As owner of the New York Knicks, James Dolan has two jobs that fans should care about: write checks, and get out of the way. He is currently failing at both.
If and when this Knicks core dissolves before it should, before its title window has closed, it won’t be because players like Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t accept contracts that keep the band together. It most certainly will not be because of the second apron. It’ll be because Jimmy Kazoo can’t get out of the way, or do the one thing at which he’s supposed to be good (write checks).
This much has been clear for a while. It was crystallized further when the Knicks had a spokesperson release a statement that the team would be tabling contract-extension negotiations with eligible players such as Towns, Josh Hart, Miles McBride, and Tyler Kolek.
James Dolan is using the second apron as convenient cover
We all need to appreciate the gravity, and absurdity, of this announcement. The second apron is to blame on the surface. That alone makes Dolan an easy target. He declared the Knicks would not pay what it takes to keep the core together four days after they ended a 53-year championship drought. That’s a special brand of vibe-killing.
At the same time, the second apron has also given Dolan cover. Refusing to pay it isn’t an anomaly. He’s just doing what so many other owners and teams have done: treating it like a de facto hard cap, a line you can’t cross.
To that end, the issue here isn’t that the Knicks let Mitchell Robinson walk, or that they have so far failed, specifically, to reach an agreement with KAT.
Entering the second apron is no joke. While it shouldn’t be taboo when attempting to preserve a championship core, its myriad roster restrictions effectively insist teams do it for a year or two at a time, and never three times in a five-year span.
Even if the Knicks were willing to enter the second apron, the front office may have still determined keeping Robinson, a backup center with a checkered health bill, wasn’t worth it. Leon Rose and crew might have also changed nothing about how they’re negotiating with Towns and Hart.
Instead, the real issue here is that Dolan has ostensibly taken the second apron off the table altogether—and the way he has gone about it.
Appearing on the radio and ruling it out mere days after winning a title isn't just absurd from the outside. On an episode of the Katz and Shoot podcast, The Athletic’s James Edwards said that people in the organization “were blindsided” by the comments.
Failing to effectively communicate with the front office that just built your title team is apex incompetence. This press release about contract negotiations being tabled is an extension of that ineptitude—proof that Dolan is meddling, just smart enough to exert the control he inherited, yet still unwilling to understand that it’s to his detriment.
Other owners aren’t doing this. These declarations are unique to Dolan. Even smaller-market squads that have yet to pay the second apron at least seem open to it. Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti has all but said the team dumped players to avoid the second apron this season so they could time entry into it when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s salary explodes in 2027-28.
It initially looked like that’s what the Knicks were doing: buying time underneath the second apron until Brunson’s next deal takes effect in 2028-29. Through both words and actions, Dolan has repeatedly undermined that assumption. And in doing so, he is threatening to shorten the shelf life of a team not yet nearing its expiration.
The Knicks are being threatened by a familiar obstacle
This is a good reminder that the Knicks are not here, working off a championship because of Dolan, but in spite of him.
Their title was built on the back of Leon Rose’s determination to land Jalen Brunson, the Dallas Mavericks’ generational misevaluation, and above all, JB’s superstar arc and decision to forego 2025 free agency. Heck, when you think about why they were able to acquire Towns at all, the Knicks owe a good chunk of their championship run to the second apron itself.
Dolan was essentially born on third base and still needed multiple chaperones to help him find home plate. He’s nevertheless acting with the surety of someone who did much more, in the most insufferable, relentlessly petulant way possible.
All of which is par for the course. This is the same egomaniacal, paranoid owner who used the Knicks’ parade to throw political shade; who RSVP’d “yes” to attending the White House without speaking to anyone who actually matters about it; who continues to associate the franchise with Isiah Thomas; and who’s (allegedly) turned Madison Square Garden into a surveillance state.
None of this is to say the Knicks should immediately max out KAT, or that the second apron doesn’t matter. The team is toeing a delicate line. But after years of meticulously crafting a new organizational reputation, the manner in which New York is juggling its delicate position has suddenly become ill-conceived, if not destructive.
Dolan’s potential involvement in these proceedings explains everything. It says a lot that the highest form of praise you could give him over the past half-decade or so is that he generally stayed out of the way.
Now, he appears to be back.
Don't underestimate the impact of what's happening now
Retaining all of KAT, Hart, JB, OG Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges beyond this season was always going to be a tough task. Dolan has the ability to make it easier, if not by entering the second apron then by at least less obnoxiously refusing to. He is, predictably, taking the lower road,
If the Knicks’ (presumably Dolan’s) intent behind the press release holds, the downstream effects are potentially dire. Towns and Hart could become disillusioned, no matter how many blue-and-orange heart emojis they’re posting now. Equally important, it renders New York’s 2027-28 payroll more of a mystery box. Without knowing what Towns specifically will be making, the Knicks can’t figure out how McBride or Hart fit into a below-second-apron plan.
Basically, because of Dolan’s approach to success he barely had a hand in, the team is now at risk of incurring more collateral damage on a shorter timeline. Something will have to give. And at this rate, unless Dolan veers away from such constant destructiveness, it’ll be the Knicks’ shot at another title.
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