Emmanuel Mudiay aka Hey man you'll boo the guy has looked ok. Won't we have to renounce him to have a shot at anyone?
Mudiay's cap hold is 9 million (edit: it's actually 12.
. He definitely would need to be renounced to make an offer on a $30 million max (not even enough for Durant, but would be enough for someone like Khris Middleton or Kemba Walker, if we went that route).
But Mudiay's salary will be less than that. And if Courtly is somehow moved, that opens up a lot more flexibility, such as the ability to sign Mudiay to a two year, $10m deal; that would reduce the impact of his cap hold and leave us enough money to sign Durant, for example.
The other Durant scenario possibility is that we sign Mudiay to the room exception. As a cap space team, we wouldn't have access to the full $9.0m MLE, but Mudiay might be willing to sign for the room exception (4.6m next year).
Finally, if the Knicks don't get a player who's a good fit in free agency, they may bite the bullet and accept that the Noah stretch was just really myopic, pass on free agency this year, and build from within. Mudiay would presumably stay in that scenario.
Worth noting that while the Knicks don't need a C with Porzingis or Robinson, it's mostly a weak draft for PGs (and to a lesser extent SGs). There may not be a point worth taking in the middle of the lottery. So that may be a context in which NY wishes to bring back at least one if not both of Mudiay and Burke, especially if Ntilikina is not viewed as a full-time PG.