NBA 2025 Offseason Check-In: New York Knicks

Hoops Rumors is checking in on the 2025 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, recapping the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll take a look at each team’s offseason moves and consider what might still be coming before the regular season begins. Today, we’re focusing on the New York Knicks.

Free agent signings

• Guerschon Yabusele: Two years, $11,275,000. Second-year player option. Signed using taxpayer mid-level exception.
• Jordan Clarkson: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.

Trades

• Acquired the draft rights to Mohamed Diawara (No. 51 pick) and the draft rights to Luka Mitrovic from the Clippers in exchange for the draft rights to Kobe Sanders (No. 50 pick).

Draft picks

• 2-51: Mohamed Diawara
  • Unsigned.

Two-way signings

• None

Departed/unsigned free agents

• Precious Achiuwa (unsigned)
• MarJon Beauchamp (unsigned)
• Kevin McCullar Jr. (unsigned/RFA)
• Cameron Payne (unsigned)
• Landry Shamet (unsigned)
• P.J. Tucker (unsigned)
• Anton Watson (unsigned)
• Delon Wright (unsigned)

Other roster moves

• Signed Mikal Bridges to a four-year, $150,000,000 veteran contract extension that begins in 2026/27. Includes fourth-year player option and trade kicker (5.69%).
• Exercised team option on Ariel Hukporti ($1,955,377).

Salary cap situation

• Operating over the cap ($154.6MM) and above the luxury tax line ($187.9MM).
• Carrying approximately $204.1MM in salary.
• Hard-capped at $207,824,000.
• Portion of taxpayer mid-level exception ($185,000) available.
• One traded player exception ($2,092,344) frozen.

The offseason so far

When the Knicks made blockbuster trades for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns in 2024, they gave up nearly all of their tradable first-round picks and sacrificed their cap flexibility for the foreseeable future, going all-in on a core headlined by Bridges, Towns, Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, and Josh Hart.

If the new-look roster had crashed and burned in 2024/25, perhaps the club would’ve seriously explored trades involving one or more of those “core” players this summer, but after the Knicks made their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 25 years this spring, no major roster changes were forthcoming.

That doesn’t mean it was an uneventful offseason in New York though. The biggest change came on the sidelines, where head coach Tom Thibodeau was let go after five pretty impressive seasons with the team. Thibodeau was named Coach of the Year in 2021 and won playoff series in 2023, 2024, and 2025, leading the Knicks to 50-win seasons in each of the past two years.

Still, Thibodeau faced plenty of criticism for his rotation decisions, including his tendency to lean heavily on his top players and not exercise a ton of patience with youngsters in the developmental stage. Thibodeau’s players have generally supported him publicly, but that relationship between the veteran coach and his players showed some signs of cracking in March during an odd back-and-forth through the media with Bridges. Player usage was reportedly one reason for Thibodeau’s dismissal, along with a sense that a talented roster wasn’t reaching its full potential.

New head coach Mike Brown will be tasked with getting more out of a similar roster that has undergone some changes around the edges. The club used most of its taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Guerschon Yabusele as a frontcourt replacement for Precious Achiuwa and was able to sign Jordan Clarkson to a minimum-salary contract after he was bought out by the Jazz.

Given their extremely limited ability to add talent while operating near the second tax apron, the Knicks’ decision to target Yabusele using their most valuable free agent asset – the taxpayer MLE – raised some eyebrows. But the Frenchman had a very successful return to the NBA last season for Philadelphia, serving as one of the few bright spots in a miserable Sixers season as he showed off a little scoring ability (11.0 PPG on .501/.380/.725 shooting), rebounding (5.6 RPG), and play-making (2.1 APG) while handling a variety of defensive assignments.

The hope in New York is that Brown will feel more confident deploying Yabusele than Thibodeau did with Achiuwa, whose playing time fluctuated over the course of the season and disappeared altogether in the playoffs.

