Knicks have work to do to keep Isaiah Hartenstein
Knicks’ Isaiah Hartenstein during the first quarter against the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Tom Thibodeau likes to say that when the team wins, the recognition follows. And it has, with Thibodeau earning his second coach of the year award two seasons ago, Jalen Brunson getting his first All-NBA honor this past season, and even in silence, Leon Rose shaking off decades of front-office ineptitude to satisfy the long-suffering fan base.
The trio has helped form the core of the Knicks as they move into a lofty status of a contender.
But right now perhaps the most important man in the organization is Brock Aller, listed on the organizational flow chart as vice president of basketball and strategic planning — basically the salary cap guru.
After the moves this week, trading for Mikal Bridges and securing OG Anunoby to a franchise-record contract to remain in place, the task now falls to Aller to figure out a way to finalize the roster — and that could mean tweaking the Bridges trade, adding more outgoing salary and providing the rest of the front office with a way to reach the finish line.
But unless Aller has some cap gymnastics up his sleeve the Knicks almost certainly will have to let Isaiah Hartenstein walk as a free agent.
Aller's reputation has long been marveled at in NBA circles. When Aller first joined the Knicks front office after serving as the cap guru for the Cavaliers, David Griffin, who had worked with Aller in Cleveland as general manager and currently runs the Pelicans' front office, told The Athletic, “He’s a big-picture guy, who is also a diabolical genius from a cap standpoint.”
The Knicks have put together a team stocked with a deep pool of talent, but the cost means they will have to push the payroll to the limit. Anunoby agreed on a five-year, $212.5 million deal and while the rest of the core of the roster are reasonable deals, when you have this many of them, it adds up.
The Knicks can pay Hartenstein up to a four-year, $72.5 million deal and all of the efforts to free up that money may be futile since league sources have indicated the Knicks have already been told he will have offers exceeding that range — no surprise after the Nets signed Nic Clayton to a four-year, $100 million contract Wednesday.
Still, there are ways to manipulate the payroll and it is believed Aller and the rest of the front office are exploring them. The Knicks had two first-round picks in Wednesday’s NBA Draft, but dealt one — they got six second-round picks in two trades as they shuffled through the draft — and used the other on Pacome Dadiet, an 18-year-old wing from France who said he wants to come to the NBA now. But the Knicks could keep him overseas and avoid adding him to the payroll, which would mean by not using either pick on this year’s roster they save about $6 million in cap space.
The simplest path is to add to the Bridges deal, which has not been officially completed yet. The Knicks can try to add a third team to the deal, sending out a player who pushes their outgoing payroll in the deal (the $19 million of Bojan Bogdanovic) above the incoming salary of $23.3 million of Bridges, which would allow them to avoid being hard-capped at the first apron of the salary cap ($178.7 million). The Knicks figure to be hard-capped in almost any scenario, but by moving to the second apron, which is more restrictive, they would be allowed to open up salary to $189.5 million.
That could mean the Knicks find a way to keep Hartenstein, but it might mean trading out Mitchell Robinson and his $14.3 million salary. Or it could be a sign-and-trade of Precious Achiuwa, who is a restricted free agent. The Knicks are unable to aggregate multiple minimum salary players to make up the outgoing salary difference, so the options are limited.
But it gives the Knicks a chance — and a way to figure out how to convince Hartenstein to remain a part of this core. Getting the team to the salary permutations to make it possible is Aller’s job. And once he gets them there the rest is up to Rose and the rest of the front office to put the pieces in place.
The Knicks have been able to stockpile assets while winning for the four years this front office has been in place. They have also never had the payroll move into the luxury tax range, allowing flexibility to make moves with regularity. But now, the roster construction is nearly complete and the newly implemented rules of the collective bargaining agreement have made it onerous for teams that extend their roster to the upper reaches of the salary cap.
Aller's ability to solve the cap has never been more important to the Knicks than right now.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.