The Knicks will not fight Boston for a chance to build the world’s most famous arena – Madison Square Gordon.
Opportunity for the pacers to bring former Celtics star Gordon Hayward back home to Indy, where he grew up and led Butler to two NCAA Final Four.
According to a source, Pacers is Hayward’s front runner and is trying to bring him down by sign-and-trade. The pacers don’t have cap space but names like Aaron Holiday and Miles Turner have come up.
In fact, the only two teams with the main cap space to sign Hayward are the Knicks and the Hawks. Knicks is interested in Hayward and has two jazz albums on Knicks’ staff. But Hayward prefers to go home.
New assistant general manager Walt Perry made Hayward the 10th choice in 2010. And recently hired assistant coach Johnny Bryant coached Hayward before moving to Boston in 2017 and saw his all-star career take a turn for the worse.
The Knicks have a cap of 35 million cap space for the free-agency opening on Friday night. Earlier in the post it was reported that the Knicks need to pay offer 20 million per offer for at least two to three years.
The Knicks are also in the market for a P te point guard that could be a starter. DJ August Gustin, Jeff T, Guy, Chris Dunn on their list. Goran Dragic has re-signed with Miami.
If Knicks doesn’t land at Hayward, he’s interested in Davis Burton of Washington, who was to meet with the Wizards at 1 p.m.
The Knicks will also choose to engage the Celtics in a sign-and-trade, in which they may even lower their pay. With the draft of Forward OB Topin and the addition of Hayward, Julius Randall becomes more costly.
Hayward, 30, is a perfect addition as a playmaking forward who shoots well from the 3-point range and was an All-Star in 2017 before breaking his leg. He has averaged 17 points on 50 per cent shooting from the field in 2019-20. His recent downturn led to speculation that he would make a choice in his million 34 million final year with Boston, but he took a turn by opting for Thursday.
His agent is Mark Bartelstein, who forgave three clients through the Knicks on Thursday at Taj Gibson, Bobby Portis and Wayne Ellington. Either of them, Gibson or Portis, has a legitimate chance to return to a lower deal.
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