As for Clarkson, the idea is for the veteran guard to add some scoring punch to a second unit that didn’t have much of it last season. The Knicks ranked dead-last in the NBA in bench scoring (21.7 PPG), finishing far behind the 29th-place Lakers (26.2 PPG). Clarkson is no longer in his prime as he enters his age-33 season, but even as his production has dipped a little over the past couple years, he has maintained a scoring average of 16.8 PPG in 28.7 MPG since the start of the 2023/24 campaign.

The Knicks’ most significant player transaction this summer came at the start of August, when the team finalized a four-year, $150MM extension with Bridges. The three-and-D forward had an up-and-down first season in New York, but still finished the year with a 50.0% field goal percentage and made several big defensive plays in the postseason. After giving up so many first-round picks for him a year ago, the Knicks were probably never going to let Bridges enter the season on an expiring contract.

Bridges’ maximum allowable four-year deal on an extension would have been worth about $156.2MM, so the Knicks were able to get a slight discount of about $1.5MM per year. It’s not much, but it could turn out to be more important than you’d think as the team continues to navigate the tax aprons in the coming years.

Up next

The Knicks are carrying just 12 players on standard contracts but also only have about $3.72MM in breathing room below their second-apron hard cap. Not only does that mean New York won’t be able to carry a 15th man until much later in the season, but it also means the team won’t have the ability to sign more than one free agent to a minimum-salary contract ($2,296,274).

The Knicks’ 14th man would have to be a draft-rights-held player on a rookie minimum deal ($1,272,870). Signing a rookie free agent wouldn’t suffice, since tax variance would be applied to that player, who would count as if he were a veteran free agent for tax and apron purposes.

There’s technically a way the Knicks could take a different route with that 14th roster spot, but it would require the team to shed some salary, either via trade or using the stretch provision (the latter will only be an option for a few more days). The most obvious candidate for a cost-cutting trade might be 2024 first-rounder Pacome Dadiet, who didn’t get much run as a rookie and whose 2025/26 salary ($2,847,600) is above the minimum.

But even trading Dadiet without taking any salary back wouldn’t quite create enough cap flexibility for the Knicks to sign a veteran free agent to be their 14th man after they’ve filled the 12th and 13th roster spots. So unless a bigger deal is coming – perhaps one involving center Mitchell Robinson – I think the Knicks will probably roll with their current group and operate like they did for most of last season — one player short of the 15-player max and right up against a hard cap.

Landry Shamet, Ben Simmons, and Malcolm Brogdon are among the veteran free agents who have been mentioned as candidates to be the Knicks’ 13th man, with Malik Beasley recently emerging as a potential option too. I get the sense that Beasley would be their top target if it looks like he’s in the clear in the federal gambling investigation being conducted by the Eastern District of New York, but he may receive offers worth more than the minimum.

For the 14th spot, 2025 second-rounder Mohamed Diawara and 2023 second-rounder James Nnaji look like the prime candidates. Both young bigs left their teams in Europe earlier this summer and seem to be preparing to join the Knicks. I’d probably bet on one to sign a standard contract and the other to get a two-way slot.

Speaking of two-way slots, the Knicks are the only NBA team that has yet to fill any so far this offseason. They still have a two-way qualifying offer on the table for Kevin McCullar Jr., so it’s a safe bet he’ll end up filling one of those openings. Either Diawara or Nnaji should get one too. That would still leave a third opening up for grabs before the start of the regular season.

If New York doesn’t have a specific target in mind for that spot, a training camp competition is possible — former G League Ignite prospect Dink Pate is among the players reportedly expected to sign an Exhibit 10 contract with the team.

Finally, we should point out that Robinson is eligible for a contract extension and will maintain that eligibility throughout the regular season. The Knicks’ roster is getting increasingly expensive and Robinson has had a hard time staying on the court over the past few seasons, but he’s an extremely impactful defender and rebounder when he’s available. I wouldn’t expect New York to rush into a deal unless it’s a team-friendly one, but if Robinson looks healthy and effective this fall, it could certainly be worth exploring.