Knicks president downplaying urgency of 2019 free agency

Although this summer's highly anticipated free-agent class is expected to include the likes of Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, and Kyrie Irving, the New York Knicks no longer view 2019 as a make-or-break summer for the club, sources told the New York Post's Marc Berman. Team president Steve Mills, for his part, is downplaying the need for the Knicks to make a major splash during the 2019 offseason.

"We are in a position if we need to find a slot for a max salary, we can do that," Mills said Friday, according to Berman. "Our focus is on the guys that we have right now, developing them, and also developing the environment, or the culture, that exists around our team."

While New York has $32 million in cap space and has tentative moves in place to free up enough room for a $38-million max contract, sources told Berman, Mills maintains that developing the team's young players and improving the state of the organization is paramount in being a desirable location for free agents.

"If we don't make this a place the guys internally feel something good is happening and believe in what we're doing, that's not going to be attractive to people who are on the outside," Mills said. "Our guys have to feel it and then (free agents) have to hear about it and see it in how our guys are interacting with us. The plan is that we develop an environment that free agents should want to be here."

New York entered Saturday's play sitting near the bottom of the NBA with a 9-25 record.