NBA Free Agency Rumors: At some point, it will be the Knicks' turn to sign people

I'm very bad company this time of year. Early July is the season in which you'll be telling me about your life or your thoughts or an eggplant you once saw and I'll gradually tune out, sliding my phone out of my pocket to check Twitter. I'm not wincing because your story moved me, I'm wincing because Carlos Delfino just signed somewhere other than New York. I have alerts set up for all the news-breakers now, so I can at least expedite my departures from the real world, but still, to anyone who spends time with me (a bird and maybe three humans on a good day): This is boorish behavior and I am sorry.

....and this weekend, it was totally for naught. The Knicks did nothing. Not one thing. There wasn't even a new rumor or any sweet, tasty "interest" to speak of. After emptying out most of their trade assets and going a solid two-for-three in retaining incumbent free agents of note, the Knicks are left with a chunk of their mini MLE and lots of minimum contracts to hand out. This weekend was a reminder that free agency works roughly in tiers, with teams waiting until the biggest contracts are signed before moving onto medium-sized (often exception-generated) contracts, then rounding out rosters with minimum deals. Or, said differently, most players won't sign minimum contracts until they're certain they can't do better. It's players waiting on teams waiting on players and so on.

Because of their financial restrictions, the Knicks are way at the end of the queue, and it's still quite early. So I wasted lots of valuable family-ignorin' time this weekend glancing at my phone to find only that numerous Knick targets-- Delfino, Matt Barnes, Francisco Garcia, Devin Harris, Earl Watson-- were getting scooped up elsewhere, mostly for salaries slightly exceeding what New York could have offered. Free agency is a bit like the draft, and the Knicks and their negative cap space have quite the shitty pick.

So, it'll be a bit before the Knicks are on the clock. In the meantime, we have our lingering rumors, summed up by Marc Berman: the Knicks are, as we speak, applying lipstick and glitter to a giant $1.75 million-dollar check to make it more attractive to Elton Brand, and names like Sebastian Telfair, Aaron Brooks (or Aaron Brookstargets), Will Bynum, and Dahntay Jones remain available (Jones's name kinda crept into rumors over the last few days). Anthony Morrow's name has come up, too. I imagine all those guys are holding out for a better deal before turning their attention to New York. Hopefully, the Knicks are keeping themselves busy elsewhere, perhaps quietly working on some foreign import we've never heard of. Oh, and they've got to officially sign Tim Hardaway Jr. at some point soon, which they will. Mostly, though, the Knicks are waiting. They and we must wait.

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...here's a goat jumping on a pig: