3D Chess: How Years of Meticulous Planning Enabled the Knicks to Reshape Their Roster
A detailed timeline of the past ten months...
The Knicks, who lost more games over the first two decades of the 21st century and were considered a league-wide laughing stock as recently as five years ago, enter the 2024-25 season as one of the legitimate favorites to lift the Larry O'Brien trophy next June.
How did we arrive here?
How did Leon Rose (remember, on the day Rose was hired - March 2, 2020 - the Knicks starting lineup featured Elfrid Payton, RJ Barrett, Maurice Harkless, Julius Randle and Taj Gibson), along with his colleagues Worldwide Wes, Gersson Rosas, Brock Aller and the rest of New York's front office, completely reshape the franchise?
Well, it starts with Jalen Brunson. On July 12, 2022, the Knicks officially announced they had inked Brunson to a four-year contract.
While they probably didn't anticipate Brunson developing into an All-NBA MVP candidate, Rose and company were confident the franchise had finally found its point guard.
While some people questioned whether Brunson was worth $100 million (which seems absurd in retrospect), considering the ties between JB and the team, that was a relatively easy decision for Rose.
But signing Brunson to a contract that descends year over year was a brilliant maneuver that would minimize the team's cap commitments for the 2024-25 season and beyond (which played a critical role in their ability to pull off two blockbuster trades this summer).
And Brunson was just the beginning. Over the following two years, New York's front office made several massive moves, each resulting from careful planning, a shrewd understanding of an evolving CBA, and meticulous execution.
Over the past ten months, the Knicks have reshaped their franchise around their superstar PG, constructing a roster built to succeed not just this season but for years to come.
The foresight and knowledge required to consummate these moves (while passing on opportunities to pull the trigger on other tempting transactions) are miraculous when evaluated in their entirety.
Let's start with last July. Entering the 2023 offseason, the Knicks were capped out and only had the mid-level exception at their disposal. New York decided to invest in Donte DiVincenzo, who agreed to a deal slightly below the full mid-level ($46.9 million over four years). Plenty of pundits and fans argued that New York should have traded away valuable draft assets in exchange for Donovan Micthell, Dejounte Murray, or Bradley Beal. Instead, Rose "settled" for DiVincenzo.
When the 2023-24 season concluded, DiVincenzo had demolished the Knicks' all-time three-point record and established himself as a solid defender and one of the NBA's elite sharpshooters. His incredibly team-friendly contract was now viewed as one of the best values in the entire league.
In late December of 2023, Rose pulled the trigger on a blockbuster, trading R.J. Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors for Precious Achiuwa, OG Anunoby and Malachi Flynn.
The trade paid immediate dividends. Not only did New York win 20 of the 23 regular-season games Anunoby played in a Knicks uniform, but OG posted a positive plus/minus in every contest (the longest such streak in franchise history). In January, Achiuwa inherited unexpected responsibilities due to a slew of injuries along NY's front line and made the most of the opportunity.
On the day the OG/RJ/IQ trade was officially announced, Rose made an under-the-radar move, inking Miles McBride to a three-year, $13 million contract. The NY front office anticipated Deuce seeing increased action with Quickley no longer on the roster and was willing to bet McBride would step in and step up. Deuce did just that, establishing himself as a rotation regular.
On January 3, New York signed Duane Washington Jr. to a two-way contract (we'll circle back to this seemingly innocuous signing in a bit)
At the trade deadline in February, New York traded Ryan Arcidiacono, Malachi Flynn, Evan Fournier and Quentin Grimes to the Detroit Pistons for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks. Burks and Bogey didn't deliver initially, but Bogdanovic had some moments late in the regular season, while Burks scored in bunches when he dusted off in the second round of the playoffs.
Five months later, Rose used Bogdanovic's expiring salary to complete a trade for Mikal Bridges, sending Bogey's $19.9 million contract to Brooklyn along with five future first-round picks and a pick swap. Obviously, had Rose spent his hard-earned draft capital on Donovan Mitchell or another such player, he would not had the assets required to convince Brooklyn to part with Bridges.
