[Begley] Knicks are unlikely to extend KAT, Hart and McBride before the season starts, with the 2nd apron making it hard to extend all 3. They needs to figure out KAT’s situation before addressing Hart or McBride, but there is a clear gap between what New York are offering to KAT and what he wants.
It seems unlikely at this point that the Knicks will agree to extensions with Towns, Josh Hart or Miles McBride before the regular season. There is clearly a gap between what the Knicks are offering Towns and what he’s looking for. Logically, the Knicks need to figure out Towns’ situation before they can address Hart or McBride. The club’s immediate financial future is impacted greatly by Towns’ $61 million player option for 2027-28. If he agreed to an extension, Towns would presumably decline the extension and have a lower annual salary for 2027-28.
If extensions are not signed before the season starts, I’m sure Towns, Hart and McBride will maintain the same approach to their job. But, as Hart noted, it’s only natural for contract uncertainty to impact a player’s life on or off the court.
“Once the season starts (and if no extension is reached), I’ll probably have that mentality of ‘I don’t really wanna deal with this, I want to try and focus on playing the season.’ (But) I’m sure there will probably be a little extra weight to the jersey,” Hart said this week. “You don’t know the certainty of your situation and obviously it affects home life. There are certain things that you might want to do, but you’re like ‘I can’t, because I have no idea what the situation will be in two months, three months, four months, in a year, if I’m gonna be here or not.’ You don’t know. But hopefully, like I said, I’m a Knick, I’d love to be a Knick and I love the city.”
“…At the end of the day, we’re humans and I think what sometimes gets lost is that we are people, that we all have lives and things that we have to deal with and fix,” Hart said in response to a separate question later in his interview. “I wish I could sit there and say it wouldn’t have any weight or any bearing, but you never know. Some people can handle it great and some people can really struggle with it and that can kill their performance. I hope it gets done, but we’ll see.” Unless the Knicks decide to exceed the second apron in team salary, it will be difficult for the club to extend all three of Towns, Hart and McBride.
To illustrate this, let’s use \(75 million as a combined annual salary for the first year of Towns and Hart extensions. With this number, the Knicks would have roughly \)13-$14 million in second apron space to offer McBride.
But the bigger hurdle, in my view, is the 2028-29 season.
Let’s say Jalen Brunson signs a max extension that starts in 2028-29. If you take Brunson’s deal and combine it with a total \(75-\)80 million in extensions for Towns and Hart, the Knicks would have around \(10 million under the second apron for either McBride or another player. This number doesn’t account for an extension for OG Anunoby. Anunoby would be eligible for an extension. And obviously, that \)10 million is certainly below McBride’s market value. So the Knicks have to navigate a tough situation with these extensions if they want to remain below the second apron in team salary.
To date, not much has changed on the Knicks’ side: they think very highly of Towns and want him to be a Knick for a long time. The Knicks, in earlier negotiations, offered Towns a contract with a starting number of between \(45-\)50 million, as SNY reported. I don’t know if they have or haven’t increased their offers to Towns. Again, everything here is based on the Knicks’ commitment to staying under the second apron.+
Source: https://sny.tv/articles/knicks-training-camp-notes-10-2-26