Four days after the New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA Championship, governor James Dolan declared on WFAN that any plans to surpass the salary cap's second apron would be strategic suicide. The self-imposed budgetary limit eventually helped complicate offseason negotiations with Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, and Miles McBride on potential contract extensions.
Before the 2026-27 regular season began, both Towns and Hart shared their discomfort with the lack of long-term security. The star center went as far as to ask reporters during training camp if there was something else he needed to prove to the Knicks — and the rest of the NBA — to be worthy of the kind of offer he was looking for.
While the Knicks said those cans were being kicked down the proverbial road to maximize their focus on defending their title, there are other factors at play. While New York is just one of 29 teams treating the second apron like a hard cap, that choice is indubitably complicating their budget. Meanwhile, the trio of un-extended Knick players seem intent on proving, with their play on the court, that they're worth even more than their representation was asking for.
While it may cost Dolan on the back-end, it'd be a great problem to have. It would be hard to argue that that kind of motivation, should it help fuel the Knicks to back-to-back championships, wasn't worth it.
Knicks avoided extending Towns, Hart, and McBride at their peak values
Could it also be possible that governor James Dolan simply didn't want to extend three of the seven most important players to his championship-winning roster — in part — because each of them would have been cashing out on their absolute maximum value?
The three have been the team's best players, outside of Jalen Brunson and Landry Shamet, thus far this season. Fans shouldn't necessarily enjoy the possibility that these NBA Champions are playing hard to earn their next contracts. But they don't have to ignore the positives of the situation, either.
Waiting a year to make Towns, Hart, and McBride competitive long-term offers certainly opens the players up to pricing themselves out of New York's reach. Given that they all just helped end a 53-year championship drought, though, it seems more likely that their market values will move in the direction the Knicks are more comfortable with.
The Knicks are also in a league full of teams scared to surpass the second apron. That might just make it safe to bet that few other teams will free up the cap space, by next offseason, to truly compete to give Towns what could very well be the final long-term maximum contract of his career.
Through nine games, the big man is averaging 20.9 points, 13.6 rebounds, and 3.1 assists on 56.5% field goal shooting. He's also making a scorching 43.6% of his 3-point attempts. Towns will certainly command whatever it was that he was asking — if not more — should he keep this level of play up throughout the rest of the season.
If that happens, though, the Knicks will likely also win at least 12 games in the 2027 NBA Playoffs — if not more — making that hypothetical extension well worth their while.
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