Karl-Anthony Thomas and Knicks making progress in contract-extension talks, sources tell Newsday
Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns celebrates with the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy during the team's ticker tape parade and victory rally on June 18, 2026 in NYC. Credit: Getty Images/Angelina Katsanis
The Knicks’ immediate goal begins Monday with the start of training camp as they try to defend their first title in 53 years. But already they have turned an eye toward the long-term build of the team.
After a report on ESPN said that talks between the Knicks and Karl-Anthony Towns on a contract extension, “have stagnated,” league sources indicated that the talks remain ongoing and positive.
Towns is eligible to sign a contract extension of up to four years and $277 million right now and is due to earn $57 million this season with a $61 million player option for the 2027-28 season.
“There have been plenty of conversations with KAT and his camp,” a league source told Newsday. “Everything is positive. [The organization] loves him, think really highly of him. Just because [the] deal’s not done doesn’t mean it’s not going to [get] done.”
The Knicks have approached the efforts to keep the championship team intact with a desire to remain under the second apron of the salary cap — a level they came close to reaching last season and are on track to approach again this season, even after losing Mitchell Robinson in free agency.
But as important as Robinson was to the Knicks, his injury history and role as a backup made it hard to justify moving into the second apron to keep him. Towns is a much different story: the superstar complement to Jalen Brunson and a key to the franchise’s success in his two seasons in New York.
Towns, who will turn 31 in November, has indicated in the past that he hopes to finish his career in New York and there have been no indications that that desire, with the Knicks equally coveting his services, has waned.
A contract extension actually could help the Knicks, shifting the $61 million deal that he could command in 2027-28 to a smaller first-year number with a large, multiyear guarantee. That would allow the Knicks to take care of the rest of the business on the plate of the front office led by Leon Rose.
The Knicks have decisions to make this season with Deuce McBride, who is in the final season of his contract and earning just $3.9 million this season, and then Josh Hart and Brunson. Hart is due to earn $20.9 million this season and the Knicks hold a $22.4 million team option for the 2027-28 season.
Brunson helped facilitate the roster build that ended the long championship drought by taking a four-year, $156 million contract in 2024, rather than waiting a year when he could have signed a five-year, $269 million deal. But he is up for a contract extension after the 2027-28 season and at that time, as a 10-year veteran, he will be eligible for an extension of more than $400 million for five years.
To keep these pieces of the starting five in place, the Knicks will need the cooperation of all of the players to help make it work, and still they may have no way to keep the team below the second apron — which made remaining under it this season vital since the penalties grow more onerous when teams repeat above the line.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
