[Woj] Knicks guard Josh Hart has exercised his $12.9 million option for 2023-2024, sources tell ESPN.
Knicks guard Josh Hart has exercised his $12.9 million option for 2023-2024, sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 29, 2023
by DaddyDanger7
5 Comments
Slight plus for the Knicks cap wise. I’m sure they’ve already promised an extension before the season starts.
Some body getting moved.
I have a hard time believing we’re actually interested in Harden and not one of Paul George, Tobias, Kawhi, or Embiid. If Harden is getting traded, Embiid is not gonna be happy.
There’s absolutely no way Thibs is onboard with Harden being here. Every single guy we’ve acquired since he’s been here has been someone who’s willing to play defense and hustle.
Philly could be blowing it all up right now.
I was going to post this as part of a discussion in the daily thread, but I’m going to post a long excerpt from the recent article by Fred Katz for The Athletic discussing Hart’s contract situation:
>If Hart picks up the player option and extends later, it hints that the Knicks are prioritizing short-term finances, paying him slightly less in 2023-24 so they can make it up during the extension years. If he declines the player option and re-signs in free agency, it signals that the Knicks are prioritizing long-term flexibility over help today.
>The Knicks will operate over the cap this summer, which means they could have access to the lucrative non-taxpayer midlevel exception, which would allow them to sign someone to a starting salary up to $12.4 million for up to four seasons. Hart picking up the player option would give them significantly more leeway to use the midlevel exception on another player without paying the luxury tax or hitting the hard cap, which we will explain in a moment.
>Unless they make a big-time trade for a star, one that makes them contenders right away, the Knicks are not going into the luxury tax this season. And if Hart were to pick up the player option, the team as constituted would be about $13 million below the tax threshold, assuming they waived Isaiah Roby and DaQuan Jeffries, neither of whom is on a guaranteed contract in 2023-24.
>It would leave the Knicks enough room to use the midlevel exception and remain under the tax, though they would need to dump a little more salary if they used all $12.4 million of it. In this situation, they’d have only 13 players on the roster, one below the league-mandated minimum.
>If a team eats into more than $5 million of the $12.4 midlevel exception, that team becomes hard capped at about $7 million above the tax threshold. The tax line projects to be a hair above $165 million. The hard cap, in that case, would be around $172 million. If Hart picks up his player option and the Knicks use a good portion of the MLE, they would approach $165 million in payroll.
Is it possible that hart is expecting to get moved with this opt in?