{"id":600071,"date":"2026-02-13T03:03:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T03:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/600071\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T03:03:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T03:03:21","slug":"knicks-signing-jeremy-sochan-in-big-bench-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/600071\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks signing Jeremy Sochan in big bench boost"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Knicks are completing their roster with an athletic prospect for frontcourt depth.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Sochan, a 22-year-old forward, is signing with the team for the remainder of the season, league sources confirm, a move the team believes will provide athletic insurance for their push to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

At 6-foot-8 and a former ninth-overall pick, Sochan was considered a top prospect while starting as a 2023 All-Rookie selection for the Spurs and carving out an important role during his first three NBA seasons. But Sochan fell out of favor with the team this season, at least partially because of the emergence of rookie forward Carter Bryant, and was waived Wednesday \u2014 opening the door for his Knicks arrival.<\/p>\n

\"JeremyJeremy Sochan Getty Images<\/p>\n

A league source said Sochan is expected to arrive in New York on Monday and will be available for the first game after the All-Star break, which is Thursday at home against the Pistons. The idea of playing for a contender with veteran leadership was an important factor toward choosing the Knicks, per a league source.<\/p>\n

The hope is that he provides two-way depth on the wing and frontcourt.<\/p>\n

However, there are questions of why it didn\u2019t work in San Antonio. A league source familiar with the situation explained Sochan was neither good enough as a shooter or defender this season, and expressed skepticism the Baylor product<\/a> would figure it out.<\/p>\n

The Knicks certainly believe he will. They targeted Sochan before the trade deadline last week but couldn\u2019t convince the Spurs to take Guerschon Yabusele in exchange.<\/p>\n

And in the end, it worked for team president Leon Rose.<\/p>\n

\"SanSpurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) drives in against Dallas Mavericks guard AJ Johnson. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

The Knicks essentially swapped out Yabusele for Jose Alvarado<\/a>, largely because Yabusele surprisingly agreed to drop his $5.8 million player option for next season. There\u2019s speculation that Yabusele, who is from France, has already secured a lucrative deal overseas, offsetting at least some of the money he gave up to facilitate a trade away from the Knicks.<\/p>\n

Shedding Yabusele for Alvarado freed up enough cap space for the Knicks to immediately sign a free agent, which Thursday became Sochan on a minimum contract.<\/p>\n

Born in Oklahoma to a Polish mother, Sochan became the youngest member of Poland\u2019s national team during the 2022 EuroBasket qualifiers. He showed early promise with the Spurs \u2014 along with colorful hair dye choices \u2014 and averaged over 11 points in each of his first three seasons, starting in 149 of his first 184 appearances.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

But there wasn\u2019t much growth on his 3-point shot \u2014 he\u2019s shooting just 25.7 percent from deep this season \u2014 and he reportedly desired an opportunity for more playing time.<\/p>\n

When the Knicks are healthy, there aren\u2019t many minutes available \u2014 at least not the 25-plus that Sochan averaged his first three seasons in San Antonio. New York has OG Anunoby and Josh Hart eating up the most among the forwards, with Mitchell Robinson and rookie Mo Diawara as the frontcourt backups.<\/p>\n

But there is room for another big forward, especially when there are injuries involved. Anunoby, for instance, has missed four consecutive games with a toe injury, which pushed Diawara into a larger role while averaging 21.5 minutes during that stretch before the All-Star break.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Diawara has been tremendous in his 3-and-D role<\/a> \u2014 better than most expected from a second-round rookie \u2014 but Sochan does carry more experience with greater ballhandling capabilities. He also further removes disappointing first-round pick Pac\u00f4me Dadiet from the possibility of playing.<\/p>\n

With that said, it\u2019s hard to imagine Diawara being supplanted in the rotation while he\u2019s stacking up such positive performances. The Frenchman has nailed treys at a 41.3 percent clip this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s young, he\u2019s raw, he needs the experience. But he\u2019s someone who\u2019s good defensively. And he\u2019s an even better shooter than I thought,\u201d Hart said Wednesday about Diawara, who had just scored 14 points with five boards in a blowout win over the Sixers. \u201cI always thought it looked good, but now it\u2019s going in. Being able to get him in the pocket, he\u2019s a good decision maker in the pocket, athletic, can finish at the rim, get guys involved. So I love where he\u2019s at. He\u2019s continuing to work. I think he can be really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sochan also has upside. He\u2019s just two years older than Diawara with three more years of NBA experience. His addition gives the Knicks a full roster of 15 players with standard contracts and a new look in the frontcourt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks are completing their roster with an athletic prospect for frontcourt depth. Jeremy Sochan, a 22-year-old forward,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,2724,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,474,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-600071","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-jeremy-sochan","10":"tag-knicks","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkknicks","16":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116061104947374790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600071","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=600071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}