Whether the championship hangover has anything to do with Jose Alvarado’s taking his time to decide on his future, we don’t know for sure.
What we know, according to reports emerging late Monday, is that Jose won’t make a final call on whether or not to execute his player option until Friday, June 26, instead of the initial date set for such a decision on June 22.
Alvarado can return to the Knicks without having to negotiate at all if he picks his $4.5 million player option, which will delay his unrestricted
free agency until July 2027. He can opt out of it, however, and become a UFA next week, forcing the Knicks to renegotiate a deal in the open market to bring GTA back to Manhattan, while fighting against other potential external bidders.
Jake Fischer reported the development on X, adding a very interesting spin to it.
“While the reigning champion New York Knicks assess their trade options for picks No. 24 and 31 in this week’s NBA Draft, sources say reserve guard Jose Alvarado has agreed to move the decision date on his $4.5 million player option for 2026-27 from tomorrow, June 22, back to June 26.”
According to Fischer, the Knicks are discussing draft-day trades and talking with other teams about potential packages involving their No. 24 and No. 31 selections, with New York also in possession of the No. 55 pick.
Truth be told, nobody should be surprised about this report nor the possibility of the Knicks moving one—if not more—of their draft picks, following James Dolan’s second-apron comments a few days ago.
The New York Post quoted ESPN’s Bobby Marks on Tuesday as he explained New York’s cap situation, potential moves, and implications. Most importantly, the first-round pick at No. 24 comes with a pre-assigned guaranteed salary of $3.6 million. No second-round pick has a guaranteed deal set from the get-go, with teams and prospects negotiating their contracts afterward.
“I think there’s still a priority to re-sign your own free agents, even if it means exceeding the second apron.
“I think there’s two ways to look at (the No. 24 pick). There’s that way where you’re moving out of the first round and maybe you’re picking up more seconds or a future first down the road because it does give you an extra $3.6 million in flexibility.
“We’re projecting them at $13 million under the second apron including their first-round pick. So they’d get roughly another $3.6 million more in flexibility if they trade it. So that is one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is they make the pick because they say, ‘We got all these high salaries in the starting lineup. We need young players on our bench on low-salary controllable contracts to be a rotational player down the road when these players eventually get older.’ So I think there’s two ways to look at it. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did either.”
According to the NYP’s Stefan Bondy, in the same article, the Knicks are, in fact, looking to trade the pick and having talks on multiple fronts.
“Trading the pick helps financial flexibility and, according to league sources, the Knicks are exploring multiple deals. Not coincidentally, Alvarado agreed to push back the deadline for his player option from Monday until after the draft (Friday). There are a lot of unsettled money matters.”
Last year, the Phoenix Suns signed their No. 31 pick to a four-year, $8.7 million deal with an average yearly salary of $2.2 million. The No. 55 pick ended up signing a multi-year two-way deal worth $636k.
The Knicks entered the offseason with around $202 million in guaranteed salaries, including the money baked into Alvarado’s player option and Pacome Dadiet’s team option, worth nearly $3 million. The second apron starts at $220 million, which means that, right now and without assuming both Alvarado and Dadiet will return, the Knicks are at around $195 real guaranteed million and have $25 million of room to maneuver.
Following Monday’s report of Mohammed Diawara’s expected re-signing for a total of $10-plus million, that figure will be reduced at least a bit.
The Knicks are still bound to lose Landry Shamet ($2.3 million last season), Mitchell Robinson ($12.9), and Jordan Clarkson ($2.3) to unrestricted free agency, while Ariel Hukporti ($1.9) is a restricted free agent.
