James Dolan made a strange promise before the playoffs, and the Knicks are now living through the fallout of a title run that delivered more than one kind of payoff.
In that viral pre-playoff speech to New York, the team governor asked his players for 10 weeks of commitment to their “singular pursuit” of an NBA Championship. He also told them something else: if the Knicks won it all, he’d pay for the wives and girlfriends of the players to get rings of their own.
After New York snapped its 53-year title drought, a few Knicks seemed to take him at his word. Landry Shamet, Kevin McCullar Jr., and Karl-Anthony Towns all followed up the championship with major offseason milestones.
Shamet and McCullar got engaged, while Towns officially married his fiancée Jordyn Woods. Whether Dolan had anything to do with the wedding bands is unclear, but every Knick did get a healthy share of the NBA’s championship bonus.
For Shamet, the bigger story may be what his new contract says about where the Knicks are now as a franchise. He was already living in New York City before signing with the team in 2024, and his existing ties to Mikal Bridges and Cam Payne from their Phoenix Suns days made him an easy fit. When Mike Brown arrived and was asked to push the team forward, he quickly zeroed in on Shamet as part of the answer.
That belief wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone who watched the back end of the previous playoff run. Tom Thibodeau had already leaned on the veteran when the team needed fresh legs and a different look, and Brown kept him in the mix from the start. Brown even “joke” that he’d cover the wing’s salary himself if it meant keeping him around.
The Knicks ultimately got the outcome front offices dream about: a player proving so useful that keeping him becomes the hard part. Shamet’s deal landed at around $6 million per year, with some player and team flexibility built into the later seasons, and that structure helped New York stay clear of the second apron.
That flexibility mattered because the Knicks had to let Mitchell Robinson and Ariel Hukporti walk from the championship roster, but they managed to bring back just about everyone else. Along with Shamet, they found room for Jose Alvarado, Mohamed Diawara, and Jordan Clarkson, and they added Andre Drummond to fill Robinson’s spot.
Shamet could have chased more money elsewhere. SNY’s Ian Begley reported as much after the contract was announced.
But the Knicks had something else going for them: the chance to keep winning in New York, plus the off-court value that comes with that market. Shamet even appeared on a Nike billboard outside Madison Square Garden during the 2026 postseason, a reminder of how much bigger the stage can be when the Knicks are good.
It took the franchise a long time to shed the weight of years of organizational dysfunction. Dolan eventually landed on Leon Rose and William Wesley’s front office to help turn things around, and now the payoff is showing up everywhere - in the roster, in the contracts, and in the fact that the Knicks can finally use their location like a real advantage.
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