Yes, Rose paid a pretty penny, but he had to cash in his chips at some point during Brunson's prime. Among all realistic potential options, Bridges is arguably as close to a perfect fit (considering his skill set, age, durability, mentality and chemistry/connections) as possible for this Knicks roster as currently constituted.
However, in addition to Bogey, New York included Shake Milton and Mamadi Diakite in the deal. Their inclusion gives us insight into the brilliant work of cap-ologist Brock Aller behind the scenes.
The Knicks signed Milton on March 5 after the Pistons waived him. He appeared in just six games for New York. However, he was on a one-year contract at the end of the 2023-24 season, which enabled the Knicks to include him in a sign-and-trade this summer, as NY was able to re-sign him via the non-qualifying veteran free agent (aka "Non-Bird") exception. Inking Milton to a deal with a 20% raise pushed him over the minimum contract threshold, allowing his salary to be stacked in a multi-player trade.
As for Diakite, the Knicks initially signed him to a 10-day contract on March 14. When that expired, they signed him to a two-year deal with the 2024-25 season non-guaranteed. He ended up logging eight minutes over three games. Yet, his contract status enabled New York to send half his 24-25 salary to Brooklyn.
These two minor moves, which were barely noticed at the time, were crucial in completing the Bridges deal because they allowed New York to include an extra $4.3 million in outgoing salary on top of Bogey's money.
The Knicks could have simply acquired Bridges by taking on more salary than they sent out. However, that would have hard-capped NY at the first apron, which would have prevented them from trading for Towns. By stacking salaries, the Knicks dodged a first-apron hard cap and instead hard-capped themselves at the second apron.
As it turns out, Rose, Aller and the front office were just getting started.
A week after Milton was signed in early March, the Knicks inked DaQuan Jeffries to a ten-day contract. When that ten-day expired, they inked him to a contract for the remainder of the season (meaning NY would control his rights this offseason—keep that in mind).
In late June, the Knicks entered the 2024 draft with the #24, #25 and #38 overall picks. After seemingly dozens of trades, the Knicks exited the draft with Pacome Dadiet, Tyler Kolek, Kevin McCullar Jr. and Ariel Hukporti, along with $1.5 million in cash and three additional future second-round picks in their pocket (one of which would be sent to Charlotte to complete the KAT trade).
Shortly after Draft Day, New York signed Dadiet for only 80% of the rookie-scale figure. This was nearly unprecedented, as only two NBA players in the past two decades have accepted less than a full rookie-scale contract. Instead of earning $2,712,120 next season, Dadiet will make $1,808,080, creating over $900,000 in cap space this offseason.
In mid-July, Brunson agreed to a historic four-year, $156.5 million contract extension, accepting $113 million less guaranteed than he would have been eligible to sign for had he waited a year. Later that month, New York inked Precious Achiuwa to a one-year, $6 million to add much-needed depth up front.
This brings us to the coup de grace.
After much back-and-forth over days, weeks, and months, the Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks had reached an agreement. Both sides were willing to pull the trigger on a league-altering blockbuster, sending Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop and a protected first-round pick (via Detroit) to Minny for Karl-Anthony Towns.
However, the issue was that Towns was set to earn $49.2 million in 2024-25. Randle, DiVincenzo and Bates-Diop's combined salaries were just north of $43 million (roughly $6 million shy of the $49.2 million target). Under the convoluted new CBA, this was a substantial roadblock.
Furthermore, the Knicks were just $7.6 million under the second apron and could not exceed it. After the KAT trade was initially reported, pundits began attempting to figure out how New York could possibly make this work. Would they trade Mitchell Robinson as part of a separate transaction? Would they be forced to part with Miles McBride and his $4.7 million salary?
Remember, due to recently introduced CBA parameters, the Knicks were prohibited from including minimum expectations in sign-and-trades. They also needed to avoid Base-Year Compensation complications, or the outgoing salary they sent out would count at just 50% (resulting in NY being forced to send out $12.4 million in salary). Lastly, the Knicks were unable to aggregate minimum salaries.
