The New York Knicks have been spurned by the biggest free agents in the game over the last decade, but perhaps things would be different if they were able to net the biggest free agent of them all: Michael Jordan.
ESPN’s Anthony Olivieri looked back at the summer of 1996 in an oral history of how the Knicks attempted to lure Jordan to New York.
That summer, a year after the NBA’s first lockout, was considered the beginning of the free-agent bonanza that we are familiar with in the NBA today.
But there were still no max contracts or luxury tax in place, just a salary cap restriction.
Because the Bulls owned Jordan’s Bird rights, they were the only team allowed to go over the $24.4 million cap, basically making them the only team to afford Jordan.
The Knicks, meanwhile, had a little less than $10 million in cap space. So how exactly could they even compete with the Bulls?
Well, here’s how the story goes:
Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf had asked Jordan’s agent, David Falk, if the number Jordan was looking for started with a “2.” Falk informed him it did not.
As Reinsdorf was left to think about his offer, Falk spoke with then-president and CEO of Madison Square Garden Dave Checketts, who told him “all of our cap room, all of it, can be yours if Michael will come.”
Checketts said he gave Falk a day to think about it, but surely, Jordan would require more than the $9.45 million in cap space the Knicks had to offer. In Sam Smith’s book, “The Jordan Years,” it was said that the Knicks ownership, ITT Corporation — which also owned Sheraton hotels — would pay Jordan $15 million to become the face of the hotel chain.
Such a deal would have been illegally circumventing the salary cap and the NBA was very strict about skirting its cap rules, having voided several other contracts for much less.
Smith’s book said this was the brainchild of Falk and Checketts also said that Falk returned to him and said to “spice up what we were doing under the cap with a nice package from our parent corporation.”
Falk denied having such a conversation with Checketts, while Checketts said he never offered anything like that because he knew it was illegal.
After speaking with Checketts, Falk had a second conversation with Reinsdorf, who knew Falk was talking the Knicks, but came in with a record $30.14 million one-year offer, which was agreed upon on July 12 — one day after free agency began.
“Jerry knew that the issue wasn’t that another team was going to push us,” Falk said. “It was a question of just simply he had to make Michael feel comfortable.”
Former Knicks GM Ernie Grunfeld speculated that the Knicks were used as leverage in Jordan’s negotiations with the Bulls.
“Obviously, who wouldn’t have interest in Jordan?” Grunfeld said. “I don’t know how close [Jordan came to signing with New York]. I think maybe they were using the Knicks as leverage to d rive the price up…a lot.”
Alas, Jordan returned to the Bulls and won two more NBA titles. The Knicks instead spent that cap money on Allan Houston, Chris Childs and traded for Larry Johnson.
They would make the NBA Finals in 1999 with that core only to fall to the San Antonio Spurs.
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