New York Knicks: Pros and cons of signing Fred VanVleet in free agency

Concerns about VanVleet

Because the Knicks will have to bid with the Raptors, Pistons, and Suns (and whoever else is in this race) to sign VanVleet, the Knicks should be careful not to overspend.

For the Knicks to sign VanVleet, they will probably have to pay him $18 million or more to come to New York because they’re still a rebuilding team with no sight of being playoff bound. And with that understanding that the Knicks won’t be competitive for a while, the team should be wary of dwindling their cap space. The team still needs to add depth to the roster and shouldn’t want to prevent themselves from any significant free agent signings.

The other trouble about overspending on VanVleet is that the Knicks may overpay him because of the shallow starting point guard market. Since there aren’t many starting-caliber point guards available this free agency, the Knicks may be outbidding themselves because of such.

Here are some of the available point guards this offseason:

• Jeff Teague
• Goran Dragic
• D.J. Augustine
• Reggie Jackson
• Rajon Rondo
• Kris Dunn
• Michael Carter-Williams

None of these guards are as young and dynamic as VanVleet, which increases his value in this free agency. Since the supply of top talented guards is low, the demand will be high, and teams will be willing to overspend if they need to fill that position.

Another concern with paying VanVleet is if his contract is tradable. I tend to lean on the side that VanVleet’s deal will be moveable because he is a talented guard and has proven so on the Raptors.

But the potential issue with his contract being tradable is based on his play in New York. He is currently the third option in Toronto, and he can flourish in that role because the Raptors as a whole are outstanding. The Knicks, on the other hand, are still trying to develop and acquire talent. If VanVleet comes to New York and is thrown into a role that he is not suitable for (like Tim Hardaway Jr. & Julius Randle), then his contract may not be tradable.

Hardaway and Randle both signed contracts that were over their market value. Hardaway signed a $71 million contract while Randle signed a $62.1 million contract. Both were structured differently where Hardaway’s was a fully guaranteed contract for four years, while Randle’s deal is fully guaranteed for two years, with the third year being a team option.

We all witnessed how hard it was to trade Hardaway, and now we see the same with Randle. The Knicks had to trade Kristaps Porzingis to rid of Hardaway’s contract (unless you believe Tim Hardaway Sr.’s story about the Dallas Mavericks only wanting his son, and then Porzingis was thrown in at the last second). As for Randle, we saw one trade rumor which involved trading him, Dennis Smith Jr., and a future first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets to receive Terry Rozier and Malik Monk (I’ll take a hard pass). So, the Knicks should be prudent when trying to sign VanVleet because they shouldn’t want the same difficulties of moving a large contract.

However, to be fair, Knicks Fan TV announced that there are rumors where the Jazz may trade Mike Conley with draft capital to the Knicks for Randle. So, unlike Hardaway, trading Randle may not be that difficult. But we’ll have to wait until October to see if that transpires.