‘Disappointed’ Miles McBride hopes to reach agreement with Knicks

Debbie Tavares barged into her daughter’s room.

It was 8:00 on Friday morning when the lifelong Knicks fan and 55-year-old Brooklyn native-turned Staten Island resident learned McBride, her favorite player on last year’s roster, would be making an appearance at the local Dick’s Sporting Goods on Richmond Avenue for a meet and greet later that evening.

Excited, Tavares shouted “Deuce!” when she entered her daughter’s room.

The response?

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” Tavares recalled. “[My daughter] thought he had gotten traded. I was like, ‘No, not that.’”

It’s the unfortunate state of affairs for McBride, a key member of last year’s championship squad who is up for a contract extension entering the final season of his three-year deal, meeting the ugly side of the business of basketball: The Knicks are facing a mandate not to encroach the punitive $222 million second apron. As a result, they are forced to make tough decisions regarding the core of the roster responsible for ending New York City’s 53-year NBA championship drought.

A team over the second apron loses its own toolbox: no taxpayer mid-level exception, no sign-and-trade, no aggregating two contracts into one incoming deal, no matching more than the outgoing salary in a trade — and if it’s a repeat offender, over the line in three of five seasons, its first-round pick seven years out gets frozen at the bottom of the draft and can’t be traded at all.

Four days after the Knicks brought a title home, James Dolan went on WFAN Radio and reiterated exceeding Apron No. 2 was a no-go.

And just like that, the dominos began to fall. The first?

Mitchell Robinson, who signed with the Boston Celtics for what amounted to a 5.3% raise: a three-year, $47.4 million deal the Knicks couldn’t feasibly match while keeping the roster intact and staying under the mark.

The second domino?

The elephant was in a small room, still signing Knicks gear, this time for NYPD officers and store staff well after his scheduled appearance ran over its time.

“I love being in New York. Obviously, I’ve been here my whole career,” McBride told the Daily News on Friday. “I’m a little — I’m a little disappointed. Of course, you want to obviously come to the right terms, and I want to be in New York. So yeah, it’s a little hard at times, but I’m gonna be a professional. I want to go out and do my job. So that’s in my ability, and to help the team win for as long as I’m with the team.”

The cold truth? McBride’s time in New York, like the players who came before him, may already have an expiration date.

“I’d cry [if the Knicks lost Deuce]. I’d cry as much as I did when they won,” said Tavares. “I think for him, I think I would take it a lot harder than I took Mitch, just because I feel like he’s the heart and soul of that bench. As much as I love Mitch, he was always hurt, so he wasn’t like as consistent as Deuce is.

“And then Deuce started off great last year and was really about to have a career year, and he then got hurt. So I’d love to see him do that this year as a Knick.”

* * *

There’s no need to worry about Deuce’s jump shot entering a contract year. Three days ahead of training camp at the Knicks’ training facility in Tarrytown on Monday, McBride’s shooting hand was already on fire.

A sea of rabid Knicks fans gathered in the face of an imminent nor’easter ahead of the star guard’s arrival in Staten Island on Friday, and every one of them got what they were looking for: a fist bump, a smile, a photo and an autographed poster with one of the first players off of New York’s championship bench.

Most in attendance wore generic Knicks gear or Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns jerseys. The real Deuce fans were easy to spot.

“I’ve never been to Staten Island, so it was cool to come out here and see the fans,” McBride told The News. “They were excited. So I’m happy: everyone got to see me and I got to see everybody.

“I don’t think of myself as a crazy celebrity like that. I just get to work hard and do something I love. So to see how people enjoy what I do is definitely something cool.”

Alex Kuruvilla was one of the first, a 39-year-old New York native and lifelong Knicks fan whose T-shirt featuring McBride shooting a jumper immediately stood out. Kuruvilla also had a McBride jersey draped over his left shoulder.

“Deuce is my wife’s favorite player and one of my top favorite players on the team,” he said. “I feel like he’s a key component to the team, and I hope he’s here for the future, too.”

Local NYPD officers counted 500 fans an hour before McBride’s scheduled 6 p.m. start — a start delayed by unfathomable rush-hour traffic across the Verrazzano Bridge. He was supposed to leave at 7:30. He stayed until 8. Every fan who came to see him left with a smile, a photo, and a story — and he hung around with the NYPD after, too.

“He’s a man of the people,” said Kuruvilla. “There was crazy traffic and [a storm coming], so the fact that he still came through and did this for everybody, it means a lot to the fans. He was stuck in traffic for like an hour.”

