Kevin McCullar Jr. has been in the Knicks’ orbit long enough to suggest the team sees something there. New York traded Oso Ighodoro’s draft rights for him two years ago, and McCullar has flashed enough in limited minutes to make the move feel deliberate rather than decorative.
But training camp has a way of tightening the screws, and Mike Brown did exactly that on Wednesday when he told the team that everyone outside the starting five is competing for a job or for playing time. After what Brown called an unsatisfactory practice, he made the stakes plain: “The starters, they gon’ play.
Everybody else in the gym, you’re fighting to make the team or for minutes. This has nothing to do with last year’s team.
Every day is a competition.”
That message lands harder for some players than others, and McCullar is one of the names it sharpens into focus. He’s in his third year with the Knicks, but he’s not the only wing in the mix trying to carve out a place. Bruce Brown is there too, and while the two aren’t in the same contract bucket - McCullar is on a two-way deal, while Bruce Brown isn’t eligible for one because of his years of service - they’re still chasing the same general prize: a place in New York’s wing rotation and a path to a standard roster spot.
Bruce Brown brings the cleaner résumé. He has eight years in the league, helped Denver win a championship three years ago, and has already been through the cycle of being paid, moved and used as valuable trade ballast.
He went from Indiana to Toronto in the Pascal Siakam deal, then from Toronto to New Orleans in the Brandon Ingram deal. The strange part is that his current status, and the fact that he’s once again underpaid, may actually give him more job security than he had when he was making 10 times as much.
That matters because New York is not shopping for a feel-good bench story. It needs depth.
McCullar has shown glimpses, but the Knicks have to decide whether his upside is worth betting on over Brown’s track record. Brown has already shown he can handle the point in a pinch.
McCullar might be able to do that. Might.
The comparison is especially tricky because both players fit the same kind of mold: versatile, mid-sized, willing to score, pass, defend and rebound. Josh Hart comes to mind as the template, and neither guy is all that far from that style of workmanlike wing play.
The question is not whether McCullar has traits the Knicks can use. It’s whether those traits are enough when a more proven option is standing right next to him.
Age is part of the pressure, too. McCullar is 25, which is not old in the normal sense, but in the world of fringe NBA players trying to secure a place and a paycheck, time moves differently. He’s already older than six players on the current Knicks roster, and with every passing camp, the number of “maybes” attached to him gets a little smaller.
The contrast with Bruce Brown only makes that sharper. Brown has made more than $60 million in his career.
McCullar’s salary history, by contrast, is just a string of “TW” marks - two-way contract after two-way contract. That gap matters because it changes the math on roster decisions.
Cutting Brown would carry more pain. Cutting McCullar would not.
That’s the reality for a player entering his third training camp with the team. New York has spent years developing him, which says the Knicks do believe in him to some degree.
But the rest of the competition is no joke. Brown, Ochai Agbaji and Jaden Akins are all in the mix for a standard roster spot, and that tells you how serious this camp is.
Once upon a time, getting a second-rounder to grow into a rotation piece would have been enough to count as a win. The Knicks are past that stage now. The standard has changed, and the only win that really matters is the one they want in June.
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The larger issue is that none of the social-media intrigue has been verified, and the timing of the alleged messages remains unclear. For Knicks fans, it is another reminder that Anunobys profile only keeps rising after his role in New Yorks 2026 NBA Finals run, even if this latest wave of attention has little to do with basketball and a lot to do with what people think they saw on their screens. [Read more 🡒]
Mike Brown Is Already Sending A Message Knicks Fans Will Notice
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Brown made clear the job security picture is different for the starters than it is for the reserves, and that distinction is already being felt around camp. For the players on the bench, the message is simple enough: nothing is coming easy, and every minute will have to be won the hard way. [Read more 🡒]