If you look down the bench of every NBA team, you’ll see all types of different stories, journeys, and life experiences.
Since the NBA established two-way contracts to allow teams to go past the 15-man roster limit to build organizational depth in 2017, that’s never been truer.
While two-way guys are almost always rookies or relatively young players who would otherwise be populating G-League rosters, they’re still in a unique spot of being able to bridge the major and minor leagues of the sport, similar
to a baseball player on a 40-man roster. As such, you’ll see them suit up in games at times, whether consequential or not, but see them in street clothes come playoff time.
Here are the players to sign a two-way contract with the Knicks from 2017-25 and how many games they played for the team:
- Luke Kornet, July 2017 (66 games)
- Isaiah Hicks, October 2017 (21 games)
- Allonzo Trier, July 2018 (88 games)
- Kadeem Allen, January 2019 (29 games)
- Ivan Rabb, October 2019 (0 games)
- Kenny Wooten, January 2020 (o games)
- Jared Harper, November 2020 (8 games)
- Theo Pinson, November 2020 (17 games)
- Myles Powell, April 2021 (0 games)
- Jericho Sims, August 2021 (177 games)
- Luka Samanic, October 2021 (0 games)
- Feron Hunt, March 2022 (2 games)
- Trevor Keels, July 2022 (3 games)
- DaQuan Jeffries, November 2022 (17 games)
- Duane Washington Jr., February 2023 (0 games)
- Moses Brown, March 2023 (0 games)
- Jaylen Martin, July 2023 (0 games)
- Nathan Knight, July 2023 (0 games)
- Dylan Windler, July 2023 (3 games)
- Charlie Brown Jr., October 2023 (8 games)
- Jacob Toppin, October 2023 (25 games)
- Dmytro Skapintsev, December 2023 (2 games)
- Ariel Hukporti, July 2024 (79 games)
- Boo Buie, November 2024 (0 games)
- Matt Ryan, December 2024 (19 games)
- MarJon Beauchamp, March 2025 (6 games)
A lot of forgettable names here. A couple of good pulls who played briefly for mediocre teams. A few of these guys used their time on a two-way contract to parlay it into guaranteed contracts and multi-year careers. Overall, many of these dudes came and went with their NBA careers.
For Trey Jemison III, Dillon Jones, and Kevin McCullar Jr., none of them were able to dress for the postseason, no matter what injuries or circumstances affected the 15-man roster. Their season was functionally over the second the team lost to the Charlotte Hornets on April 12.
But what they did beforehand still matters, and what they meant as locker room guys throughout the postseason does as well. Every player to wear the orange and blue this year contributed to this story, and will get a ring to show for it.
While these three got to enjoy the celebration with their teammates, I’d be remiss to not mention Tosan Evbuomwan, who started the season on a two-way deal and appeared in five games before being released on January 7. He never scored a point and played just eight minutes, but he goes down as one of the 20 men to contribute to this run.
Let’s start with Jemison, who’s already rubbed shoulders with the likes of LeBron James and Luka Doncic as a brief member of the 2024-25 Lakers in one of the now five stops in his career. Undrafted out of UAB in 2023, he’s additionally played for Washington, Memphis, and New Orleans across two seasons before inking a two-way contract in the 2025 preseason to join the Knicks.
Despite not playing a big role in the season, he played seven minutes on Opening Night against the Cleveland Cavaliers due to an injury to Mitchell Robinson, serving as the backup center while Ariel Hukporti started in place of an also-injured Josh Hart. He wouldn’t see the floor for another 32 days, but was here all season long.
He played a season-high 18 minutes in the NBA Cup hangover game against the Pacers, scoring five points and five rebounds. He’d occasionally sub in for brief spells when a big man was injured, playing a total of 13 games and 82 minutes before donning street clothes for the rest of the run.
While he didn’t play, he stayed somewhat in the public eye through his wife’s Instagram. Alex Glover, a former SMU volleyball player, posted her and Trey’s gameday fits throughout the playoff run, something that continually showed up on my feed for the last 8 weeks.
You’re an NBA champion, Trey. Enjoy it.
Next, a two-time champion. Someone who, briefly, thought he was a Knick on draft night, but got an opportunity of a lifetime when he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder just minutes later, winning a title in his rookie year before circling back to New York to complete the Patrick McCaw special.
Dillon Jones grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, spending the first three years of his high school career there before transferring to Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas for his senior year. A three-star recruit, he got a scholarship at Weber State, where he enrolled in the fall of 2020. After four years, including a strong senior year which saw him win Big Sky Player of the Year, he declared for the 2024 NBA Draft, where he was a late first-round prospect.
