The New York Knicks entered Tuesday night’s NBA draft with a problem: They had some players they liked at No. 24, as well as with the first pick in the second round at No. 31, but they’re also dealing with a second-apron luxury tax problem. They’ve got only about $15 million to work with under that apron, and team owner James Dolan made it clear in an appearance on WFAN last week that he would not go over the second apron, even to keep the championship roster intact. That’s where Sergio De Larrea comes in.
Yes, De Larrea is talented. But he has some added value for the Knicks–he is from Spain and has signaled a willingness to stay overseas for a year before he comes to the NBA.
So, after the Knicks first traded down from the No. 24 spot to No. 25, with the Lakers, they then continued to seek a deal that would unload the pick altogether. Failing that, the Knicks went with plan B: draft De Larrea, with the potential of sending him to Europe.
Sergio De Larrea Gets Flipped
De Larrea certainly boasted some potential. He is 6-foot-6 and 20 years old, and has been playing for Valencia of the Spanish League–arguably the second-best league on the planet–since 2022, and played 18.3 minutes in 28 league games this season. He averaged 9.7 points and 3.7 assists on the season, and made an impressive 40.7% of his 3-pointers.
But after drafting him, the Knicks flipped De Larrea, then flipped themselves out of the first round altogether. As ESPN’s Shams Charania wrote, the Knicks continually tried to bump themselves out of the first round, and only succeeded in doing so after the first round ended.
Wrote Charania on Twitter/X: “Sources: New York traded No. 25 pick Sergio De Larrea to the Dallas Mavericks for No. 30 Koa Peat and two second-round picks. And then the Knicks traded Peat to the Phoenix Suns for three-rounders and cash. So Knicks move out of the first round — pick up 5 seconds and cash.”
Knicks ‘Cannot Go Into the Second Apron’
Dolan last week told WFAN that the Knicks, “cannot go into the second apron.”
He added: “I don’t know if we’ll be able to. We’re willing to stretch, but there’s certain things in the NBA that you’d have to be suicidal to do. One of them is the second apron.”
Again, with only about $15 million of space under that limit, the Knicks would be handcuffed in a significant way. The conventional wisdom is that a team in one of the NBA’s biggest markets would shell out to keep its roster together after a title win. But Dolan is … not conventional.
With Mitchell Robinson likely to cost more than $20 million annually in free agency, Landry Shamet more than $10 million and Jose Alvarado at least $4.5 million. the chances of bringing back the whole crew are nil, if Dolan sticks with his second-apron edict
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