Knicks Rumors: Latest Buzz on Gordon Hayward Pursuit, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

The 2020 NBA free agency market may not have many marquee names outside of Anthony Davis, but it has been anything but boring since the games began on Friday night.

Once the clock struck 6 p.m. eastern, the deals starting coming in hot and heavy.

And surprisingly, there were some players that got copious amounts of cash.

The biggest winner of opening night had to be Sacramento Kings guard De'Aaron Fox, who signed a five-year supermax extension that could net him up to $196 million.

Montrezl Harrell surprised a lot of people by taking a two-year, $19 million deal to leave the Los Angeles Clippers to join crosstown rival Los Angeles Lakers.

In contrast, the Clippers may have overspent to keep Marcus Morris on a four-year, $64 million deal.

The first night was a blur, but there was very little action by the New York Knicks.

So far, they've signed Alec Burks to a one-year, $6 million contract and are exercising patience moving forward.

According to Marc Stein of the New York Times, the Knicks have $40 million in salary cap space and they remain interested in potentially using it to land Gordon Hayward.

But here's the rub: the Indiana Pacers seem to be his first choice and they are continuing to explore sign-and-trade options.

Hayward officially opted out of the last year of his contract, which was worth $34 million.

That's a lot of money to leave on the table, so it stands to reason that he's got a sense of the market and knows that there is a longer term deal waiting for him.

But is New York willing to give him that?

SNY's Ian Begley reports that the Knicks are hesitant to offer any long-term deals this offseason, which could mean that they won't put a four-year deal on the table for Hayward.

They are also coming in with lower figures than Indiana, who remain Hayward's preferred destination and are leaning towards a four-year, $100 million offer after a sign-and-trade.

But Hayward likes the idea of playing for head coach Tom Thibodeau and that might sway New York off it's unwillingness to go beyond a two-year contract and keep them in the running, reports NYT's Stein.

The Atlanta Hawks already spent some of their cap space Danilo Gallinari to the tune of three-years, $61.5 million. They still have $26 million left to spend, but that's not enough to sign Hayward.

That makes it a two-way race between the Knicks and Pacers, with the odds leaning more in favor of the latter.

Hayward averaged 17.5 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists last season for the Celtics. His time in Boston was marred with a litany of injuries, keeping him for realizing the same level of success he had with the Utah Jazz that resulted in an All Star nod.

For the former Butler standout to get back to an All Star level, it may come down to choosing the right team this offseason.

Will Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Go from L.A. to New York?

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Winning cures everything.

That holds especially true for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was having an uneven year with the Los Angeles Lakers before helping them win the 2020 NBA championship in the bubble.

Case in point: he scored just one point in the Lakers 95-86 win over the Jazz back in October of 2019.

L.A. fans were not happy.

For them, a player can't be on a two-year, $16.5 million deal and score one point.

But then the NBA Finals happened.

KCP came up big and was repeatedly the reason why the Lakers took control late in games over the Miami Heat.

According to StatMuse, he averaged 12.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists during the Finals, which was a vast improvement over his regular season stat line of 9.3 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.6 assists.

And now that he's opted out of the final year of his contract, teams are very interested in his skills as a closer.

One of those teams is the Knicks, according to SNY's Ian Begley.

New York needs a lot of help at the guard position and could use a veteran like Caldwell-Pope.

That may be a tall order, though, because the former No. 8 pick in the 2013 is still interested in running it back, but is looking for a "significant new deal with the Lakers or elsewhere," reports ESPN's Brian Windhorst.