Knicks To Promote Ariel Hukporti To Standard Roster

The Knicks and Ariel Hukporti have reached an agreement on a new standard contract that will promote the rookie center from his two-way deal to the 15-man roster, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).

According to Charania, Hukporti will sign a two-year contract that includes a team option for the 2025/26 season. While Charania doesn’t specify the financial terms, it figures to be a minimum-salary deal.

The 58th overall pick in this year’s draft, Hukporti logged 12 minutes in last Monday’s loss to Cleveland but has otherwise only seen garbage-time action in the early going this season. The 22-year-old has grabbed seven rebounds and blocked four shots in 29 total minutes across four appearances.

Under normal circumstances, the Knicks likely would’ve kept Hukporti on his two-way contract for most or all of his rookie season, but his promotion had been expected for a few weeks due to the team’s hard cap situation.

New York is carrying 12 players on standard contracts to open the season and needs to get to at least 14, the league-mandated minimum, by November 5. However, the team doesn’t have enough flexibility below its hard cap to simply sign two veteran free agents to minimum-salary contracts, meaning at least one of those two roster additions has to be a rookie who was on a two-way deal with the Knicks or whose draft rights the Knicks held. Hukporti had been viewed as the leading candidate since training camp.

If his promotion becomes official on Monday, Hukporti’s first-year cap hit will be $1,070,699, leaving the team approximately $2.5MM below the hard cap, with one more roster addition to come. If the two sides don’t finalize the rookie’s new deal until Tuesday, his 2024/25 cap hit would be $1,064,049.

While the Knicks will have to add one more player to their standard roster by Tuesday, Hukporti’s promotion opens the door for the club to make two additional signings, since it creates a two-way opening. Matt Ryan is considered a strong candidate to join the NBA squad in some capacity, perhaps filling that open two-way slot.

Landry Shamet was expected during the preseason to be part of the Knicks’ regular season roster, but his dislocated shoulder has complicated that plan — it’s possible the team will sign a healthy player to a non-guaranteed contract as its 14th man for now and pivot to Shamet later in the season if and when he has recovered. The veteran wing is currently rehabbing with the Westchester Knicks, New York’s G League affiliate.

Whether the Knicks exercise or decline Hukporti’s 2025/26 option at the end of this season, they’ll be able to make him a restricted free agent when his current contract expires, putting them in position to lock him up to a longer-term contract at that time if his development is trending in the right direction.