The Cleveland Cavaliers center, Andre Drummond, has been in the commercial block for more than a month, but with the deadline approaching, the agreement has not yet been finalized. Your salary is the main reason. Drummond, a former NBA All-Star, is earning $ 28.7 million this season, and any team that acquired it would have to return almost the same amount to put him under the cap. Few interested parties have this type of salary available, so the expectation was that Drummond would eventually be bought and free to sign up with a new free agency team.
There is still time for a suitably motivated suitor to launch and hold it, however, and according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, such a suitor may have revealed himself. The New York Knicks has emerged as a serious possible destination for Drummond, reports O’Connor. Knicks are much more flexible in how they can acquire Drummond than most teams.
New York carried around $ 19 million in capitalization space this season, a rarity in the modern NBA, and they used a good deal of that to help acquire Derrick Rose last month. Now they have about $ 15 million of space left, which means they only need to send $ 13.7 million or more to match Drummond’s salary. The Knicks have eight players winning between $ 4-8 million, so that would be feasible. The alternative to New York would be to wait until Drummond was purchased and then use the coverage space to sign it on a hefty multi-year contract. No other team can match its current purchasing power, so if Drummond was interested in staying in New York, the Knicks could pay him handsomely for it.
New York center debut holder Mitchell Robinson recently returned from a fractured hand, and the Knicks also have Nerlens Noel in the center. Julius Randle made the All-Star Game for them in the attack and, disappointing as it was the eighth overall choice Obi Toppin, he still figures in the future of the team. All of this to say that Drummond would be a rather confusing addition to New York if they didn’t have other moves planned, but adding talent is rarely a bad thing.
If the Knicks want to add Drummond, the cover space will allow them to do so. No other team has the flexibility they have. Now they need to determine how interested they really are in downtown Cleveland and whether bringing it really worth the opportunity cost of using that coverage space elsewhere.