It was always widely believed that the road to re-signing Mitchell Robinson this coming summer would be rather challenging to navigate for the New York Knicks.
Be it due to possible heightened salary demands, outside competition, or in-house hesitancy to commit to a new multi-year pact with the injury-prone big, a number of questionable variables will be brought to light before negotiations are allowed to commence.
Sadly for Robinson, who has dropped sporadic hints of his interest in remaining with the club, another road block toward a potential re-up with the Knicks could very well be influenced by the play of trade deadline acquisition, Jose Alvarado.
Knicks may have to choose between Jose Alvarado and Mitchell Robinson
Simply put, come the offseason, Leon Rose and company may be forced to decide between committing to Robinson or Alvarado for the long term.
Though the point guard holds a player option for the 2026-27 campaign, there's a real possibility that he could either decline it and look for a salary higher than his current rate ($4.5 million per year) or simply wait for the summer of 2027 to ink a new deal.
Either way, Alvarado is expected to get paid, and rightly so.
He's one of the game's best perimeter defenders at his position who, since his debut with the Knicks back on February 8, has ranked second in the league in total steals (13) and third on the team in total plus-minus (plus-40).
It should go without saying that New York didn't trade for Alvarado to use him as a mere short-stint rental.
Considering his captivating on-court tenacity, still young age of 27, homegrown ties to the Big Apple, and the fact that he's already become a favorite among the franchise's faithful followers, the expectation should be that the front office is aiming to keep him around beyond the 2027 expiration of his current pact.
Unfortunately, with the fact that they are projected as a second-apron team for the foreseeable future, this means that in order to retain his services for the long haul, someone like Robinson, who could field offers somewhere in the $15-to-$20 million per-year range on the open market, may need to be sacrificed in this year's free agency period.
Though Robinson has certainly proven himself to be a high-end difference maker for the Knicks thanks to his tremendous rim-protecting and board-gobbling skills, with the way Alvarado has been playing, there's a strong case to be made that the guard's arrival was the ultimate nail in the coffin for the center's hope for an extended future in New York.