The Knicks Final Roster Spots and How it Impacts Their Second Apron Situation
The Knicks are looking to add two veterans to fill their final roster spots. I show the type of trade that would be required to make it happen and how it leaves them with more in-season flexibility.
It doesn’t feel like the eve of training camp until the New York Knicks start getting active.
They emerged from the slumber of August with an agreement to sign Landry Shamet to a one-year veteran minimum contract, according to Shams Charania. He’s been rumored to fill the Knicks’ last veteran roster spot for a while now. They just threw that in a loop by signing not just one, but two more veterans in Garrison Mathews and Malcolm Brogdon.
The Knicks are operating under a tight second apron crunch for a second straight year. They only had enough flexibility to acquire one $5-6 million player to their rotation while staying under the second apron. They achieved this by signing Guerschon Yabusele to a two-year, $11.3 million contract using the taxpayer mid-level exception (T-MLE).
Yabusele took $185,000 less on his first-year salary than the maximum amount he can get with the T-MLE. This was required for the Knicks to fill up their roster under the $207.8 million second apron hard cap. Teams must roster at least 14 players throughout the season, but could stay below that amount for up to 28 days, and for no more than 14-day intervals.
The expectation for most of the offseason was that the Knicks would only be able to sign two veteran minimum players to their roster. Jordan Clarkson took one of them, and the other would go to someone else. Players like Ben Simmons and Russell Westbrook were rumored, but it will now go to one of the players they recently signed.
The 14th roster spot would go to a recent second-round pick, such as Mohamed Diawara or James Nnaji. That’s because they’d only have enough room below the second apron to sign a player to a $1.2 million rookie minimum salary. Those two players would qualify for that since the Knicks own their draft rights, and that part of the equation is still likely.
That plan would leave the Knicks with just under $150,000 in space below the second apron. That is virtually no breathing room to make additional moves in the season. The soonest they’d be able to sign a player to their 15th spot would be on April 2. The last day of the regular season is April 12.
They could sign a player to a 10-day contract earlier, but that would prevent them from signing a player to a rest-of-season contract until the last few days of the season. They could also create more space by using up 14 of their 28 days below the 14-player requirement to start the season. They did this last year before signing Matt Ryan and Ariel Hukporti to prorated minimum salary deals, and could do the same with one of their veteran minimum signings and Diawara.
It appears the Knicks' plans have a different course in mind, one that includes two of Shamet, Brogdon, and Mathews being on the team. That would mean they would need to make a cost-cutting trade to fit two of those players under the second apron hard cap. According to Stefan Bondy, there is an expectation around the league that the Knicks will make such a move.