Rose has been a failure for the most part.

Yeah, they could have waited until RJ proves himself to be a 30 mil a year player. The other choice was not giving him 30 million a year, and they went with that instead. What a dumb move. What an objectively bad contract.

[HotelVitale]

If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? .

This reasoning will only confuse things. First of all the discussion is ‘is Mitchell better than what they’d give up to get him,’ not is ‘Mitchell an all time elite player.’ Second Mitchell has flaws but he’s been a boss in the PO, legit best thing about him. Third it’s pretty easy to do this: if KG was so good why did the wolves suck in the PO, if Iverson was so good, etc. And again the point isn’t to debate if Mitchell is a totally amazing player, just if he was worth trading some picks and young guys for.

[Cassius]

Signing Brunson might end up a bigger mistake than trading for Mitchell would've been.

No, two separate situations. The Knicks actually signed Brunson to a deal at fair market value and while they shuffled picks around, they didn't have to part with 3-6 firsts to make it happen.

The problem here is that they rewarded everyone on last year's team with massive raises when nobody else would have. The money for Fournier and Noel is what really boxed them in, IMO and led to all of the unnecessary maneuvering to dump money around the draft/FA.

[HarthorneWingo]

It was a bitch move by Leon who was more concerned with showing Ainge how tough he was as opposed to keeping his eyes on the prize.

[HarthorneWingo]

Disagree. It was a horrible fit with Brunson. Most Knick fans are happy this did not come off. If Mitchell was so elite then why did the Jazz fail in the playoffs? Looks like it made more sense for the Cavs with dual rim protectors to protect a small back court.

Plus the Cavs are a win-now team. The Knicks aren't yet.

Still, I think it was a poor showing by Leon. This is the guy his FO targeted from the beginning and he sabotaged his own negotiation by extending RJ.

[HarthorneWingo]

The extension was a really dumb move by the Knicks. It's objectively kind of a bad contract -- no reason to do it now, could have waited till next year for RJ to prove himself as a 30 mil a year player. And the Cavs wound up getting Mitchell for the kind of package that, as a Knicks fan, I would have generally supported. So now my Knicks are stuck with, as I saw it put brilliantly on social media, a "mid-3," where they're paying three average-ish players in Randle, Barrett, and Brunson a large amount of money (not to mention 60 million for Mitch and 20+ a year for Fournier) but aren't good enough to be relevant, but aren't bad enough to tank. Unless they can convert some of their picks and prospects into an actual high-level player like Mitchell, this is a treadmill team. I think Leon Rose has been a failure for the most part.

Yeah, they could have waited until RJ proves himself to be a 30 mil a year player. The other choice was not giving him 30 million a year, and they went with that instead. What a dumb move. What an objectively bad contract.

It's actually about $25/year. Which is meh. With the salary cap about to get raised again, it's not that bad. RJ's a hard worker, hopefully he takes it to the next level this season.

[meekrab]

Ainge taking his toys and going home like Eric Cartman.