The New York Knicks announced on September 16 that they had signed five veterans to non-guaranteed Exhibit 9 contracts, creating a training camp competition for what is, in practice, a single roster place.
Bruce Brown, John Konchar, Drew Eubanks, James Wiseman and Ochai Agbaji all arrive on identical terms. Brown played all 82 games for Denver last season and was part of the Nuggets' 2023 championship team. Konchar, 30, has played more than 360 NBA games, six and a half seasons of them in Memphis; Minnesota acquired and waived him in August and stretched his $6.17 million guaranteed salary across three seasons, so that money is already his, and New York would owe him only the veteran minimum. Eubanks and Wiseman are both centers, which matters given what the Knicks lost this summer. Agbaji was the 14th pick in 2022 and averaged 10.4 points for Toronto two seasons ago before his role shrank.
The contract type is the mechanism here, and it is the part most often described loosely. An Exhibit 9 is a one-year, minimum-salary, non-guaranteed deal that does not count against the cap until the regular season begins. Its purpose is injury protection: if a player is hurt in camp, the club can waive him owing a single $15,000 payment instead of his salary, a figure that rose from $6,000 under the current collective bargaining agreement. It is not an Exhibit 10, which is the separate clause allowing a camp deal to be converted into a two-way contract, or paying a bonus if the player is waived and joins the team's G League affiliate. None of the five carries Exhibit 10 language. The Knicks gave one to center Liam Robbins, who is competing for a two-way place instead. For these five, there is no soft landing.
The math explains the squeeze. New York carries 13 players on guaranteed contracts, leaving two openings on the 15-man regular-season roster, and barring a trade it can only use one of them. The Knicks sit roughly $3.2 million below the second apron, set at $221,686,000 for 2026-27, while a minimum contract carries a cap charge of about $2.44 million. One fits. Two do not. James Dolan confirmed in June that he will not cross that line, and the front office has treated it as a hard cap for several years.
Keeping one is not optional either. The league requires teams to carry at least 14 players on standard contracts through the regular season, and a club can fall below that only for up to two consecutive weeks, or 28 days in total. At 13, New York is a man short of the minimum.
The vacancy is real rather than cosmetic. Mitchell Robinson signed with Boston and Ariel Hukporti with Philadelphia, leaving Andre Drummond behind Karl-Anthony Towns as the only settled center. Everything else from the championship team returned. Jalen Brunson, named Finals MVP after scoring 45 in the clinching Game 5 against San Antonio, carries the one health question into camp: ESPN's Vincent Goodwill reported that Brunson was at roughly 80 to 85 percent following July wrist surgery and would have no restrictions when training camp begins.
There is recent precedent for treating this as more than housekeeping. Landry Shamet arrived on the same kind of deal a year ago, beat out Malcolm Brogdon, Garrison Mathews and Matt Ryan, became a fixture in Mike Brown's rotation and signed a four-year contract with New York this summer.
The timetable is short. Veteran players can begin reporting on September 28, with NBA training camps officially opening on September 29. October 17 is the last day a fully non-guaranteed contract can be waived without counting against the cap, and rosters compress on October 19. A day after that the Knicks raise their first banner since 1973 and host Philadelphia. Barring a trade, at most one of the five will be in uniform for it.
