The Knicks have shut down extension negotiations with Miles McBride for now, leaving the guard to play out a final year that is set to pay just under $4 million. His agent, Mark Bartelstein, said there may still be chances to reopen those talks during the season or in the near future, but for the moment the sides are not at the table.
That matters because McBride is entering a season in which a strong year could put him in line for a dramatic raise next summer, and the Knicks are working under a second-apron constraint that makes expensive roster decisions harder to manage. Bartelstein said McBride deserves an extension, and the relationship with Leon Rose and the front office remains good, but he also made clear that the club has chosen to pause the process even after speaking with the team throughout the summer.
McBride has become one of the more important rotation pieces on the roster, and Bartelstein pointed to the past three or four years as proof of that role, saying he has been a huge part of where the organization has gone and has served as the team’s sixth man. He also said McBride went through abdominal surgery last year, missed a couple of months, and came back for the playoffs before he was fully right again. That context helps explain why his camp wants a deal now: this is not a fringe player asking for security, but a key bench contributor whose value has already been established.
The friction is in the timing. The Knicks are trying to stay under owner James Dolan’s demand to remain below the second apron, and that creates a hard math problem if they want to keep all five starters on big contracts and still pay a significant deal to a reserve. In that setting, McBride is widely viewed as the most likely trade candidate on the roster before the Knicks risk losing him for nothing in the summer, and one season preview from Stefan Bondy projected that he will be moved. A recent trade watch on McBride underlined how quickly his contract status has become a front-office issue rather than just a performance question.
For now, the next step is not a deadline but a possibility. Bartelstein said there could be conversations later in the season or in the near future, and if there is no extension, McBride will head toward free agency next summer with leverage built on production, age and role. The Knicks have made their choice to wait, but the cost of that decision could rise fast if he keeps playing like a player worth more than the number on his current deal.
On Saturday, the Knicks also signed Dink Pate to an Exhibit 10 contract and quickly waived him, a move that, if he clears waivers as expected, will let the team keep his G League rights. Pate spent last year with the Westchester Knicks, where he averaged 16.0 points and 3.7 assists during the G League regular season, a separate reminder that the club is still managing the edges of its roster while the McBride question sits in the middle of it.
