Brian Windhorst and a team of ESPN's insiders sort out life and the news from in and around the NBA world, including an under-the-radar James Dolan trend, an update to All-Star bonuses and a counterargument to veteran contract extensions.
New York Knicks owner James Dolan has changed for the better, he says.
Dolan gave his first interviews in nearly four years last week, touching on an array of topics, including escalating legal battles about using facial identification technology to enforce bans on lawyers and firms suing, which has drawn the attention of the state's attorney general and its liquor authority.
But one thing Dolan said stood out as particularly relevant to the current state of the Knicks. During an interview on WFAN, Dolan was asked whether he inserted himself into the trade discussions when the Knicks were looking at acquiring Donovan Mitchell from the Utah Jazz last summer.
"I didn't," Dolan said.
Dolan notably took over trade discussions for the Knicks to acquire Carmelo Anthony in 2011 and forced through a framework of a deal over the protest of then-general manager Donnie Walsh. Dolan says now he has learned from this and other incursions. His meddlesome days, according to him, are long gone.
"Not [meddled in trade talks] in the last 10 years. My attitude has changed," Dolan explained.
"Every new owner comes in thinking they've got the answer to how to make the team successful. Not to disparage my fellow owners, but there are franchises out there with owners over the last few years, you can look at new owners who have come in and thrown a lot of money ... and are not doing as well as they thought. You really got to leave a lot of the strategy to the guys who have dedicated their lives and careers."
Dolan's commentary on new owners' overaggressive early choices has plenty of historical merit, even if saying so might have irritated some of his newer peers on the NBA's board of governors. (For the record, Dolan had already been the Knicks' chairman for 15 years when he adopted this alleged hands-off policy. But let's move on from this digression.)
Does the kinder, gentler and apparently more trusting version of Dolan suggest he has retired his three-year itch?
For a long time now, just about every three years (sometimes less!) Dolan has overseen radical changes to Knicks' basketball operations. In 2011, three months after the Anthony deal, Walsh and Dolan agreed not to extend the GM's contract after just three seasons.
Walsh's replacement, Glen Grunwald, lasted just two seasons. He was demoted by Dolan days before the start of his third season in the role, even though Grunwald had overseen the construction of a 54-win team the previous season.
Steve Mills had two stints as head of basketball operations, one lasting one year and one lasting just less than three years. The two tenures wrapped around a three-year term for president Phil Jackson, who was let go with two years left on a $60 million deal in 2017.
No one was surprised at the Jackson firing, which had been coming. But Dolan bounced the replacement, Mills again, midway through the 2019-20 season despite the organization vowing it had entered a period of stability.
Dolan put former top agent Leon Rose in the team president chair in March 2020, which means the third anniversary of his hiring is coming soon.
"I picked Leon because I believe you look at the NBA and the game that we play, I believe that the team with the best talent wins," Dolan said last week. "Then you want a guy that can get you the best talent. And I believe that Leon Rose is still the best guy."
That vote of confidence came alongside another declaration: "I think our expectations should be that the team makes the playoffs."
The Knicks enter Tuesday's 7:30 p.m. ET home game against the Los Angeles Lakers in seventh place, one game out of a guaranteed playoff spot. They have a 3½-game cushion on 11th and being out of the play-in tournament.
The last Knicks coach to last a fourth full season was Jeff Van Gundy, who resigned in 2002. Mike D'Antoni is the only coach of the Dolan era to start a fourth season, and he resigned 42 games into that season.
Tom Thibodeau, who won coach of the year after his first season with the Knicks in 2020-21, is in his third season now.
Rose has put the Knicks in position to add impact talent in the future. His biggest swing, the aggressive salary-cap clearing and signing of Jalen Brunson last summer, is paying off. He has assembled a horde of draft picks that could eventually be used to trade for a star to play next to Brunson.
Some other big moves, such as the free agent acquisition of the now-benched Evan Fournier, and trading a first-round pick for the now-benched Cam Reddish, have not paid off. The prudence of playing hardball in talks for Mitchell, allowing the Cleveland Cavaliers to move in to complete the deal, won't be known until it's seen what the Knicks do with the assets they held on to.
The Dolan three-year track record makes this a bit of a danger zone. His stated expectation of making the playoffs underscores it.
When Dolan was asked on WFAN if there was a timetable for a star to be acquired, he hedged.
"Eventually, there's a timetable," Dolan said. "But, right now, what we're looking for is progress. We want to build into a championship team. We fully expect to make the playoffs this year. That will definitely be a benchmark."
It could also be a good test of just how much Dolan's attitude has changed.
There's a lot of bonus money on the line when the All-Star reserves are announced Thursday, and Bobby Marks totals it up:
These All-Star players are set to cash in
The starters for the 2023 NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 19 in Salt Lake City, Utah, are set.
After a combination of fans, media and the players themselves chose the five starters from each conference, the fate of the reserves (two guards, three frontcourt players and two wild cards) fell solely in the hands of the coaches, whose ballots were due Monday.
Fair or unfair, those same coaches now control millions of dollars (and to be fair, the fans, media and players played a role by voting in the starters).
There are seven players who are eligible to receive a bonus if they are selected as a reserve to the All-Star Game, five of whom have a legitimate chance of being selected to one of the final spots (sorry, Buddy Hield and Collin Sexton).
Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown finished third in the guard voting in the East and is a virtual lock to appear in his second All-Star Game. Once Brown is selected, he will earn a $1.5 million bonus as long as he appears in 65 games this regular season. He has missed only six games thus far.
Because Brown earned the bonus last season, it is deemed likely and has no impact on the Celtics' current projected $58.9 million luxury-tax penalty.
Two other players in the East, Milwaukee Bucks guard Jrue Holiday and Knicks forward Julius Randle are having All-Star-type seasons but are not guaranteed one of the final reserve spots.
Holiday, who is averaging 19.5 points and 7.3 assists, has a league-high 15 incentives in his contract, worth a combined $5.8 million this season. He will receive $324,000 if he is selected as an All-Star participant.
If Brown is selected as a guard, the competition for the final guard spot could come down to Holiday, Brunson, the Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton, the Philadelphia 76ers' James Harden and the Atlanta Hawks' Trae Young. Holiday could also be selected as one of the two wild cards but at the expense of a frontcourt player -- which leads us to Randle.
The 2021 All-Star is one of five players averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds this season (Lakers big man Anthony Davis, Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic are the others). Randle has 15 30-point games and has appeared in every game this season.
But is that good enough to sway the Eastern Conference coaches to select him over Adebayo and Pascal Siakam -- Philadelphia's Joel Embiid has the other one locked up -- for the final two frontcourt spots?
If not, can Randle beat out the group of guards mentioned above and forwards DeMar DeRozan (Chicago Bulls) and Jimmy Butler (Heat) for a wild-card spot to earn his $1.2 million bonus?
Out West, there is an argument to be made that Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis should have been named a starter over New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson.
Sabonis leads the league in rebounds per game and double-doubles and has six triple-doubles this season (third most in the NBA). He is a strong candidate to get one of the three frontcourt spots and would earn a $1.3 million bonus if he's selected.
And finally, Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon is vying for his first All-Star selection.
Gordon is averaging 16.8 points (the second most in his career), shooting a career-best 57% from the field and is on the top team in the Western Conference.
Because the two wild-card spots are likely occupied by guards Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers and De'Aaron Fox of the Kings (with an outside chance for Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves), Gordon's best chance of being selected is at the final frontcourt reserve spot -- with Sabonis and Utah Jazz big man Lauri Markkanen likely to be named to the roster.
Gordon's competition includes Davis, the LA Clippers' Paul George, the Memphis Grizzlies' Jaren Jackson Jr. and Portland's Jerami Grant.
If Gordon is selected, he'd earn a $600,000 bonus, which would cost the Nuggets $1.5 million against the luxury tax.
One thing to keep in mind is that Thursday isn't the last shot for a player to earn the All-Star bonus. In 2021, Sabonis was selected to the All-Star Game as a replacement for Kevin Durant -- who was selected as a starter this year but could again miss the game because of injury, opening up a roster spot for someone who isn't initially named as a reserve.
Counterpoint! Kevin Pelton has issued a rebuttal to Marks' call for contract extension rule changes published here last week:
Time to clamp down on veteran contract extensions
Last week in this space, ESPN's Bobby Marks made a compelling case for loosening the restrictions on veteran contract extensions in the next NBA collective bargaining agreement, actively being negotiated ahead of the postponed date for either side to opt out of the current agreement after this season.
I'm here to make the counterargument.
Often in CBA negotiations, it seems like the league is worrying about the most recent issues without thinking of the longer-term context. For example, after a wave of ill-conceived extensions handcuffed teams to underachieving players in the past, the NBA tightened the rules around extending veterans, so effectively that the practice became nearly extinct.
But in the wake of Kevin Durant leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016, the rules were loosened in the current CBA, which was enacted in 2017. A flood of contract extensions followed as teams tried to prevent players from even getting to free agency with Durant himself signing one in 2021, a pact that rendered his trade demand last summer somewhat toothless.
Contributing to this was the salary cap flattening for several years after the COVID-19 stoppage of play. Players looked for extensions to current contracts because it often was more lucrative than heading into free agency.
But the same old issues might be coming back again.
In the summer of 2021, having just reached the conference finals, the Hawks signed center Clint Capela to a two-year, $45 million extension that won't kick in until next season. Capela hasn't been as effective the past two seasons, and Atlanta might prefer having the option of moving on in favor of lottery pick Onyeka Okongwu at center.
That same offseason, the Charlotte Hornets extended the contract of guard Terry Rozier, who had outplayed the three-year deal he signed with the Hornets as a free agent in 2019. Rozier is averaging a career-high 21.5 points per game this season, the first of the extension, but his efficiency has dropped and Charlotte has him under contract for three more years through age 32.
Some of the 2021 extensions have aged well. The Celtics and Nuggets have to be thrilled to have Marcus Smart and Aaron Gordon on their current deals, respectively. And, of course, no contract is ever a sure thing. But the current extension rules limit the size of the mistakes teams can make. If players could sign veteran extensions for any amount up to their maximum salary as a free agent, I suspect we'd see teams get themselves in trouble with over-exuberant contracts.
In that scenario, when talks roll around on the next CBA, I'd bet we'll be considering the possibility of the NBA reimposing guardrails on veteran extensions similar to the ones that exist now.