Must read: How an ‘Extremely, Extremely Rare’ Contract Founded the Villanova Knicks.

However the Villanova Knicks’ legacy ends in the Big Apple, New York must thank the Pelicans for it.

That’s because of Josh Hart and the strange contract the Knicks traded for a year ago.

Hart, who made the game-winning three against the Sixers in the first round of the NBA playoffs and has carved out the junkyard dog role on Tom Thibodeau’s club, has an interesting footnote in the league. Before receiving a four-year, $81 million contract extension this past August, Hart was on one of the league’s more unusual deals.

Hart was a restricted free agent in 2021 after being traded to the Pelicans by the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis. He signed a three-year, $38 million extension that summer, which sparked controversy when it was first disclosed.

“Other agents and team people, it was a mix of people saying, ‘This is really interesting, how did this happen?” Dave Spahn, one of Hart’s three CAA representatives, told Front Office Sports. “That was one side. And the other side was, ‘What the hell is that, what a bad bargain.'”

The NBA was coming off a 72-game shortened season, having finished the previous one in the Orlando bubble due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The salary cap remained constant, owing primarily to lower league revenue due to a lack of attendance for much of the season. It was August, and Hart remained unsigned three weeks into free agency, with only a limited number of roster spots and cap space available.

Hart and the Pelicans eventually agreed to a three-year, $38 million agreement with several stipulations. For starters, only $12 million was guaranteed, and that was all in the first year. The second year was nonguaranteed for $13 million, thus serving as a team option with a deadline of June 25, 2022. The last year was a player option, allowing Hart to become an unrestricted free agent a year earlier. Hart described the deal as a “low point” that indicated the Pelicans “don’t want me.” This summer, he told Taylor Rooks that his contract forced him to play with a “mentality of just f*** you. … I’m worth more than this.”

“I think as in a lot of cases in life innovation is usually born out of necessity,” Spahn said. “We looked around and thought, ‘How can we find a creative way to get him to free agency sooner?'” Because we believe this deal is just below market for Josh, but we didn’t have many options at the time to earn him more money. If you can’t acquire the number of an agent you want for your guy, strive to get him to free agency sooner.”

NBA contracts often include either a player or team option in the last year of the contract. (Rookie contracts include two consecutive team options.) Hart’s contract included one of each, which is unusual.

“I think it’s a unique contract,” Bobby Marks, former Nets assistant general manager and current ESPN front office insider, told Front Office Sports. “It’s unique in that it provided him the option of becoming a free agency while simultaneously giving the Pelicans the option of waiving him with no [financial] consequences. I would suggest that having a nonguaranteed option in the second year, followed by a dual player option with a nonguaranteed date, is highly rare.”

NBA teams frequently want contracts with team control, particularly on the back end of the agreement, which is why Harts’ agents predicted he’d be traded when he signed the three-year extension. In February 2022, Hart was moved to the Trail Blazers in exchange for CJ McCollum during his first year on the contract. Portland guaranteed the second year of his deal for approximately $13 million in June. The next February, Hart moved on to the Knicks, where he reunited with Jalen Brunson, his Villanova college teammate. Hart quickly became a fan favorite for his rugged play, which helped the Knicks win their first postseason series in a decade last season.

He has also demonstrated his personality to fans, most memorably trash-talking former Knicks murderer Reggie Miller near the close of Game 2 of the Knicks-Pacers series Wednesday night. The Knicks triumphed to lead the series 2-0, and Miller was calling the game for TNT when supporters screamed “F*** you Reggie,”

“I don’t know if you heard, but I think they’re saying, ‘F*** you,'” Hart said Miller.

This past June, Hart chose to extend his original Pelicans contract for the last year, a player option for about $13 million. This gave New York the financial flexibility to sign another former Villanova teammate, Donte DiVincenzo, to a four-year, $47 million contract. DiVincenzo has also become a postseason hero this spring, sinking clutch shots against both the Sixers and the Pacers. According to Marks’ cap research, if Hart had declined the option and gone straight to free agency, the outcome could have been different.

“If he would have become a free agent and signed that where the extension is right now at that $18.1 million next year, I don’t know if New York would have been able to sign Donte,” Marks stated. “In terms of where they are, where they were with the hard cap, and so on. So it was kind of like, ‘Hey, you opt in to this, and we’ll take care of you next year.’ “You basically have to sit in a holding pattern here.”

Looking back, Marks said Hart’s predicament was sad given the league’s financial loss due to the epidemic.

“It’s almost like he benefited by the circumstances of the 2020 offseason where the cap stayed flat,” Marks stated. “But he had to wait basically, you know, a few years later to kind of make good with that.”

Hart’s contract has not been reproduced in the NBA since, but teams do protect themselves by signing players with injury histories, such as Joel Embiid and Zion Williamson. Spahn said he could understand rare instances where a deal like Hart’s makes sense, but it would probably not be the player’s preference.

“I think the issue is as an agent you always prefer player-option over team-option which is why mutual option was so unique,” he states. “It’s a lesson that free agency isn’t always the glitz and glamor that players think it is.”

Its legacy lives on in New Orleans, where Hart originally agreed to it. Tulane University, located a few miles from the Smoothie King Center where the Pelicans play, organizes the Tulane Professional Basketball Negotiation Competition. Every year, NBA executives fly in to see the school’s law students demonstrate their negotiation abilities and understanding of the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

“This contract has been used as an example when teams are negotiating fictitiously a new contract for a restricted free agent,” Marks stated. “Like this is always the one that’s always brought up.”