Animosity has developed between the Spurs and Knicks organizations over the Marcus Morris free agency odyssey and alleged tampering involving Kristaps Porzingis, Frank Isola of The Athletic and Ian Begley of SNY TV report.
Morris backed out of a verbal agreement to sign a two-year, $19MM contract with San Antonio and inked a one-year, $15MM deal with the Knicks. While he’ll earn more in 2019/20 as a Knick, the actual value of next year’s salary isn’t significantly larger, as Isola points out, due to New York’s state taxes. Morris’ motivation was to max out his earnings in ’19/20 before entering a weaker free agent market again next summer.
The Spurs are upset at a number of levels, according to Isola. Not only are they upset about the Knicks swooping in, they had opened up the mid-level exception for him by dealing forward Davis Bertans to the Wizards and asking DeMarre Carroll to rework his free-agent contract. Carroll was eventually acquired from the Nets in a sign-and-trade.
New York saw the signing of Morris as a “small victory,” according to Isola, after missing out on top-level free agents. The Knicks gained more cap room by re-working Reggie Bullock‘s free agent deal. Bullock underwent a cervical disc procedure this week.
New York’s front office also feels that the Spurs had it coming because they alleged crossed lines of accepted behavior prior to the 2017 draft when it was shopping Porzingis, Begley writes. The exact nature of San Antonio’s behavior is unclear, Begley adds, though Isola asserts there may have been illegal contact between the Spurs and Porzingis during that time. The talented big man wound up with the Mavericks in a deadline deal last February.
Also the Knicks don’t even need Morris with all their other forwards
Pops can collude to try and make the Lakers worse but when other teams do something during the period where no agreement is official he gets mad. Ok Gregg
How did Pop make the Lakers worse???
Trading Kawhi to Toronto instead of the Lakers was illegal under the laws of Lakerland.
Not illegal but he sure played himself. Better off having Ingram and Ball + picks and not an bad DeRozan contract. But his Lakers delusion syndrome kept in the way of benefiting his franchise.
I’m sure the spurs making the playoffs and the lakers not was a victory in his eyes. Why is it wrong to not want to benefit your competition?
Whats the Spurs ceiling, a first round exit? Ingram is 8 years younger and not making 27 million a season. Anyone would take that potential package over DeRozan and Polti. Spurs will be in a dogfight just to make the playoffs this season
True but the Spurs were still looking to compete right now with Aldridge. So DeRozen was going to allow them to do this over Ingram and Ball. I mean I like Ingram but he’s no where near the player DeRozen is at this point in his career
And it’s highly possible he never will be as good considering his health issues.
B/c the Lakers were the only ones with a different offer than Toronto…
Can you read? I said he colluded to try and he absolutely did that when he called Dell Demps. Reading comprehension is hard
I understand the words but some sources would be nice. Or do you just believe every internet comment
Pretty much HR commenters believe every rumor they read.
Even if Pop colluded it wouldn’t be different then all the years the Lakers or other teams did.
Laker fans have just become butt hurt to “what goes around comes around” they’ll make an excuse or blame someone when they fail to win with LBJ and AD
Some NBA fans are so dumb…Morris agreed to a deal and then backed out of it…call it what you want but I’m sure it will hurt Morris’ reputation, not that it was great to begin with.
Its funny because that doesn’t even change my point. Spurs tampered twice so even if assuming the Knicks did tamper thats sill only half of what the Spurs are guilty of. Calling people dumb even though your argument is flawed. Nice
Every team is now tampering with players. To say one team is doing it and another is not is a joke. A promise before a player can sign is not a signed contract any more. Morris is not the only player to do that. If the NBA wants to stop all of this all they need to say no player or team can announce a signing before the contract is signed. Put a 10 day moratorium on all trades and released players 10 day before FA begins.
Anyone remember deandre Jordan and the mavs?
Too early to give up on the existing moratorium… this rare Morris example may have its own day in “court” via retributions or commissioner scrutiny.
My thing is , the Knicks signed another forward just to stick it to SA? Great use of money and roster. And they wondered why superstars wouldn’t take their money.
Anyone with a good rep should never associate with the Dolan Knicks. He killed Isiah, Phil and others.
Knicks Roster(actual previous roster designations):
PG- Payton, DSJ, Frank
SG- Barrett, Ellington, Trier, Bullock
SF- Knox, Dotson, Brazdeikis
PF- Randle, Morris, Portis, Gibson
C- Robinson, ?
Decent depth at 1-4, especially 2 and 4. 5 seems a bit thin unless Gibson and Randle play some C. That’s 15 guaranteed contracts.
Great point about Pop!
The Knicks are a joke lol. Dolan is to the Knicks what Herb Kohl was to the Bucks. Bad moves, running the team into ground. New owners and now look where the Bucks are. Best team in the east for years to come.
That’s a lot of NY tax $
Frankie Ice isn’t so good at math. Hopefully he let’s his accountant worry about his own taxes.
Lol. I just did the math and based on his $15MM income he’s in the highest tax bracket at 8.82% (+$72k). Comes out to about $1.4MM in taxes so the ice man was way off.
They *opened/freed up use of their MLE* — not cap space. They were capped out this summer. The “open up cap space” line is often misused due to a high number of teams not having cap space each summer. Sometimes moves are made to create room under the tax or to allow a team to stay under the apron and use full MLE, for example.
Sounds like the spurs are a little prissy.
The Knicks messed up by sticking their neck out for a player that is mostly for stashing… He is a weak link as a 3.
The Bullock situation is attached too, though for good or bad, too early to say.
Also, if the Knicks adopt rough physicality because of the nature of the roster they signed, that will draw emnity.
I picture Mills/Perry giggling over finding ways to game the system.
It’s gonna be funny if the Knicks are somehow competitive this year but can’t make a deadline splash they’re interested in because they hamstrung themselves salary-wise with the Morris signing. Handing out a bloated contract just to stick it to the Spurs seems like a great use of resources. Lol
Pop screwed the spurs by mishandling KL. Awful. His ego cost the spurs big time. That was the first domino to fall.