Just four days after the New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA Championship, team governor James Dolan took to WFAN airwaves to revisit some of his prophetic predictions regarding the team's postseason fate. He also called it "basketball suicide" to exceed the second apron of the NBA's salary cap, which Fred Katz and James L. Edwards III reported surprised Knicks executives.
The team's self-imposed perception of the second apron as a hard limit didn't stop them from signing Jose Alvarado, Landry Shamet, and Mohamed Diawara to new, multi-year contracts. It didn't stop them from keeping Jordan Clarkson or adding Andre Drummond on one-year deals, either.
The reason the Drummond signing was necessary, though, was the refusal to surpass the second apron after winning the title. It cost them Mitchell Robinson, previously their longest-tenured player, now a member of the in-division Boston Celtics. At Knicks media day in Tarrytown, Karl-Anthony Towns confirmed Robinson's departure surprised the entire locker room. Whether he intended it as one or not, it was a major credit to Leon Rose and his front office.
Leon Rose had the single-shortest offseason of all 30 NBA executives
Asked about the loss of his fellow Knick center, Towns pulled back the curtain and revealed he felt the entire team expected Robinson back after their NBA Championship victory.
"I was very surprised that Mitch wasn't going to be back here with us. I think all of us were, so it was a surprise to everybody. Thought something would get done there," the star said in Tarrytown, per a video from SNY.
The Knicks are far from the NBA's only organization to back off from the second apron; the Denver Nuggets are the only team going into the 2027 regular season over that limit. Given that this group just won a title, though, it was clearly off-putting to everyone involved that governorship decided to treat the second apron as a hard cap.
The reports that Rose's front office found out they'd be abiding by those rules after their offseason started make their moves more impressive than disappointing. New York essentially had a shorter offseason than any other team in the league — even their NBA Finals opponent, the San Antonio Spurs.
Jalen Brunson said it himself at media day, telling reporters in Tarrytown the 2026 offseason was the "longest, shortest summer ever."
For Rose to have spent that time keeping Alvarado and Shamet, two key veteran contributors to their championship run; Diawara, a promising young wing with unteachable size and real feel for the game on both ends of the court; and Clarkson, a locker-room-favorite veteran presence who embodied humility and persistence with his in-season transformation as a player under Mike Brown, is an accomplishment, all things considered.
New York unequivocally downgraded at backup center this summer. Drummond, at 33 years old, will likely not become better than the 28-year-old Robinson next season. But the rest of the league is dealing with salary cap constrictions, too. If the Knicks can work to help Drummond make up enough of the difference, they'll have a real chance to repeat as title-winners.
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