Is RJ Barrett Worth a Max Extension?
A player earning $38 million next season will account for 31% of his team's cap space. If the cap jumps to $175 million in 2025-26, a player earning $38 million will account for 22% of his team's cap.
On Wednesday, June 29th, 1994, the Knicks selected Charlie Ward with the 26th pick in the NBA Draft.
In late January of 1999, prior to the start of the lockout-shortened 99-00 season, the Knicks (on the same day they signed center Chris Dudley) re-signed point guard Ward to a five-year, $28 million contract. Incredibly, that's the last time New York signed one of their own first-round picks to a multi-year extension.
On July 1st, 2022, Rowan Barrett Jr. became eligible to sign an extension and snap a two-decades-long curse. (Mitchell Robinson, who signed a four-year deal last month, was a second-round selection.)
Three members of Barrett's draft class - Ja Morant, Zion Williamson and Darius Garland - have already inked max deals. Will Barrett become the fourth?
The Knicks have until October 17th, the day before the start of the 2022-23 season, to reach an agreement. Under a max extension (assuming he doesn't make an All-NBA team next season, which would bump his salary up to 30% of the cap), Barrett would earn $193 million over five years, beginning in 2023-24.
Here's what the annual breakdown of that max extension would look like:
2023-24: $33,250,000
2024-25: $35,910,000
2025-26: $38,570,000
2026-27: $41,230,000
2027-28: $43,890,000
At first glance, those astronomical numbers may appear nonsensical for a player that has not yet sniffed an All-Star berth. However, providing context to those salary figures is vital, specifically as they relate to the rising salary cap. More on that in a bit; let's first talk about Barrett's value based on his production over the first three years of his NBA career.
Let's begin by noting Barrett just celebrated his 22nd birthday, and the counting stats he's been able to rack up over his first three pro seasons, at such a young age, are jaw-dropping and place him in elite company. Barrett is one of only five players in the history of the NBA to score more than 3,000 points, grab more than 1,000 rebounds, dish out more than 500 assists, and knock down more than 200 triples before turning 22 years old. The other four players in this exclusive club are LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, and Kobe Bryant.
And, based on traditional counting stats, Barrett took a significant step forward in 2021-22, averaging 20.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 2.0 made three-pointers per game. He took his game to another level in the second half of the season, playing his best ball as a 'Bocker. Over the first 20 games following the All-Star break, Barrett averaged a whopping 25.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 0.9 steals and 2.0 made treys.
A key to RJ's success was his ability to carve his way through traffic and attack the tin. Only four players attempted more free throws over the second half of the season: Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Trae Young and James Harden. (RJ got to the line more often than Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant and Luka Doncic.)
Barrett poured in 30+ points 11 times during the 2021-22 season, the most by any player age 21 or younger. LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards ranked second, with nine such games apiece.
However, the biggest knock on Barrett has been his inefficiency on the offensive end. And RJ regressed from an efficiency standpoint last season. After slashing 44/40/75% as a sophomore, Barrett shot just 40.8% from the floor, 34.2% from downtown and 71.4% from the charity stripe in 2021-22. To put those percentages in context: 32 NBA players averaged more than 17 field goal attempts per game in 2021-22, and of those 32 players, Barrett was one of only two to post an eFG% below 48%. (The other was his teammate, Julius Randle. Randle and Barrett were also the only two with a True Shooting percentage south of 53%.)
Consequently, Barrett's advanced analytics don't paint a pretty picture. Among players drafted in 2019, Barrett ranks 39th in VORP (just ahead of Romeo Langford), 16th in Win Shares and 24th in Box Plus/Minus (just behind Ty Jerome).
Defensively, the Knicks allowed 111.6 per 100 possessions with Barrett on the floor last season. That number dropped to 105.4 with Barrett on the bench. To be fair, it's worth noting RJ spent much of his time playing alongside subpar defenders such as Kemba Walker, Evan Fournier, Julius Randle etc., but that's obviously not an overly encouraging statistic.
Similarly, Barrett's shooting struggles are impacted by frequently being forced to share the floor with players incapable of knocking down open shots or creating easy looks for teammates.
Looking at the big picture, the Knicks' hesitation to pony up max money is understandable. While Barrett's future is promising, handing him north of $190 million in guaranteed cash carries significant risk. In fact, if the league's salary cap wasn't set to skyrocket, playing hardball and refusing to offer him the full max would probably be the correct course of action.
However, given the trajectory of the cap and the league's future economic landscape, New York should do what it takes to lock up Barrett for the full five years possible. Here's why...
In October 2014, the National Basketball Association announced it had agreed to a nine-year, $24 billion television deal with ESPN and TNT. That deal, which was worth nearly three times as much as the league's previous pact, went into effect following the 2015-16 season. And, as a result, the summer of 2016 was insane.
Due to the unprecedented influx of revenue, the NBA's salary cap jumped from $70 million to $94 million. Consequently, nearly every team in the league was flush with cash, which led to an unprecedented free agency frenzy. Not only did the cap increase enable Kevin Durant to infamously join Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Igoudala in Golden State, but it also led to many a mediocre player being vastly overpaid.
