I doubt he’s going to look good enough to sign for more than the minimum. I think he’s probably going to be one of a series of players we take a look at and maybe eventually invite to camp or give a spot to in the G league if he doesn’t end up somewhere else.

There is no downside to this move.

If he plays well and doesn’t want to re-sign for the minimum, then they will be unable to re-sign him without tapping into their MLE, as they’ll be capped out.

Now if they had just claimed his contract, they would have him under contract for two more years, both of which were unguaranteed, so they could cut him after the season if he sucked and not owe him anything (heck, I believe he could even come to training camp under contract and then be cut right before the season if they wanted to).

The only thing they gained from this move is the ability to cut him this year, which isn’t much of a benefit. They just wooed the guy from four different teams trying to sign him. Why would they do that not to let him prove himself for the rest of the season?

Pretty sure you can’t waive a guy on more than a min contact without cap space. If he’s on min salary but with more years, even non guaranteed, i don’t think it’s technically a minimum deal.

While you’re absolutely correct that you need to be able to fit a player into your cap if you claim a waived player, the Knicks had cap space due to the trade exceptions from both the Willy trade and the Melo trade. So they had more than enough to claim Williams off of waivers (I believe the smaller Willy trade exception would have been enough).

Again, probably stupid to a lot of you, but the Knicks have to establish themselves as a first class organization amongst the players. You don’t cut the guy who stabilized the position for you for over half a season when your rookie wasn’t ready and Sessions ended up flopping, especially not for a guy with 34 games played over 3 seasons.

I seriously still don’t get it. It kind of irritates me really. If they’re interested in Williams, then just pick him off of waivers and get his last two non-guaranteed contract years for nothing! All this does is keep them from having to commit to him for the rest of the year, but who cares at this point? I just don’t get it.

They probably want to use the roster spot for other 10 day contracts if they don’t like what they see. I think it’s very dumb–the potential reward of two guaranteed years from a productive player is well worth the risk of losing a roster spot for 23 games. Especially considering Noah seems three-quarters of the way out the door and we could always cut Jack.

I do support taking a look at Williams though. Definitely had relatively intriguing college numbers, more so than Dotson. Please please please give him all of Lance’s minutes and plenty of Beasley’s so we can actually get a good look.

I seriously still don’t get it. It kind of irritates me really. If they’re interested in Williams, then just pick him off of waivers and get his last two non-guaranteed contract years for nothing! All this does is keep them from having to commit to him for the rest of the year, but who cares at this point? I just don’t get it.

@ShamsCharania
Free agent Troy Williams is signing a 10-day contract with the New York Knicks, league sources said. Williams decided among several interested teams since release from Houston last week.