NEWSLETTER
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the New York Knicks are reportedly finalizing a four-year rookie extension with guard RJ Barrett.
The news comes after weeks of talks between the Knicks and Utah Jazz regarding a trade for Donovan Mitchell. And, unsurprisingly, Wojnarowski has reported that those conversations will now have to restart due to Barrett’s big payday.
While the Jazz-Knicks trade talks intensified and the gap on deal points that included Barrett in the package tightened over the weekend and into Monday, there remained a gulf on reaching a trade for Mitchell, sources said. Once the Knicks and Jazz exhausted discussions Monday night, Rose and Duffy finalized the extension eligible to players out of the 2019 NBA draft class.
To be clear, there is still a path for Mitchell to end up in New York, but reworking a deal could prove extremely difficult due to the “Poison Pill” provision. In simple terms, since these trade discussions are going on right after his rookie scale extension signing, the two teams would be stuck dealing with vastly different incoming and outgoing salaries. As Woj notes, “for trade purposes, the poison pill is computed with a formula that would put the Knicks’ outgoing salary for a Barrett trade at $10.9 million but require the incoming salary for a team acquiring him to be $26.2 million.”
ESPN’s Bobby Marks explains a lot more about the possible obstacles with the “Poison Pill” restriction here. He also mapped out some of the assets that could still go back to Utah to make a trade work below:
In our eyes, all that really matters is that this makes the possibility of a Mitchell trade that much more unlikely. Not only do the two sides now have to shake the etch a sketch clean, but the clock is ticking toward the start of the regular season. We all know teams like to enter the year with an established identity, and there are a unique set of challenges that can come with adding a big-name in the middle of the season.
For a team like the Chicago Bulls, it’s hard not to see this deal falling apart as a positive. Already expected to be duking it out with a handful of teams for a playoff spot, the last thing the Bulls need is for Mitchell to arrive in the Eastern Conference and thrust another organization into the competitive mix. Again, the possibility of a trade to the Knicks (or another team in this conference) can’t be ruled out quite yet, but I’m pleased to see things have hit at least hit a speed bump.