When the Knicks were on the clock at No. 24 that year, they swiftly traded the pick to the Washington Wizards, acquiring No. 26 and No. 51. In typical Leon Rose fashion, he didn’t hold onto that first-round pick, trading it to the Thunder for five second-round picks. They used one of those picks (and two others) to trade up for Tyler Kolek later that night.
Jones just so happened to be picked 26th, joining the Thunder while technically spending a few minutes as a Knick and legally being drafted by the Wizards because of the NBA’s moratorium. Joining a team that drafts multiple players a year with dozens of pending picks in the future, Jones entered a crowded room in a draft class that included Ajay Mitchell (also briefly a Knick) and Nikola Topic.
As such, on a team that would go on to win a championship, he didn’t get to play much. He got into 54 games, starting three, but would usually only be called on due to injuries. Come playoff time, he played mostly garbage time throughout 10 appearances, but was a champion, and that’s all that matters.
But the problem with him being on the most stacked roster with a lot of assets is that the pieces on the boundary are expendable. Exactly one year after being drafted, he was salary-dumped back to the Wizards, who later waived him in October. Just like that, he was out of a job just 16 months after being a first-round pick.
When the Knicks waived Evbuomwan in January, a two-way spot was open, so the team decided to pick up a guy with a championship in Jones to fill the roster spot.
He only got into seven games, played just 39 minutes, and scored just nine points as a Knick, but somehow found his way into big moments. He was the first player I saw holding the Eastern Conference Champions trophy after the ceremony. He was the one draped over Karl-Anthony Towns after the miraculous Game 4 comeback.
He’s the only player on the roster who can say they’re a two-time champion. No asterisks needed; it’s an exclusive group. Congrats, Dillon!
Kevin McCullar Jr.’s journey came full circle in a way you wouldn’t expect.
Born and raised in San Antonio, he was a star at Karen Wagner High School before fracturing his tibia as a junior. Instead of returning for his senior year, he elected to graduate a semester early to get a head start at Texas Tech, where he had committed as a four-star recruit.
He spent four years with the Red Raiders, evolving into a gritty, do-anything wing playing 30 minutes a night by his junior year before deciding to take it up a notch, transferring to Kansas for his redshirt senior season and playing two years there due to COVID-19 eligibility rules. It turned out that the sixth year was the charm for him, as he blossomed into one of the best players in the Big 12 in 2023-24, being named a Third-Team All-American.
But while his age was certainly a factor for why his stock was low entering the 2024 draft, McCullar also hadn’t shaken the concerning medical history. He suffered a bone bruise that hampered him for the final two months of the season in January 2024, ultimately requiring surgery on it after it proved too difficult to play on when the Jayhawks made the NCAA Tournament.
Those concerning medicals saw him plummet down the board after once being viewed as a sleeper at the back end of the first round. The 23-year-old finally saw his free-fall end at No. 56, when the Knicks, who traded back from No. 40 to pick up a 2028 2nd, selected him as the third member of their four-player class.
His knee injury would hold him out of Summer League, and we wouldn’t see him on the basketball court until he suited up for the Westchester Knicks on January 31, 2025. He made an impact for the G-League club right away as he built back to full strength, ultimately playing in four games with the big league club towards the end of the season.
He had to wait a concerningly long time to be re-signed on a two-way deal for 2025-26, but it was clear early on that the Knicks really thought highly of a healthy McCullar. He dropped 30 in a Summer League game, he had a 30-11-5 game down in Westchester, and when he was suddenly called upon to play a rotation role in late December due to injuries, he was ready.
Out of nowhere, McCullar was the most impactful player on the floor in the December 27 win in Atlanta, playing 23 minutes and putting up 13 & 8, looking like a mini-Josh Hart.
That performance gave him a rotation spot for the next two weeks, but as the Knicks went through the three weeks from hell and both Hart and Landry Shamet returned from injury, he went back to Westchester.
He’d ultimately top his career high with a 14-point game in Game 82 against the Hornets, the last time we’ve seen him play. Of the three two-way guys, I’ve noticed him the least over this playoff run, but I think it’s clear that the Knicks seem to have the most invested in him. Going into next season, it’ll be interesting to see if he’s earned a full-time roster spot, or if he’ll have to look elsewhere for a fully guaranteed payday.
But that’s for July. Enjoy it, Kev, you’re a champion!
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(P&T will be doing player-by-player article tributes over the next few weeks to commemorate the special team that ended our long, half-century nightmare)