Each of the following players signed deals for north of $50 million in guaranteed salary that offseason: Timofey Mozgov, Evan Turner, Joakim Noah, Bismack Biyombo, Chandler Parsons, Kent Bazemore, Ryan Anderson, Marvin Williams, Allen Crabbe, Luol Deng, Ian Mahinmi, Solomon Hill.
Nicolas Batum, Hassan Whiteside, Mozgov, Parsons, and Turner inked contracts worth a combined total of $455 million. It was a truly wild time.
I bring up the lunacy of 2016 because the TV contract that went into effect back then is set to expire following the 2024-25 campaign. CNBC has reported the total value of the NBA's new TV deal could more than triple, from $24 million up to $75 billion.
Therefore, pundits have predicted the league's salary cap, which is set at $123 million for the upcoming 2022-23 season, could rise as high as $175 million in 2025-26.
In 2016, the NBA's player union refused to incorporate a cap smoothing mechanism that would have seen smaller annual jumps to the salary cap. It's unknown if the NBPA will take that same approach this time around.
Either way, Barrett's remuneration for the final three years of his deal will look far more favorable post-2025 compared to the summer of 2022. Accounting for the rising cap, Barrett's annual salary will be far, far more palatable.
Consider this:
A player earning $38 million next season will account for 30.7% of his team's total cap space in 2022-23.
Should the cap jump to $175 million in 2025-26, a player earning $38 million will account for less than 22% of his team's total space.
As Barrett's salary rises, the cap will do the same. Some analysts believe it will advance north of $200 by 2028, meaning free agents signing supermax pacts will make upwards of $70 million per season.
Thus, even if Barrett doesn't develop into an All-NBA stud or even an All-Star, his contact could still be considered team-friendly.
The Athletic's John Hollinger, a former front office executive for the Memphis Grizzlies, wrote about this dynamic last week, arguing that "it seems virtually impossible to overpay" a player like RJ Barrett "at almost any price." Hollinger added that "long-term extensions for players like Barrett, [Tyler] Herro and [Jordan] Poole seem like almost no-brainers given what's going to happen with the cap; first, because it's the only way to preserve extendability, and second, because a rising cap drains out so much of the risk."
While I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "no-brainer," the impact of the changing economic landscape is indisputable. Given the financial forecasts, it's somewhat surprising that New York hasn't locked up Barrett already.
If the Knicks refuse to offer Barrett a max extension this offseason, he will become a restricted free agent in 2023. New York would, of course, still have the right to match an offer he receives on the open market. However, unless he suffers a catastrophic injury, plenty of teams with cap space will be willing to sign a 23-year-old RJ Barrett to a max offer sheet, especially given the abovementioned circumstances related to the rising cap.
While the Knicks can sign Barrett to a five-year deal, the most any other team can offer is four. Under different circumstances, a shorter deal might typically appeal to New York, considering their concerns. However, every team in the league should prioritize locking up young, promising players for as long as possible prior to the pending cap spike.
In fact, Holliger suggests that young guns such as Barrett and Herro might actually seek out shorter-term deals that would enable them to re-enter free agency in 2025 or 2026.
Due to these unique circumstances, there's not much benefit to New York dragging out these negotiations. One reason for holding off on an extension would be to include Barrett in a blockbuster trade for Donovan Micthell; however, it seems New York has let it be known that they are unwilling to include RJ in any package (which reportedly isn't a deal-break for Utah).
Barrett's agents are fully aware of what's on the horizon and will almost definitely demand the max. New York could draw a line in the sand and try to save a few million, but such a strategy could backfire. We saw what happened this summer with Deandre Ayton and Phoenix. The Suns ended up holding onto Ayton, but only after he signed an offer sheet with the Indiana Pacers. Could that result in some bad blood and tension between the player and the organization going forward?
In addition to his remarkable skill set and tantalizing upside, one of Barrett's best attributes is his professionalism. The kid was drafted into the cauldron that is New York City as a teenager with the hopes of a franchise's fanbase on his back (RJ is the first Knick picked in the top-3 since Patrick Ewing in 1985) - and he hasn't made a misstep. Barrett has handled the public pressure incredibly well. In this day and age of social media, that's particularly impressive. Some athletes don't have what it takes to survive, let alone thrive, in NYC. Barrett has proven he can handle the bright lights of Broadway. That shouldn't be taken for granted.
And it's clear he feels he has much more to prove and hopes to do so in New York.
Asked about the possibility of an extension back in April, Barrett responded: "I've said since Day One that this is where I wanna be. I didn't work out for any other team. This is where I wanna be. I love playing for the Knicks. I love playing in the Garden. I love how we got to the playoffs last year and looking to do that again. I love everything about being a Knick. Yeah, (this is) 100% the place I wanna be."
Couldn’t he be a Jimmy Butler type player? Like an awesome # 2 dude you can build around?
This was a horrible article.. I’m sick and tired of this mediocre glorified role player