Knicks Going ALL IN on Young Star…

Knicks Going ALL IN on Young Star…

A new report has revealed that Leon Rose and the New York Knicks are going allin on one of their team’s young stars after a phenomenal run made. The Knicks and their plans for that veterans minimum contract have just had a wrench thrown in it in a huge way. Is after there’s been a lot of expectation of this being a twoman race, things have changed and we’re going to break it all down. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to Nick’s Digest. It’s Chris here. We’re going to jump right into things as always. If you guys are part of that 66% that’s not subscribed to Nick’s Digest, we got daily videos like this coming out every single day and you do not want to miss out on all the fun that we’re having on this channel. We will give you every latest Nicks update right after it happens. And on top of that, we are covering all things Knicks every single day in 2025. You do not want to miss out. But let’s jump into the video. There’s a lot to go over as we’ve seen a lot about Ben Simmons in the recent days and that’s constantly been tied to Landry Shamat as well in regards to this Knicks free agency situation. The Knicks have made it very unclear between Simmons or Shamut what is going to happen. However, right now what it feels like is the sides are pointing more towards Ben Simmons. Well, Leon Rose and the team have gone multiple directions with this. Shamut’s interested in coming back. Ben Simmons is a market that involves teams like the Sacramento Kings, the Phoenix Suns, and the Boston Celtics along with the Knicks. And on top of that, now another wrench has been thrown in these plans as things have changed when it comes to who the Knicks will be looking at as another name has emerged. And this one was not what we expected out of the New York Knicks. And just taking a look at who that is, it is none other than young New York Knick Kevin McCuller Jr. Kevin McCuller Jr. was drafted by the Knicks with the 56th overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft and quickly looked like a steal after going down with a knee injury that cost him a lot of his final year of college basketball or a lot of his year of college basketball. That was a little bit of a mumble, so I wanted to just correct myself right there. What we’ve seen out of Kevin McCuller has been very limited, but when he’s on the floor, that man looks damn good and is showing why he’s gotten a lot of compliments as the next Josh Hart. Now, there’s been a lot of reports on McCuller and everything going down, and Heavy Sports mentioned that the Knicks are reportedly considering signing Kevin McCuller Jr., who made a big impression during the 2025 summer league. Now, with that in mind, Jordan Brink, the coach of the Knicks in the Summer League, said Kevin was solid. He’s got to take care of the ball a little bit better, and that’s part of the learning curve for him as a primary ball handler. So, we see where the Knicks like to use him. You see how he had a mask on, he got hit in the head, and then he got hit in the head again. And that’s kind of how he plays. He’s a gritty player. He’s always in the mix with the physical contact. He fought through and I thought he had a pretty good game. Now, Brink being pretty modest with Kevin McCuller, who did put up a 30-point showing in the game that Brink is talking about here. Now, here’s also the thing in this photo we have. I also did not plan this. I’m just noticing it now. You can see McCull is dribbling the basketball. If you look to the bottom left of that photo and look, McCuller, he’s someone who was viewed as more of a wing type of player, like a guard wing, more of a wing than anything, like a two to a three type guy. Probably played the four in a pinch because he’s a good rebounder, but sim again similar to Josh Hart in a lot of ways. And what we saw was Kevin McCuller Jr. get called a primary ball handler, a role the Knicks used him in frequently in the summer league. Now, the reasoning for that is a few different things. One, McCuller was more of a guard when he was first coming up. He was more seen as a shooting guard, but then he kept growing and he became 6’7, so he was of a versatile size to where you could use him in really those three positions that are not point guard or center, but now the Knicks are sort of using him as a point guard. They had Tyler Kick playing off the ball a little bit more. And we saw the Knicks not just having one dominant ball handler. A vast difference from what we saw under Tom Tibido. and something we should give Mike Brown some credit to as well along with Jordan Brink of course that is who was coaching this summer league team. Now once again think about who the Knicks are mainly interested in Ben Simmons. Let’s say for the sake of the argument Ben Simmons does not sign with the Knicks for one reason or another. Let’s just say he doesn’t. Nothing really specific on why Kevin McCuller Jr. That’s not Kevin McCclar Jr. Kevin McCuller Jr. is not unsimilar from Ben Simmons. They’re both dry first guys who are good playmakers and can get a ton of rebounds and play really ferocious defense where they’re getting down and dirty. Or at least that’s what Ben Simmons is thought to be. So with McCuller, he emulates Ben Simmons and gives him another ball handler to where Landry Shamid is more of that spot-up shooting mold. The Knicks with their interest in Ben Simmons and guards in general and that being a known thing, it appears as if they want to add another ball handler to this team. Kevin McCuller Jr. is being prepped to be a ball handler as we speak. Now, going into everything, we saw McCuller as a guy who was going to be on a two-way contract going into this season. The Knicks didn’t have the money for a 15-man roster or yes, McCuller would be on one of those spots. But because they didn’t, the expectation was that he would be on a two-way deal. However, now things are not looking as certain that that’s going to happen as it was mentioned by McCuller himself saying, “This is really my rookie season. Last