The Knicks suddenly have a cleaner reason to push Karl-Anthony Towns extension talks to the front of the line.
With Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers set to accept the NBA’s punishment for circumventing the salary cap in their dealings with Kawhi Leonard, New York has to treat next summer as more than a routine checkpoint. If Towns reaches free agency and declines his $61 million player option, the Clippers could be sitting there with the kind of cap room that makes a serious run possible.
At first glance, that idea sounds easy to dismiss. It shouldn’t be.
Los Angeles is already taking a major hit from the league’s discipline, including five first-round picks starting in 2029 and $30 million. The damage goes beyond the immediate penalties, too. This scandal is going to hang over the franchise for a while, and it also leaves the Clippers in a strange spot: battered, restricted, and with little reason to move slowly.
That’s where the danger comes in. A team with cap space and not much to protect can get aggressive fast.
For most of the offseason, the Knicks have been viewed as holding the upper hand in Towns extension talks. They won the title, he’s happy there, and that still matters. But the Clippers’ punishment changes the backdrop.
Superstars do not often hit free agency looking for a new home, especially not one entering his 30s. And if Towns turns down that player option next summer, he won’t automatically have a line of teams waiting to hand him a max deal. But it only takes one team to create a problem.
The Clippers could be that team. They won’t control their own first-round pick again until 2034, and their chances to draft in the first round during that stretch will be limited. Without the usual pipeline of young talent, they’re left with Keaton Wagler, Darius Garland, and cap space as the main pieces of their future.
Even after taking on Brandon Ingram’s 2027-28 salary in the Kawhi trade, Los Angeles still has a path to more than $55 million in spending power next summer. That gets close to Towns’ projected max salary of $61.6 million, and close enough to matter.
A four-year max from another team would land just under $265 million, and the Clippers would not be hard to imagine in that conversation. They have a long-term hole at center, and Yanic Konan Niederhauser is their only real option there. He is also working back from a Lisfranc injury.
New York has the ability to shut this down before it becomes a real issue. Both sides appear interested in getting an extension done, and the expectation remains that it will happen.
Still, the Knicks want to stay below the second apron, and that can make the numbers complicated. Complicated deals have a way of creating the exact kind of opening a desperate team with cap space would love to exploit.
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