The road to a potential blockbuster trade sending Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell to the New York Knicks features even more hurdles after RJ Barrett signed a four-year contract extension worth up to $120 million with the Knicks.
Barrett has been a major piece of the trade talks between the teams, but the new deal includes a poison-pill provision between now and July 1, which complicates matters if the sides want to reach an agreement before the 2022-23 season.
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Knicks and Jazz would have to "start over talks with significantly different considerations," and Woj noted there are basically two options.
Option 1: Barrett still sent to Utah but a third team involved to take the remainder of Evan Fournier's four-year, $73 million contract
There are two teams with the cap space to take on Fournier without any further financial complications: the Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs. It's unclear whether either of those sides would be interested in taking on the Knicks guard in exchange for some draft capital.
Of course, the biggest problem with this option is that most of the parameters would be the same, but now some of the picks would be rerouted to a team with more cap flexibility when New York and Utah could have agreed to a deal before the Barrett extension.
That's unlikely to appeal to the Jazz because there was already a disagreement about the number of unprotected first-rounders they'd receive in the previous proposals, per Woj.