NEW YORK
And then there were two. The New York Knicks waived three players on Thursday — wing Ochai Agbaji and centers Tony Bradley and Drew Eubanks — trimming a five-man camp battle down to a straight choice between center James Wiseman and guard Bruce Brown for the final spot on the defending champions' roster. ESPN's Shams Charania reported the cuts, and by the end of the day the shape of the decision was clear: New York can keep one of them under the league's second salary-cap apron, and unless a trade changes the math, it cannot keep both.
Eubanks' fate, sadly, was decided for everyone. The veteran big man suffered a torn pectoral muscle this week, an injury that ended his candidacy before the front office had to. Bradley and Agbaji were healthy scratches of a different kind — capable veterans who simply lost a numbers game. That is the preseason's least sentimental truth: in the last week of camp, being good enough is not the same as being kept, and the Knicks' roster squeeze just claimed three players who would make plenty of other teams.
Wiseman's Week Changed the Conversation
If this competition has a favorite, it is Wiseman — and it has been trending that way since camp opened. SNY's Ian Begley has reported the former No. 2 overall pick as the front-runner, and Wiseman spent this week strengthening the case in the most direct way available to him: on the floor. In Tuesday's preseason game against Toronto, he put up 18 points and 10 rebounds on 7-of-8 shooting in under 24 minutes as a starter. For a player whose career has been a long argument about potential, a double-double that efficient, that close to decision day, lands with force.
The basketball argument for Wiseman starts with the depth chart. Behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Andre Drummond, the Knicks are thin in the frontcourt — genuinely thin, the kind of thin where one rolled ankle in November turns into a scramble. None of New York's three two-way players is a center. A 25-year-old, 6-foot-11 big man who can set screens, roll hard, finish at the rim and simply occupy the paint in a simplified role is not a luxury for this roster; he is close to a necessity wearing a non-guaranteed contract.
There is also a relationship worth noting. Head coach Mike Brown knows Wiseman from their shared time with the Golden State Warriors, where Brown was the top assistant during Wiseman's early, injury-disrupted seasons. Brown has spoken this month about Wiseman's youth, talent and physical gifts — and about a player still trying to establish a real foothold in the league — with the tone of a coach who believes the foothold is still there to be found. Coaches go to bat for players they have seen up close. Brown has seen this one.
The Case for Brown Is a Résumé
None of which makes cutting Bruce Brown easy, because Brown's case is written in a different ink entirely: proof. The combo guard was a key piece of the Denver Nuggets' 2023 championship team, a switchable defender and connective player who has already done, on the biggest stage, exactly the job a contender asks of its last roster spot. Reporting out of camp has him impressing, and HoopsWire noted this week that there is strong support inside the organization for finding a way to keep him. Of the five veterans who arrived on non-guaranteed deals, nobody's NBA résumé is close to his.
That is what makes this a real decision rather than a coronation. Wiseman offers the scarcer position and the higher ceiling. Brown offers the surer thing — a known quantity for a team whose season is not about development but about defending a title. Championship teams usually choose the sure thing. Championship teams also, every single year, end up needing a third center in some miserable week in January. Pick your anxiety.
The Apron Makes It a Math Problem
Hovering over all of it is the second apron, the NBA's hard-edged spending threshold, and owner James Dolan's well-established lack of appetite for crossing it. The Knicks have two openings on the standard 15-man roster, but room to add only one more veteran-minimum contract without going over. Keeping both Wiseman and Brown, therefore, is not a basketball decision at all — it is a trade problem. Somebody else's salary has to leave first.
Begley's reporting points to the obvious candidates. Pacome Dadiet has been the most frequently mentioned trade possibility, with Tyler Kolek another name the Knicks could explore moving before the deadline, and either deal might require attaching a second-round pick to make the arithmetic work. New York has picks to spend. What it does not have is time: rosters must be set by Monday, October 19, and every other team shopping for the same kind of salary relief is working the same phones.
This is the part of team-building that never makes the highlight shows, and it decides seasons anyway. A front office that finds the extra few hundred thousand dollars of room gets to keep the champion guard and the upside center. A front office that cannot gets remembered for whichever one it let go — especially if the one it released is starting somewhere else by Christmas.
The Men Who Were Cut
The three departures deserve their paragraph, because camp cuts at this level are not anonymous. Bradley, a 2017 first-round pick, brought eight seasons and 234 career games into camp as a steady, professional big. Agbaji, himself a former lottery pick, averaged 10.4 points while shooting nearly 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three in his best stretch with Toronto in 2024-25 — the profile of a wing who will get another call. Eubanks leaves with the worst of it, an injury suffered at the exact moment his career could least afford one. The league's waiver wire is about to fill with players like these, as the same deadline crunch plays out in all 30 camps; the Knicks' version is only more visible because their cuts were reported nationally within the hour.
Banner Night Is Coming Either Way
What is not in doubt is the stage waiting at the end of this decision. The Knicks open the season Tuesday at Madison Square Garden against the Philadelphia 76ers, raising a championship banner as defending champions — a sentence New York fans waited generations to read. Whoever survives the weekend, Wiseman or Brown, will dress for that night because a front office threaded one of the tightest financial needles in the league. Whoever does not will watch it like the rest of us, wondering what a single trade might have changed.
Our money, following the reporting, is on the big man: the positional need is real, the coach believes, and the 18-and-10 against Toronto was timed like a closing argument. But Brown's support inside the building is real, too, and the trade phones will tell the story by Monday. Either way, the defending champions' last roster spot just became the most interesting paperwork in basketball. More hoops from the desk: Friday's full 12-game preseason finale rundown, Thursday's NBA night wrap-up and the Previously sports hub.
