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While Karl-Anthony Towns signed a five-year rookie scale contract extension that could pay him as much as $189 million, ESPN’s Ian Begley reports New York Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis will not sign his such extension before Monday’s 6 p.m. deadline. Instead, he will wait and become a restricted free agent next summer, where the Knicks can re-sign him or match another team’s offer sheet.
No, this is not a sign that Porzingis is disgruntled with the direction of the franchise. And no, it’s not an indication that New York wants to see how the 7-footer’s ACL recovers before committing boatloads of money to him.
It’s just a common salary cap trick that gives New York — and several other teams in similar positions — more flexibility heading into a pivotal 2019 NBA summer.
This is what the Knicks and Porzingis were supposed to do
Had Porzingis signed his rookie scale contract extension today, he would have been scheduled to make $27.25 million next summer and $158 million over five years. That amount would have been a haymaker to New York’s cap space to sign free agents and would have killed the Knicks’ odds at landing a max player in next year’s loaded class.
But by waiting until next summer, the Knicks save a chunk of cash they can use toward other free agents on the market.
Players coming off of the fourth year of their rookie contract who make less than the average NBA salary have a cap hold of 300 percent of the final year of their contract. A cap hold, in this instance, is an amount of money that counts against the team’s salary cap until it makes a decision on one of its free agents.
Porzingis will make $5.697 million in the 2018-19 season, so his cap hold will be three times that, or $17 million until he signs his extension next summer. He also will not lose any money by waiting until next summer to sign a contract: New York can and will still offer him his max contract of 25 percent of the projected $109 million salary cap,
There’s also the legalese behind it all. NBA collective bargaining agreement rules permit teams to exceed the salary cap in order to re-sign their own free agents. It’s the order of operations. The Knicks don’t actually have to sign to Porzingis’ max contract extension until they sign other players in free agency. It’s actually smarter to do it last.
Had they agreed to an extension today, Porzingis’ $27.25 million contract would have made it extremely difficult to fit another max contract onto the payroll. Instead, the Knicks have created an additional $10 million to sign free agents with. It gives New York enough room to sign a max player with 10-plus years of experience (yes, like Kevin Durant) to a contract with a first-year salary of $38 million while still retaining promising young players like Frank Ntilikina and Luke Kornet.
The Nets are expected to do the same
The only players who have signed rookie scale contract extensions this summer are Towns, Phoenix’s Devin Booker (five year, $158 million), and Miami’s Justise Winslow (three years, $39 million). Porzingis headlines a long list of players eligible to sign their own next summer.
Only one other team find themselves in the same unique position as New York. After the Pacers signed Myles Turner to a four-year, $80 million contract extension on Monday, the last remaining suspect is Brooklyn’s D’Angelo Russell, their purported point guard of the future who has to prove he’s ready to step into the big shoes.
Barring a wild series of events, both the Nets are expected to sign their young star to a long-term deal. A lot like New York and Kristaps Porzingis, Brooklyn is expected to wait until after they go after superstar free agents next summer to do it.