All the while, McBride was itching for something more: an opportunity to show these same fans how much he can improve as a player since last season, a year that started off scorching from deep before a sports hernia requiring core muscle surgery derailed his hot start.

He knows the odds are against him, much like they were against Immanuel Quickley: Brunson is a superstar and will play superstar minutes. The Knicks just paid Jose Alvarado to play backup point guard. And at 6-2, McBride’s time at shooting guard will be limited, even if the advanced stats say the Knicks are winning those minutes.

That doesn’t leave much burn to warrant the kind of contract McBride’s talent commands — and the Knicks already have the next guy waiting: Tyler Kolek, another hungry young guard ready to eat the same minutes McBride feasted upon when New York sent Quickley to Toronto.

“Not just Quick, but in the NBA, you see it all the time with [contract disputes leading to trades], and you just have to be a professional. You can’t worry about those things,” McBride said. “I hope we come to some type of agreement. I’ve played through injury. I’ve been through a lot with this team, and I’ve worked my way into being a key guy. So you know, I’d love to get something done.”

Recent history suggests that “something” is more likely to come from another team than it is from New York.

* * *

When the ball leaves McBride’s hands, fans inside Madison Square Garden leave their seats.

And Tavares’ dog leaves the room.

The same “Deuuuucee!” chant reverberating throughout the Garden rips through her living room every time No. 2 gets going.

It happened more often than not last season, at least until the injury: 4-of-6 from deep in the opener against Cleveland. Twenty-seven makes on 42 attempts over a six-game stretch. Twenty-five points on 7-of-9 from three in the closeout Game 4 against Philadelphia.

Miles McBride has earned his keep. The Knicks just can’t pay him what he’s worth — or at least they won’t go over the second apron to do it, same as they wouldn’t for Robinson.

“[James] Dolan’s not that guy. He’s not going to go above [the second apron]. It’s unfortunate,” said Tavares. “Trying to keep a team like this together, the bench is key. We didn’t win the year before because we didn’t have the bench.”

The math explains why McBride’s name keeps surfacing in trade talks.

Towns, McBride and Josh Hart are extension-eligible now; Brunson and OG Anunoby follow next summer — five core pieces, one 18-month window. This year’s second apron sits near $222 million. At the league’s max 10% cap-smoothing rate, that’s roughly $244 million next year, $268 million the year after — a ceiling Dolan has made clear isn’t moving.

Towns is eligible for four years, $276 million, but that is his absolute max and the two sides are still far apart in negotiations. Hart could re-sign for a longer-term deal this summer. Plus Brunson and Anunoby can each become free agents in 2028, opening their extension window next summer. Five raises, one ceiling — and McBride’s new deal isn’t the top priority for a front office doing that math on everyone else.

“It’s been a blessing,” said McBride. “The whole summer’s been nothing but love. But getting back to it, getting ready to defend that championship — and hopefully bring home another one.”

The Knicks were in this spot with Robinson last season. They chose not to trade him at the deadline and gambled on free agency instead. Robinson walked — right up the block to Boston, a divisional rival freshly built around Jayson Tatum following the Jaylen Brown for Paul George swap with the Philadelphia 76ers.

The point? A trade, even a likely one, isn’t a certainty — but the front office would effectively waste one of it best trade assets if they allow McBride to reach free agency without the intention of signing him long-term.

Robinson’s departure made McBride, entering Year 6, the longest-tenured Knick.

“Oh, man. I miss my guy Mitch. But it’s crazy, honestly,” McBride told The News. “Just thinking about coming in as a rookie, just trying to survive and trying to make it to the next deal and things like that. So it’s been it’s been cool.”

McBride said he’s nowhere near his basketball ceiling. He called the NBA a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league — a gift and a curse, since every year is a new chance to prove it.

“It’s a big recency bias type of thing when it comes to the NBA,” he said. “I know I’m capable of a lot of things, but sometimes, the game is: it’s only one thing and you got to play different roles. So, I’m ready to always expand my game.”

The question is whether he’ll get that chance in front of the same fans who’ve been chanting “Deuuuceee!” since the Knicks got him in 2021. New York’s fans want one thing. New York’s payroll wants another.

“I feel like in times where guys have been out, I’ve been able to show a lot,” he said. “So it’s always — to me — it’s about opportunity. I feel like I’ve continued to grow and improve every single year.”