A busy week of transactions for Nix continues, the team announced on Wednesday (through Twitter references) that he signed a free-agent swingman contract Bruce Brownthe wing Broken blackand the center James Wiseman to unguaranteed Exhibition 9 contracts.
A versatile 6-foot-4 guard who can guard multiple positions, Brown played in all 82 regular-season games for the Nuggets last season. The 30-year-old averaged 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.0 steals in 24.4 minutes per game with a solid .475/.385/.762 shooting line.
According to Newsday’s Steve Popper (Link to Twitter), the New York office has executives who have been Brown supporters for “a long time.”
Agbaji was the 14th overall pick in the 2022 draft, but bounced around the league in his first four NBA seasons, spending time in Utah, Toronto and Brooklyn. The 6-foot-5 shooting guard showed promise as a third-year player with the Raptors in 2024-25, averaging 10.4 ppg and 3.8 ppg on .399 3-point shooting in 64 games (45 starts), but last season his playing time and performance decreased.
After averaging 5.1 ppg and 2.3 ppg at 15.7 mpg in 62 games for the Raptors and Nets in ’25/26, Agbaji did not receive a qualifying offer from Brooklyn and became an unrestricted free agent in July.
As for Wiseman, the number two overall has struggled with health since breaking into the league with the Warriors in 2020, missing the entire 2021/22 season with a knee injury and then tearing his Achilles early in the ’24/25 campaign.
In a combined 152 regular season games for Golden State, Detroit and Indiana, the big man averaged 9.0 ppg and 5.5 rpg on 18.8 mpg while shooting 56.0% from the floor. He played in just four games for the Pacers last season, with brief stints on the roster to open the season and again in December.
Brown, Agbaji, Wiseman appear to be among the players who will compete for a spot on the Knicks regular season roster during training camp and the preseason. Center Drew Eubanks and wing John Kancharwhose not guaranteed Exhibition 9 contracts were also officially announced by the team today (through Twitter), will also be in this mix.
The Knicks took a similar approach to their last roster a year ago when Landry Shamet knock out Malcolm Brogdon, Garrison Matthewsand Matt Ryan to make a team. Shamet ended up being a trusted part of the head coaching staff Mike Brownrotation and signed a new four-year contract with New York earlier this offseason.
The Knicks currently have 13 players under guaranteed contracts, so barring a trade, there are two open spots on the 15-man regular season roster. Still, filling both of those holes would push the team’s payroll into the second ballpark.
There’s nothing stopping New York from building a full 15-man roster for the season and operating above the second apron for the time being, but in recent years the front office has viewed that threshold as a de facto hard limit, as the team’s owner James Dolan confirmation in June that he is adamant not to exceed the line of the second apron.
Assuming Dolan sticks with that position and the Knicks don’t make a preseason trade, Brown, Agbaji, Wiseman, Eubanks and Kanchar will be fighting for one roster spot. If the club were to shed salary in the trade market or were willing to move to second, even temporarily, that could open the door for more than one of them.
New York now has 19 players under contract, with five rookies joining 13 players with guaranteed salaries and a big man Liam RobbinsWorld Health Organization signed an Exhibition 10 contract on Tuesday. The club also signed six players in the Annex 10 on Tuesday, then immediately waived them, lining them up for the Westchester Knicks of the G League.
Contracts that include the Annex 9 language but not the Annex 10 clause protect the team in the event a player suffers a preseason injury, but cannot be converted to two-way deals and do not allow the player to receive a bonus if he opts out and then joins his team’s G-League affiliate.