Mitchell Robinson has seemingly put the New York Knicks in an impossible situation. He is too important to trade, and not available nearly enough to count on. The latter part of the Robinson experience suggests he might not be long for New York, particularly when diving deeper into the center market this summer. Yet, in this case, his checkered health bill may actually be the Knicks’ silent savior.
The extent to which Robinson’s health must be managed, potentially forever, is not a secret. The entire league knows he’s working on a surgically repaired ankle. And that he isn’t playing both ends of back-to-backs. And that he seldom crosses the 25-minute threshold when he is available. And that the sum of his absences will likely always exceed 25 games.
This raises the question: Who’s going to pay him if and when he reaches free agency? ESPN’s salary-cap guru Bobby Marks isn’t sure such a team exists.
Mitchell Robinson probably isn’t getting starter money this summer
“When you go outside of your own team [to sign as a free agent] it just becomes a lot more challenging,” Marks explained to the New York Post’s Stefan Bondy. “To try to find an offer for someone who averages 20 minutes a night.”
Robinson will have suitors anyway. He is too dominant on the glass, and at times, on the defensive end for teams to entirely write off. As Marks alludes to, though, the idea that he’ll get more than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($15.1 million) is probably a stretch.
Heck, the MLE itself could be a tall order. And if another team offers it, strings may be attached, like only guaranteeing one year of work, maybe two.
That puts the Knicks in the driver’s seat—not just in terms of keeping him, but of re-signing him for less than most expected.
The Knicks may not have to give Robinson a raise
One NBA agent tells Bondy that Robinson “is worth his current contract,” which he signed in 2022, to the tune of $60 million, on a similar scale.
Signing him to an identical deal would be huge for the Knicks. In fact, if he were willing to accept exactly what he’s making now ($13 million), the team could feasibly delay its entry into the second apron for another season.
This is not an idea that will fly with Robinson, and his agents. But he is ultimately at the behest of the market. And while yours truly has pinballed back and forth on what that market can be, the more you munch on it, the more it feels like the prospect of him gaining leverage over New York is a fictive scare tactic.
A plausible worst-case scenario could consist of Robinson receiving a slight raise that forces the Knicks into the second apron, but leaves them close enough to escape it if things go belly up, or the right aggregative-trade opportunity presents itself. That’s degrees removed from the $20-plus million per year for which some are bracing.
Nothing mused about here spares the Knicks from reconciling Robinson’s importance versus his availability and peak workload. It does, however, give them one less thing to worry about at the trade deadline.