The New York Knicks are reportedly willing to take on some bad money, if they get an asset in return.

That’s according to SNY’s Ian Begley, who wrote this the other day:

A note on the offseason: several teams said the Knicks are open to using their cap space to take on undesirable contracts via trade, SNY has learned.

The Knicks would presumably acquire another draft pick and young player in this kind of trade. New York has the No. 8, No. 27 and No. 38 picks in the draft.

The idea of taking a bad contract into cap space could be one of several avenues the Knicks are considering this offseason. Depending on what they decide to do with the contract options for Bobby Portis, Wayne Ellington, Taj Gibson and Reggie Bullock, New York could have more than $60 million in cap room in the offseason.

It just so happens that the 76ers have a couple of rough contracts to navigate, and perhaps Daryl Morey can make a phone call with an Al Horford-related inquiry. Would the Knicks be willing to eat that deal, and at what price? Future draft picks? A young player?

Hypotheticals are Russ Joy territory, since he loves doing these “what if” NBA trade scenarios, but for the sake of the article I found this from 97.5 the Fanatic to be interesting:

Attach Thybulle to Horford and send them both to the Knicks? I’d give serious consideration to that, but I don’t think New York would do it.

Losing Matisse would be a bummer, but the cap space you free up is enough to bring in a shooter or two and give Ben Simmons and Joel what they really need, which is… shooting. Horford is clunky and redundant and Matisse has a future as a three and D wing, but losing him would not be the end of the world.

Horford hits the cap around $27,000,000 for the next three seasons, and Thybulle would be near $2.7 million in 2020 as a second year guy. Maybe you could take back one year of Elfrid Payton or something like that, which is better than multiple years of Horford, but I’d be stunned if the Knicks went for something like that. They have better options out there.