As we know now, New York brilliantly created the requisite $6 million in cap space by agreeing to sign-and-trade deals with their three remaining non-Bird-rights free agents, Charlie Brown Jr., DaQuan Jeffries and Duane Washington Jr. To bypass the limitations associated with minimum salaries, Brown, Jeffries and Washington each signed contracts for exactly $1 more than the minimum in the first year of their new three-year contracts (a sign-and-trade deal has to be for a minimum of three years, but only the first year needs to be fully guaranteed). The extra dollar allowed New York to skirt the "stacking minimum contracts" restriction.
As noted above, months before finalizing the trade for KAT, New York ensured they'd have five non-rotation players ending the 2023-24 season with the club. Incredibly, New York was able to manufacture the $11 million in salary necessary to consummate deals for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns by trading away Shake Milton, Mamadi Diakite, DaQuan Jeffries, Charlie Brown Jr., and Duane Washington (who scored a grand total of 31 combined points for New York).
Still, even after checking with the league (which "wasn't thrilled" but confirmed it was legal and wouldn't void the KAT trade due to CBA circumvention), the complex equation was not entirely solved.
Because both New York and Minnesota were apron teams, neither club could take back more than 100% of the outgoing salary. Consequently, they had to loop in a third team, the Charlotte Hornets.
Because the Hornets were well below the luxury tax line and had plenty of cap space and access to their full Room Exception remaining (used as a Trade Exception for the first tie in league history), they could absorb the Brown, Jeffries and Washington contracts. The Knicks sweetened the pot by including cash to cover the salaries of the three incoming players and sent two future second-round picks to Charlotte. (One of the picks traded to the Hornets was acquired in June when New York traded the 26th overall pick [which was previously acquired with the 51st pick for the 24th pick] for five future second-round selections.)
Zooming out and looking at the big picture, the amount of cap knowledge, ability to thread CBA loopholes, and pre-planning required by Aller and the Knicks to pull this off is mind-boggling.
Ultimately, after factoring in mandatory cap holds, New York was able to legally finalize the KAT trade by limboing under the second apron by less than $400k. That is an incredibly small amount of wiggle room.
Every decision they made over the past two years led up to that moment. Every dollar mattered.
Think about it this way:
If NY didn't sign Brunson to a contract with a descending salary structure, they can't complete the KAT trade.
If NY hadn't signed Mitchell Robinson to a contract with a descending salary structure, they can't complete the KAT trade.
If NY hadn't signed Brown, Jeffries and Washington midseason, they couldn't have completed the KAT trade.
If NY didn't sign Dadiet to 80% of his rookie-scale contract, they can't complete the KAT trade.
If NY signed DiVincenzo to the full MLE, they can't complete the KAT trade.
If NY hadn't signed Decue to a team-friendly contract in December, he'd have been a free agent with plenty of suitors this summer, and NY wouldn't have been able/willing to include DiVincenzo in the KAT trade (which was a deal-breaker for Minnesota because DDV's contract was so valuable).
If NY hadn't signed Milton and Diakite midseason, they couldn't complete the Bridges trade.
If NY hadn't hoarded all those first-round picks, they couldn't complete the Bridges trade.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Just as impressively, the Knicks are very well-positioned moving forward. Bruson and OG are signed through the end of the 2028-29 season. KAT and Hart have four more years left on their contracts. Deuce is locked into a descending contract in which he'll be paid less than $4 million (less than 3% of the cap!!) in 2026-27 (his age 26 season). Bridges has two years on his pact but left, but he is expected to sign an extension next summer.
With the Towns' trade completed, the Knicks are expected to sign veteran shooting guard Landry Shamet to a minimum contract. Once his contract is guaranteed, it will only count against the cap for $2.1 million.
New York will stay under the second apron this season and then likely land in second-apron territory for the following two years before falling back under in 2026, which allows them to avoid the harsher punishments in the new CBA (we'll break that timeline down in depth in the near future).
Long story short (tl;dr version): the Knicks' front office has done some cool/smart stuff to put the team in a position to win a bunch of games.