This last week has been pretty rough across the board for the Knicks. Blowing a 19-point lead on New Year’s Eve to the Spurs snowballed into three straight bizarrely uncompetitive defeats, with two of
them only appearing close at the end due to a strong fourth quarter. After Monday’s blowout loss in Detroit, there seem to be many bigger issues than the niche happenings of aprons and two-way contracts.
But it is worth discussing. Kevin McCullar Jr. is on a two-way contract, but with Josh Hart sidelined due to an ankle injury, he’s gotten a sneakily sizable role off the bench. After playing under six total minutes through Christmas Day, he’s played in a career-high six consecutive games, topping 15 minutes in three of them.
The results have been mixed. The Knicks don’t beat the Hawks in Atlanta without his surprisingly stout performance, and he’s shown aptitude with secondary playmaking, catch-and-shoot threes, and pure hustle. That said, he’s not the best offensive player, and his hustle plays to his detriment at times, with silly fouls that limit his effectiveness.
Regardless, he seems to be moving up the trust tree. The problem is his contract. Two-way players are only able to dress in 50 regular season games and are ineligible for the postseason.
On the first point, McCullar is in good shape, having been officially inactive 27 times this season, meaning he would only have to be inactive another five times to remain eligible for the remainder of the regular season. However, that’s not the whole story.
Tosan Evbuomwan and Trey Jemison III’s status also affects McCullar’s. If a team has less than 15 players signed to standard contracts (Knicks have 14 due to the second apron hard cap), they can only have their two-way players be active for 90 combined games. As of Tuesday, Jemison and Evbuomwan have both been active for 13 games, making it 35 games combined through 36 games.
If McCullar is available every game for the remainder of the season, it would almost necessitate both Jemison and Evbuomwan being in street clothes to avoid the cap hitting and making McCullar ineligible by the end of the season. Remember, it’s not games played that count, it’s games active, meaning if you are eligible to enter a game as a two-way player, you lose a game of eligibility regardless of whether you play or not.
And we’re not even talking about playoff time, where if there’s an injury or he just plays well enough to get spot minutes in big games down the stretch, he wouldn’t be eligible at all.
This creates a logistical issue with the roster. The Knicks do not have enough room to convert him to a standard contract or even sign anyone to a 15th roster spot. The team currently sits just $148,361 under the second apron, according to SalarySwish. This means they cannot make a move, as currently constructed, until April 2.
Now, could they add McCullar to make him postseason eligible at that point? Sure, but would that be wise? Could the Knicks benefit more from an emergency depth option or a PJ Tucker type for the locker room? Of course, all of this assumes nothing happens at the trade deadline, but it feels like Guerschon Yabusele, at the bare minimum, will go at some point. Others could too, depending on the size of the trade.
Still, it seems like the Knicks might have an issue on their hands as the season progresses.
