The New York Knicks just won the NBA title. And if you thought that would make them complacent, you haven’t been watching Jose Alvarado’s playoff minutes.
Alvarado signed a three-year, $14 million deal to stay in New York, turning down his $4.5 million player option in the process. The team moved fast to lock him up, and the move got an immediate seal of approval from one of his teammates.
Josh Hart saw the news drop from NBA insider Shams Charania and posted two heart emojis. That’s it. Two little red hearts. And honestly, that’s the entire vibe of this Knicks locker room right now.
Alvarado’s Game 4 performance made him indispensable
The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in five games to win the championship, but the series was way closer than the final number suggests. New York trailed by double digits in all four of their wins. The most dramatic comeback came in Game 4, when they erased a 29-point deficit to go up 3-1.
Alvarado came off the bench in that game and played 16 minutes. He scored 8 points, handed out 3 assists, and grabbed 2 rebounds. But the stat line doesn’t capture what he actually did. He took pressure off Jalen Brunson with his ball handling. He hit a couple of clutch shots. He played with that annoying, energetic style that made fans fall in love with him in New Orleans.
The Knicks front office clearly noticed. They rewarded him with a contract that keeps him in the rotation for the foreseeable future. Alvarado could have tested the market, but he chose to stay.
Keeping the band together
Jalen Brunson won the Bill Russell Award as Finals MVP, but he spent the whole series deflecting credit to his teammates. That’s the culture. Hart’s reaction to the Alvarado deal is just another piece of evidence that this team genuinely likes playing together.
There’s no word yet on what other roster moves the Knicks are planning. But keeping a playoff contributor like Alvarado on a reasonable deal is a good start. The team is trying to run it back with basically the same group, and moves like this one make that more likely.
For a guy who went undrafted in 2021 and bounced around before finding a real role in New York, this contract is a career milestone. For Knicks fans, it’s a reminder that the front office isn’t messing around. They want to stay on top.
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