Trail Blazers decline team option on Kevin Knox, making him unrestricted free agent

Kevin Knox is now officially free to sign with any of the NBA’s 30 franchises.

With free agency getting underway as of Friday night, there has already been over $2 billion in contract money dolled out to various players, ranging from multi-year deals topping $200 million in total value all the way down to one-year, minimum salary agreements. One former Kentucky Wildcat, Trey Lyles, has already inked his free agency contract, signing a two-year, $16 million deal that will keep him with the Sacramento Kings through the 2024-25 season.

Lyles isn’t the only one-time ‘Cat that came on the market though. Hamidou Diallo and Wenyen Gabriel are also unrestricted free agents, meaning they can sign with any team that offers them a contract, although neither has yet to find new deals. PJ Washington is a restricted free agent with the Charlotte Hornets and the expectation is that they will look to bring Washington back on a bigger contract over several years.

Then you’ve got Kevin Knox, the 23-year-old wing who has already played on four NBA teams since arriving in the league as a lottery pick ahead of the 2018-19 season. He was shipped off to the Portland Trail Blazers by way of the Detroit Pistons during the middle of the ’22-23 season and entered the offseason with a $3 million team option. But instead of picking up that money and bringing Knox back for cheap in ’23-24, the Blazers instead elected to decline that extra year on Thursday, making Knox an unrestricted free agent.

Updating the last of the option decisions:

-Knight TO declined
-Knox TO declined
-Waters TO picked up https://t.co/MtIjGAFC0S

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) June 30, 2023

Since then, no team has signed Knox to a new deal, but there is plenty of time left for that to happen. The 6-foot-7 small forward can now be signed by any franchise — even Portland, if they for some reason choose to do so — at any point.

Knox is certainly still an interesting prospect, especially since he’s only a month away from turning 24, but his professional career has not gone as planned after the New York Knicks selected him No. 9 overall in the 2018 NBA Draft. His rookie season in the Big Apple was actually his most productive — he averaged a career-best 12.8 points and 4.5 rebounds in 28.8 minutes per game for the Knicks, starting 57 of the 75 contests he appeared in. But his scoring and playing time has dipped considerably since then.

In four seasons since that stretch as a rookie (which included stops with the Atlanta Hawks, Pistons, and Trail Blazers), Knox has averaged a mere 5.5 points and 2.3 rebounds in 14.0 minutes per outing. He’s started just nine of the 200 games he’s played in, posting shooting splits of 39.9/34.1/70.9. That being said, he did show moments of potential once Portland traded for him this past February.

Through 21 games (four starts) with the Blazers, Knox posted per-game averages of 8.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in 17.1 minutes. 2022-23 was actually the best shooting season of his career, too. He shot 44.4 percent overall while in Portland (albeit on a team tanking for better draft positioning) and finished the regular season schedule with three straight games of 24 points, 30 points, and 13 points, respectively.

Knox’s time in the NBA is almost certainly not finished, but it would be fair to say he won’t have many more opportunities to stick around if he doesn’t begin to improve. The next team to sign him will likely do so on a short-term, minimum contract. But if he can contribute at a consistent level the way he did to close out last season in Portland, there is hope of a career revival.