NEW YORK — The defending NBA champion Knicks settled the last open seat on their roster Saturday, releasing veteran wing Bruce Brown and keeping former No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman as the third center on the depth chart.
Money drove the call. New York carried room for only 14 players if it wanted to stay below the league's second luxury-tax apron, and keeping both men would have required a trade to shed salary. No deal came together, so the club let Brown go. A trade later in the season could still open a path for his return.
Five veterans on camp contracts entered the fall competing for that final spot. Drew Eubanks, Ochai Agbaji and Tony Bradley were cut first, leaving Brown against Wiseman, and the Knicks needed size more than another wing.
Wiseman, 25, put up 8.0 points and 4.3 rebounds a game over four exhibition appearances. His training camp deal now converts to a league-minimum contract. He appeared in just five games across the past two seasons after an Achilles tear, and his last stretch as a regular rotation player came with Detroit in 2023-24, a 63-game season in which he posted 7.1 points a night along with 5.3 boards.
Brown leaves after appearing in every one of Denver's 82 games a year ago, contributing 7.9 points, 2.1 assists and 3.9 rebounds per outing.
The frontcourt behind Karl-Anthony Towns looks very different from last spring. Mitchell Robinson left for Boston on a three-year, $47.4 million contract the Knicks could not match while staying under the second apron. Andre Drummond, 33, takes over the backup job as he begins his 15th season and his fifth club in five years.
Drummond gave New York reason for optimism in exhibition play, hitting 11 of his 20 field-goal tries over four games while piling up 32 points, 26 boards, seven blocked shots and nine assists. He closed with 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting in a 122-120 home win over Toronto. He also brings a corner three he rarely used early in his career; with Philadelphia last season he made 32 of 90 attempts from deep, a 35.6% clip.
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