The Knicks roster is now set.
They waived Bruce Brown on Saturday, meaning it will be center James Wiseman who takes the 14th and final roster spot.
They only had room to keep 14 players on the roster in order to stay under the second apron. It set up a competition in training camp and the preseason among five veterans — Wiseman, Brown, Drew Eubanks, Tony Bradley and Ochai Agbaji — for that spot.
That competition came down to Wiseman and Brown as the final two.
Ideally, the Knicks would have liked to keep both Wiseman and Brown. But that would have required making a trade to clear up cap space and they have so far been unable to find a deal, The Post’s Stefan Bondy reported.
And with the Knicks needing a third center behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Andre Drummond, Wiseman always had the leg up on Brown, who is a wing.
The Knicks can still bring Brown back if they are able to make a trade. The two most likely candidates are Pacôme Dadiet and Tyler Kolek, though they’d likely have to give up draft capital in order for a team to take on Dadiet’s contract, and Kolek has little value around the league.
So for now, Brown is free to sign elsewhere.
Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the 2020 draft, now gets a shot to resurrect his career with the defending champions. He played a total of just five games the last two years after tearing his Achilles in the first game of the 2024 season.
After failing to live up to expectations with the Warriors, Wiseman had brief stints with the Pistons and Pacers. Given his athleticism and former stature as a top prospect, he had the most upside in the competition — but also represented the biggest unknown.
He will fill the role that Ariel Hukporti — who left for the 76ers, but is out for the year after tearing his Achilles in the preseason — served last year as the third-string center. With Towns’ bad habit of getting into foul trouble, it’s a role that certainly is important.
The center position behind Towns has been completely revamped, with Mitchell Robinson having left to join the Celtics in free agency. He was replaced by the much cheaper Drummond.
Knicks coach Mike Brown, who was an assistant with the Warriors when Wiseman was there, has been a fan of Wiseman’s.
“He’s young, he’s talented, he’s raw, still,” Brown said. “I think he’s still trying to establish a foothold in this league. But with the God-given attributes he has, in terms of athleticism and length and quickness, [that] can bode well for him on both ends of the floor. And at 25 years old, he hasn’t even reached his prime, especially knowing he hadn’t played a ton of basketball.”
Bruce Brown, who has been a useful bench piece in the league, became a victim of the NBA’s apron system — which has made it harder for the middle class of players and veterans like him to fill bench roles. The Knicks, with their starting lineup all commanding significant money, had little money to spend on bench players and remain under the second apron. Many contenders like the Knicks are forced to fill out their bench as cheaply as possible.
“I was very surprised,” Brown previously told The Post about the lack of interest in him during free agency. “I played every single game last year, played meaningful minutes the whole year. Thought I did decently or good enough in my role that I was given. But when free agency started, that wasn’t the case.”
The Knicks had clear interest in him, however.
But, unless they manage to make a move, the apron system means they can’t keep him.