year, I just got to be able to be out to get my feet wet a little bit. I love playing and I missed it for so long. Now it’s pretty much my rookie season. So McCuller is treating this like his first year in the NBA. And as Stephan Bondi mentioned, he’s a big unknown for the Knicks. Projected as a firstrounder before falling in the 2024 NBA draft because of that knee injury. The diagnosis of the injury was never made public, but it was apparently aggravated during his final college season at Kansas and sidelined him for most of his Knicks rookie season. He signed a two-way deal and returned healthy for summer league where he’s vying for a roster spot that should be available with the Knicks. And the Knicks, after all, have at least two slots open, as many as three two-way deals to fill. But again, it’s not all about that two-way deal. As Bondi also said, time isn’t running out on McCull, but it is at more of a premium than for other Knicks rookies and sophomores. McCuller is already 24 years old and after sticking until his senior year with the Jay-Hawks when he was on a path towards All-American status before the knee injury, he averaged 18.3 points in 26 games that final college campaign. He’s athletic with decent size, 6’6, he’s grown. He’s 6’7ish and defense for a wing. His three-point shot is spotty at best, however, and it didn’t improve last season in the G-League. He just hit 22.2% of his trades in Westchester. And now it looks like McCuller, I mean the reports, they’re saying that he’s got a chance to get this final roster spot. And that rookie minimum deal is different for McCull because he played a year. It’s not James Naji. It’s not Muhammad Diawara. It’s a different game. So, he’d have to be on that veterans deal. Are they really going to do that? Well, that partially comes down to Ben Simmons. That also part it also partially comes down to Shamid. The Knicks are known to have mutual interest when with Shamid at a possible return. Meanwhile, some other contenders have contacted Shamid as well. Ben Simmons is likely choosing between the Knicks, Celtics, Suns, and Kings with the Knicks and Kings mainly being the two teams at the forefront there, though I do I did say this already in the last video I made on Simmons. I do think that the Celtics actually do make the most sense for Ben Simmons and his career right now. But we’ll see where that goes obviously in the coming weeks. But when it all comes down to it or really coming days, I don’t think Ben Simmons is going to be a free agent for that much longer. Training camps in like a month from now or at least you start to ramp things up in a month from now. So Simmons is probably going to want to decide this soon. But when it comes down to it, if Simmons doesn’t sign with the Knicks, something I don’t think he’s going to do. Leon Rosen Co, if they want their ball handler, they will look towards Kevin McCull as an actual solution. Now, yes, there’s also veterans out there. For instance, a guy like a Malcolm Bragden who I think does make more sense on a veterans minimum deal than Kevin McCuller, even though I really like McCull’s game. Now, McCuller, he’s going to be on that two-way deal. So, he’s going to have 45 games of eligibility with the Knicks, and eventually as time goes on, the roster will allow the Knicks to expand to a 15-man roster the same way they did last year with PJ Tucker. They’ll be able to sign another veteran, and by then, it’ll be a whole lot different. We’ll know what McCull is doing in the G- League, and that’ll have an impact on if the Knicks evidently decide to go with McCull or not. But at the end of the day, when we look at Kevin McCuller in the summer league, he only appeared in two games because of that facial contusion, but he averaged 21 and a half points. He put up five rebounds and also two assists with a steal and a half per game. He shot 51% from the field and he did not shoot from three well, but again, that’s something we know about McCuller. On top of that, in the G-League, he played very limitedly just because he was coming off the injury, but he put him 11 and a half points, five rebounds, and four assists as well. So, he has shown that he does have a passing game there. And with all that in mind, McCuller is someone who we are going to look at as a potential option for this Knicks deal going forward. And we are. We’re going to look at him as a potential serious solution to these plans. I really do believe the Knicks are seriously looking at Kevin McCuller Jr. for this spot just based off everything we’ve seen thus far. And if that’s the case, that would be a very, very surprising turn considering the Knicks would be forgoing adding another veteran on this team. So they’d have to decide if they don’t want to get or if they can’t get Simmons and they don’t want to go with Sham and they want to go with the ball handler, Kevin McCuller Jr. is an option and it becomes a really intriguing option as well. What do you guys think? Should they do it? Should they go for it? Do you trust Kevin McCuller Jr.? I do think McCulla has potential to be the best rookie next year for the Knicks. I’m not saying overall. I do think Dier Pomedier obviously has the most potential, but I do think next season Kevin McCuller Jr. has the best potential to be the most impactful player just because they have a lot of bigs right now on the team. It’s a little bit of not a serious log jam or even a log jam, but there’s some good depth at the center position which could affect Ariel Huckporty and the Knicks wing forward position that shooting guard to smaller to power range. Not as deep. So, we are going to see how they go about that. What do you guys think is going to happen at the end of the day? What do you guys like about Kevin McCuller Jr.? What do you worry about? Let me know in those comments down below. Be sure to get back to you. Like this video, subscribe, turn on post notifications. Have a great day and go Knicks.

Chris Gallagher breaks down the New York Knicks going all in on a young star

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