Getty Kevin Durant and RJ Barrett.
The New York Knicks just made acquiring Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell more difficult by signing forward RJ Barrett to an extension.
Barrett signed a four-year extension that will pay him upwards of $120 million once it kicks in after next season, and while he can still be included in a Mitchell deal, chances are slim that it’ll happen.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, this contract comes with a “poison pill” that makes moving him hard as it’s not as simple as matching the salaries.
“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,” he wrote. “The restriction will be lifted next offseason July 1.”
Because of that, the Knicks will likely have to explore other options, and as SNY’s Ian Begley lays out, it will have to come in the form of draft picks.
“Deal could still happen without RJ Barrett,” Begley said. “It just means the Knicks, I think would have to be willing to go to a place they hadn’t been willing to go when you talk about draft compensation, and first-round picks, and unprotected first rounders. The Knicks hadn’t been willing to go to where the Jazz have been asking them to.”
An example of what a deal could look like without Barrett comes from Bleacher Report’s Tim Daniels, where he shows it’s certainly possible for the Knicks to acquire Mitchell without giving up Barrett.
Another Avenue
For the Knicks, keeping Barrett is likely the best case scenario because it allows the young forward to continue his development with the team who drafted him.
Daniels lays out the way for Mitchell to make his way to New York, and it involves moving Julius Randle and a plethora of draft picks.
- Knicks Receive: Donovan Mitchell
- Jazz Receive: Julius Randle, Obi Toppin, Quentin Grimes and six first-round picks/pick swaps to UTA
This move would create a “Big 3” of sorts in New York consisting of new point guard Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell and RJ Barrett. Obviously, they would need a bit more around them to become competitive, but this certainly looks like it’d be enough to become a playoff team. Mitchell is easily the most accomplished of the three, but all of them have flashed star potential.
Utah has coveted Grimes in a trade, and Daniels believes it could come down to how willing the Knicks are in including him.
“Grimes’ inclusion would likely be important from the Jazz’s perspective in either case, and it’s unknown whether the Knicks are willing to part with the promising 22-year-old guard,” he wrote. “Ultimately, the path to Mitchell landing in New York featured far fewer roadblocks before the Barrett extension, so the fact the sides couldn’t come to an agreement says a lot. It will be difficult to navigate the additional hurdles his new deal brings to the equation.”
Whatever the case is, the Knicks have a tough path ahead of them but the door isn’t shut.
Talks Are Alive
Wojnarowski reports talks fizzled on August 29, and that’s what ultimately led to the Barrett extension.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
However, there’s still optimism talks could start up again before the season begins, so the dream isn’t dead yet.
“Nevertheless, neither Utah nor New York is ruling out restarting the talks before the start of training camps in late September, sources said,” Wojnarowski said.
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