New York Knicks forward Maurice Harkless loses out from premature ending to season.
The NBA plans to ratify a 22-team return-to-play proposal on Thursday which will leave the New York Knicks at home, ending their 2019-20 season after 66 games. Perhaps nobody is impacted by this decision more than recent-acquisition Maurice Harkless, who has a $500,000 incentive to shoot better than 35% from downtown, a mark he will now narrowly miss.
According to Bobby Marks of ESPN, the league will update/pro-rate bonuses to reflect eight additional regular season games, which will likely leave players on performance bonuses that are not based on the number of games played losing out.
As of March 11, when the season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, Harkless was shooting 34.7% from three-point range, only 0.3% short of meeting the 35% threshold to qualify for his $500,000 bonus.
Per the terms of his contract, Harkless must shoot 35% on at least 100 three-point attempts.
Most painful to Harkless, during the Knicks final game before the shutdown, he shot 0-4 from downtown against the Hawks. Entering that game, he was shooting 36.2% from three on 94 attempts, so those four missed shots left him two shy of 100 attempts, and dropped his season average from to 34.7%, leaving him short of his bonus goal.
The St. John’s product infamously avoided attempting a three-point shot in the Blazers’ regular season finale in 2017, rather than risk letting his 35.1% three-point percentage dip blow the bonus threshold.
Maurice Harkless joined the Knicks at the trade deadline.
New York acquired the 6-foot-7 forward from the Los Angeles Clippers as part of the three-team trade that sent Marcus Morris to LA, and secured the Knicks an extra first round pick at the trade deadline in February.
Harkless was shooting 37.0% from downtown upon arriving in New York, but struggled with the Knicks, shooting 7-25 (28.0%) from the perimeter to bring his season average down to 34.7%. He missed his final 11 three-point attempts this season.
The small forward is set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason. While the Knicks are looking to add a forward who can shoot in the offseason, it is unclear if they will look to retain the local product.