{"id":552260,"date":"2026-01-22T02:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552260\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T02:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:30:14","slug":"the-knicks-big-free-agent-additions-are-now-being-subtracted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552260\/","title":{"rendered":"The Knicks’ big free-agent additions are now being subtracted"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Guerschon Yabusele. Now Jordan Clarkson. The Knicks<\/a>\u2019 big additions are being subtracted.<\/p>\n

The Knicks used their mid-level exception to sign Guershon Yabusele to a two-year deal worth more than $10 million and added former Sixth Man of the Year Jordan Clarkson on a minimum contract to improve a bench ranking dead-last in scoring last season.<\/p>\n

The Yabusele experiment ended before it ever started. He has been involved in trade talks ahead of the Feb. 5 NBA Trade Deadline. Now it\u2019s Clarkson who could be on the chopping block in Mike Brown\u2019s minutes distribution sheet. The backup scorer was benched after a short stint against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, and head coach Mike Brown suggested the points purist could have a difficult time finding minutes in the crowded Knicks rotation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. It can be tough to get [Jordan] in the rotation. Obviously Deuce played well, Mitch played well and Landry played at a pretty high level before he got hurt. And so trying to find minutes for those guys \u2014 as well as for our starting group\u2014 is tough,\u201d Brown said ahead of tipoff against the Nets on Wednesday. \u201cI can\u2019t even hit the minute threshold for all those guys I\u2019m looking for. It can be tough from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough pill to swallow for a front office whose job it was to improve the bench by adding meaningful depth behind its stacked starting five and top-three bench options. Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, Miles McBride and Mitchell Robinson have their spots penned into the rotation, as does Landry Shamet, who is shaking off the rust following a shoulder injury sustained in late November.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s eight, but Brown said during training camp he wanted to run a 9.5 to 10-man rotation. Enter Clarkson and Yabusele, who were supposed to stretch the core from last season\u2019s team to a bona fide 10-man rotation at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s been wishful thinking.<\/p>\n

Yabusele has largely been glued to the bench, and after Brown pulled Clarkson for good following his 1:42 stint at the end of the first quarter against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, the score-first guard could be next.<\/p>\n

Clarkson\u2019s two-minute stint was his shortest since joining the Knicks during the offseason. He was averaging roughly 10 points in 20 minutes a game, shooting 42.7% from the field and 33.3% from three-point range before he found himself on the bench.<\/p>\n

TRUSTING DIAWARA<\/p>\n

Another fringe rotation player? Rookie Mohamed Diawara, who has earned Brown\u2019s trust in spots as a versatile defender he can insert into the starting lineup.<\/p>\n

Diawara is averaging about two points and a rebound and is shooting just 40% from the field, but he\u2019s improved his three-point shot and is converting from deep at a 37% clip in a small sample size his rookie season. He has also started five games for a Knicks team that\u2019s weathered several injuries to start the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMo\u2019s played well. I\u2019ve been pleasantly surprised,\u201d said Brown. \u201cHe\u2019s got great size. He\u2019s got really good instinct for a young guys. A part of that instinct is a feel on the offensive floor of how to move the basketball which makes the game easier for everybody and he\u2019s working really hard on the shot and his decision-making when he hits the paint with his length and feel and IQ. He\u2019s a pretty good rebounder and a pretty good defender for a young guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Guerschon Yabusele. Now Jordan Clarkson. The Knicks\u2019 big additions are being subtracted. The Knicks used their mid-level…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,204,2131,304,3357,17348,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-552260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-guerschon-yabusele","10":"tag-jordan-clarkson","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-mike-brown","13":"tag-mohamed-diawara","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115936403778426281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}