For anyone wondering why the New York Knicks haven’t increased their offer to Karl-Anthony Towns, the answer is simple: Free agency has become such a barren wasteland for spending that they don’t have to.
Rest assured, if this standoff lasts through the season and Towns declines his $61 million player option, he will most definitely have suitors. Whether those suitors are appealing is debatable. (They’re not.) But it doesn’t actually matter.
New York is currently offering KAT somewhere around $45 million to $50 million per year. That average annual value falls well short of his max (four years and $276 million), but it’s also more money than almost anyone has received while changing teams in free agency over the past half-decade.
History is not working in Karl-Anthony Towns’ favor
Just seven players since 2022 have received more than $25 million per year in an offseason contract while switching jerseys. That number is low on its own. It gets even lower when you factor in pertinent details.
Here is the full list of players to meet this criteria over the last five summers, broken down by year:
- 2022: Jalen Brunson to New York ($26 million per year for four seasons)
- 2023: Fred VanVleet to Houston ($42.8 million per year for three seasons; third year was a team option)
- 2024: Paul George to Philadelphia ($52.9 million per year for four seasons); Isaiah Hartenstein to Oklahoma City ($29 million per year for three seasons; third year was a team option); Tobias Harris to Detroit ($26 million per year for two seasons)
- 2025: Myles Turner to Milwaukee ($27.2 million per year for four seasons)
- 2026: Walker Kessler to the Lakers ($32.4 million per year for four seasons)
The average contract length stands out right away. Brunson, George, Turner, and Kessler are the only players to clear $25 million per year on a deal spanning more than two guaranteed seasons.
Our $25 million cutoff is doing some heavy lifting, too. Never mind the guaranteed years. George is the lone free agent over the past five years to switch teams and bag an average annual salary of at least $40 million, period.
Even clearing the $30 million threshold on the open mark these days is a chore. Walker Kessler just did it, but the Lakers needed to acquire him in a sign-and-trade to get it done.
The odds are squarely in the Knicks’ favor
Don’t confuse this to mean Towns suddenly has zero leverage. It only takes one team to inflate a player’s market. There could be as many as three squads desperate enough to max him out next summer.
This also isn’t a complete defense of the Knicks’ negotiating tactics. The stench of a certain kazoo-playing, vibes-killing billionaire is all over this thing.
Even so, if you remove the pointless “We’re tabling extension talks” statement, New York is arguably playing this perfectly.
Offseason spending isn’t the free-for-all it once was. Players force trades and sign extensions rather than leaving willy-nilly. Projected cap-space teams burn said cap space knowing stars from other teams won’t simply walk. When they do walk, it’s not for the money or years Towns is after. That’s generally why you don’t see players like him exit in free agency anymore.
And it’s also why, when all’s said and done, Towns is more likely to cave to the Knicks than they are to him.
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