Steve Popper: Knicks shut down contract talks, which could open up longer-term salary cap issues
Knicks guard Josh Hart celebrates his three-point shot against the Boston Celtics with center Karl-Anthony Towns late in the fourth quarter at Madison Square Garden on April 9, 2026. Credit: Brad Penner
The party is over.
The celebrations of summer were pushed aside for the start of training camp, but the Knicks still arrived with the glow of their status as defending NBA champions. They have spoken of maintaining the hunger that came with ending the 53-year title drought, of lessons learned from the postseason success and steps they can take forward.
But in the background, and maybe too open for the Knicks' liking, talk has been lingering about contract extensions and the distance between the two sides. So, maybe unusually and surprisingly, the Knicks shut down the talks Friday morning.
“As an organization, our entire focus is on preparing for the upcoming season and delivering another year for our fans to be proud of," a Knicks spokesman said a statement. "As a result, we will not be negotiating contract extensions until later in the season and will remain solely focused on preparing for the start of the season.”
It’s worth remembering where Knicks president Leon Rose arrived from, a past life as the head of CAA’s basketball division with a career built as one of the most powerful agents in the NBA. It’s perhaps no coincidence that the two Knicks starters who are up for an extension right now, Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart, are CAA clients. So posturing and posing by agents or through the players isn’t likely to rattle Rose.
The Knicks lost one player – Mitchell Robinson – from the primary rotation due to the team's desire to remain under the second apron of the salary cap. An argument could be made against surpassing the second apron level for a backup center with a troubling injury history.
But that argument is more difficult to make when it comes to Towns, Hart and Deuce McBride. Towns has a player option for $61 million in the 2027-28 season but can opt out at the end of this season and become an unrestricted free agent.
Monday morning, Towns was asked if talks had been progressing and he was open with his disappointment with the huge discount off the possible four-year, $277 million deal he is eligible for — a number he has said he would move off of, but not down to the level of a four-year, $200 million deal that the team has reportedly put on the table.
“I mean, simply put, I want to do something that can keep the team together and that can work with the Knicks and also values me,” Towns said. “And, I mean, none of those things have come close to happening. … I just won a championship, you thought it would be pretty easy.”
He was then asked if he believed anything could happen before the start of the season and he said, “It don’t look good.”
That matters.
It might make sense for the Knicks to push aside talks and focus on the performance on the floor, but by shutting down talks, the Knicks will lose some flexibility in their future payroll numbers. Once Oct. 19 passes and the season kicks off, the Knicks can not extend him unless he declines the player option for next season and that means they can’t use that $61 million as a front-loaded number making the years that follow fit better when Brunson is due for a huge raise.
Towns is not a typical disgruntled athlete. While he may want what he’s earned, he isn’t likely to let it show on the floor.
“I mean, he's been great, man,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said this week. “He was in great shape coming to camp. We have a conditioning test, and they passed it the first time. He looks good on the floor. I moved him around from the center spot to different spots on the floor, and he looks like he has a pretty good feel for it, and so I truly love the way that he's been practicing and how in tune and how in shape he is, and how he's helping the new guys out, too.”
The Knicks management can say whatever they want, but there is a reality that the players are human, that they will have uncertainty hanging over them. Towns said Monday night, “If there’s one thing about me, I’m loyal.” And he has been, willing to accept his role in New York whatever the team needed him to be. But he and the other players have talked about this team and wanting to remain a part of it and there is no assurance now.
"You always want to get it done, kind of as soon as possible, obviously, because you don’t want that trickling into the season,” Hart said at the start of camp. “Because whenever there’s uncertainty, there’s gonna be a lot of questions; there’s gonna be a lot of rumors. At a human level, sometimes that can wear people down and it can affect how you go out and handle business on a day-to-day basis, just some of that uncertainty.
“So obviously that’s something that you want to get done so that you don’t have to deal with that and focus on that. But we know that at the end of the day, it’s a business. You have situations like that and you never know what’s going to happen. But for me, as long as I wear this jersey, I’m gonna play as hard as I can for my guys and this city and hopefully we can figure that out. But we know it’s a business and we know if some of these things aren’t figured out by (the trade deadline in) February, it might be a different conversation.”
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.
