This round of free agency has yet to reach New York

I feel like we've had something resembling this discussion a few times this summer, but it's been a couple weeks, I'm getting restless, and I think some of y'all are getting restless, too. The Knicks' roster sits at eleven men (including C.J. Leslie). They're allowed to bring up to 20 to camp, and I think we can at least pencil Jeremy Tyler and Toure' Murry into two of those extra nine spots. While additional non-guaranteed camp invites might not occur until right before camp (for example), there are surely some real, guaranteed signings left to make. (That is, unless the Knicks are really going to leave four or five roster spots open for training camp battles. It would be unprecedented and ill-advised but so much fun.)

So: signing more people. It has to happen at some point, and it feels sometimes like the Knicks and guys like Kenyon Martin are just sitting at opposite sides of a table, staring at a contract without touching it. We've had some important reminders over the last day or two, though, that the free agency train hasn't reached desolate, impoverished Knicksville yet:

1. Nate Robinson signing with the Nuggets for the biannual exception. Nate had been one of several guys still out there whose lack of movement had some of us thinking he might be ready to settle for the minimum, making New York a possibility. No sir! Nate was patient, and Nate got paid.

2. Jared Zwerling's article on the wait for Kenyon Martin. This sorta frames it as Martin waiting, like Robinson did, to see if a team will pay him more than the veteran's minimum, though given how relatively high the minimum would be for a player with his experience and given all those colorful Instagram graphics Martin's been re-Instagramming, that may very well be backward. It may be that the Knicks themselves are waiting on other big men (and there are other big men) they find more desirable to make sure THOSE guys won't settle for a minimum. Maybe it's both.]

Basically: The Knicks have the least possible amount of money to spend now that Metta World Peace has taken the rest of their mini MLE. All they have is the bare minimum. No cap space, no exceptions. Every team in the NBA (thanks bluecheese) with exception money or even a whiff of room under the salary cap has more financial leverage than the Knicks do. It's possible guys resigned to the minimum are waiting on the Knicks-- that's certainly true for fringe bros in the picture like Bobby Brown and various SummerKnicks. In most cases, though, the Knicks are waiting on guys to become resigned to the minimum. Only once players sought bigger paychecks, failed, and accepted their diminished value in the league and/or their own mortality will they turn toward New York.

We must continue to wait. In the meantime, Alex Raskin put together a nice list of remaining free agents and that USA Today link above is worth a look as well. And hey, while we're at it, Zwerling mentioned Ivan Johnson as a possible target yesterday. The pool is not empty!