As for Fournier, he had only one fully guaranteed year left on his current contract.
So he would not interfere with the Trail Blazers' plans going forward, either.
With no salary pressure this season, the Trail Blazers could use him to reach the salary floor. Then, next season, they could simply do what the Knicks would have done: decline his team option and send him packing.
That would immediately free up another chunk of cap space for the Trail Blazers, giving them more room to prepare for their rebuild.
In fact, if the Knicks had not been so eager to gain more flexibility this summer, they would have had quite a few other options.
For example, they could have waited another year until Fournier's contract became a more valuable expiring deal, then traded it for some positive assets.
Alternatively, they could simply have waived him and invoked the stretch provision, spreading his remaining year's $19 million salary over five seasons. ($18.85 million + $19 million; the second year was a team option and was not fully guaranteed.)
Handled that way, Fournier's contract, which would otherwise still have occupied nearly $20 million of the team's cap space next season, would instead have counted for less than $4 million a year over the next five years.
Four million dollars.
On the Knicks' current roster, Ethan, who was still on his rookie contract, was the only player earning less than $4 million~~
That would actually have been a solid option, too.
But ultimately, after careful consideration, the Knicks probably decided it was better to get the pain over with than drag it out. They cut the knot and traded him outright, sending Gallinari along with him, since the veteran no longer had much of a role on the team.
The move cleared nearly