NBA Free Agency is so quiet, it can only be heard when the Knicks move.
We’ve reached the cricket-inducing part of the summer. Most basketball business has been handled. A few teams are still managing loose ends with key free agents. And then there’s the Knicks — a title contender with one minimum salary slot left and several viable options to fill it.
They’ve done their homework. Names like Malik Beasley and Ben Simmons have gained traction in recent weeks. But two of the safest bets for that final spot were already in the building last season: Delon Wright and Landry Shamet, two familiar faces still flying under the radar despite doing everything asked of them at Madison Square Garden.
Wright and Shamet remain unsigned nearly two months after the market opened on June 30. Yet both made strong cases last season to be considered for the Knicks’ 15th roster spot — even if it means beginning the year as part of New York’s stay-ready group. There’s a real argument to be made for bringing one of them back instead of chasing the shinier names still floating on the open market.
Make no mistake: Beasley is not a minimum player — and once upon a time, neither was Simmons.
Beasley shot the Knicks out of trouble during the playoffs, missing 26 of his 34 attempts from deep between Games 2 and 5 of their first-round matchup. But in the regular season? He was a flamethrower — second in the league in made threes behind only Anthony Edwards, and one of just five players to play all 82 games.
An ongoing federal gambling investigation targeting prop bets — one that reportedly included Beasley — caused several teams to pause interest right before free agency opened. That investigation has since quieted. Beasley, however, remains available.
The Knicks are among the teams monitoring him. But the kind of volume he saw in Detroit — nearly 10 threes per game, 28 minutes a night — won’t exist in New York. Not with this roster.
Even if Mike Brown shifts philosophies and cuts the starters’ minutes to around 32 per game, Beasley would still be competing with Jordan Clarkson and Miles McBride for scraps behind Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Josh Hart — all of whom ranked among the league leaders in total minutes and minutes per game last season.
Simmons is a different conversation entirely. A minimum flyer on a 28-year-old former All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year candidate sounds great on paper. He has real positional size. He’s still a dynamic playmaker in transition. And his relationship with Bridges dates back to their time together in Brooklyn.
But the combination of back issues and mental health challenges is a difficult mix to introduce into Madison Square Garden — especially for a player still rebuilding his confidence after being booed out of Philadelphia. Simmons hasn’t attempted a three since 2023. There’s upside there. But it’s a swing with risk.
So what about Shamet and Wright?
They were two of the only three players — Mitchell Robinson being the third — who gave the Knicks a pulse after falling down 0–2 to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Two low-maintenance, no-ego vets who did what was asked, whether that meant clapping on the sidelines or spacing the floor in the corner.
And when things got desperate, both showed they could step in, guard their yard, knock down open shots, and make the right basketball play.
Wright was a deflections machine who held the point guard line when Jalen Brunson, Cameron Payne, and Miles McBride were all out. Shamet overcame a preseason dislocated shoulder to crack the rotation as a streaky shooter and solid perimeter defender. Neither was part of Tom Thibodeau’s playoff rotation — not until the end, when it was too little, too late.
The Knicks could chase a bigger name at a bargain. But they already have tape. They already have trust. They already know what Wright and Shamet bring — and either one could be the kind of low-maintenance finishing piece a title team ends up leaning on when it matters most.
