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Warriors Plan to Sign Former Lottery Pick After Jimmy Butler Trade: Report..
he Golden State Warriors are planning to use one of their open roster spots on former lottery pick Kevin Knox, Anthony Slater of The Athletic reported on Friday, Feb. 14.
“The Warriors intend to sign Kevin Knox into one of their vacant roster spots out of the All-Star break, per sources. Ten-day contract. Knox is averaging 19.1 points, 7.3 rebounds in Santa Cruz. [The] Organization has been high on him back to summer league. An extra big scoring wing,” Slater wrote.
The Warriors’ roster dipped to 11 after trading away four players — Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, Dennis Schröder and Lindy Waters III — in the Jimmy Butler trade.
Warriors Post-Trade Plan
They quickly converted Quinten Post‘s two-way contract into a standard one to get their roster to 12. They have until Feb. 20 to get it to 14 players on standard contracts.
The Warriors are currently $1.3 million under the first apron hard cap.
Perhaps the plan is to sign Knox and another free agent to a couple of 10-day contracts to create extra wiggle room for the Warriors to sign them if they impress or other players in the buyout market for rest-of-the-season contracts in March.
Post’s promotion also created a vacancy in one of their three two-way slots. Currently, they have Jackson Rowe and Pat Spencer on two-way contracts.
Kevin Knox Getting Knocked Down
Knox was on the Warriors’ Summer League team and training camp roster. But he was waived before the season began and joined Santa Cruz, whose head coach is Steve Kerr’s son Nick, in the G League.
It has been a humbling but a learning experience for Knox this past year to play in the G League after the New York Knicks picked him as the ninth overall pick in 2018 ahead of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson.
After showing a lot of promise in his first NBA Summer League and rookie season with the Knicks, Knox fell off the clip and into oblivion. He never cracked Tom Thibodeau’s rotation in his final two seasons with the Knicks.
Knox was traded for his fellow draft bust Cam Reddish before his rookie deal was up. It was the beginning of an end to Knox’s once promising NBA career. He never found his footing in Atlanta, Detroit and Portland.
Kevin Knox Getting Back Up
Reflecting on the downward spiral of his professional career, Knox blamed himself in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area on Jan. 30.
“It’s a mixture of a lot of things,” Knox told NBC Sports Bay Area. “Personally, I’d say it’s my fault being down here. A lot of guys don’t take the blame for situations like this, but for me, personally, I take the blame for a lot of stuff.
“If I perform better and play better up top, I won’t be here. Being down here, I don’t really take it as a demotion or anything. I take it as you come down here to learn, and learn under a great system. Work on things you need to work on.”
His hard work to to get his way back into the NBA is starting to pay off with the Warriors expected to give him a new lease on life.
