Graduate senior Kevin McCullar Jr. was coming off a season in which he averaged 18.3 ppg for the Jayhawks and was a third-team All-American. However, he suffered a bone bruise in his knee and was not able to play in the 2024 NCAA tournament. He had sat out for most of this season.
Draft experts had McCullar projected as a late first-round pick or early second-rounder, but the injury impacted his draft stock. Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman had McCullar going 34th overall in his final mock draft, but teams clearly did not agree, as McCullar would drop all the way to the 56th pick, where the Knicks would select him and later sign him to a two-way contract.
How talented is Kevin McCullar?
Defense and three-point shooting are the essentials for every wing player coming into the NBA.
McCullar has the size and length at 6’6 to make the defensive impact that Tom Thibodeau loves. He was known for his defensive skills at the collegiate level, making the Big 12 All-Defensive team and averaging 1.6 steals per game throughout his five-year college career.
He is very similar to former Knick Quentin Grimes, who got 90 starts under Thibodeau in the two-and-a-half years he was with New York. McCullar will likely have to work on his three-point shooting before getting rotation minutes, but he is the type of player the Knicks need to round out their depth in the future.
In the G-League he currently averages 1.7 steals per game, but the most intriguing part of McCullar’s game is his ability to do everything on the court. This was on display when he notched back-to-back triple-doubles on March 19th and March 21st. The mix of passing, rebounding, defense, and shot-making was impressive, and shows McCullar is capable of more than just a “defensive player.”
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His first NBA game and future outlook
The Knicks made a lot of history Tuesday against the Dallas Mavericks.
Josh Hart broke Walt Frazier’s single-season triple-double record as a Knick, and Karl Anthony-Towns notched a triple-double with Hart, becoming the first pair of Knick teammates to record a triple-double in the same game. Despite the history, this was Kevin McCullar’s night, he made an appearance and scored the first points of his NBA career. Hart acknowledged the significance by awarding McCullar with the game ball.
McCullar has worked more than most to get an opportunity to score his first NBA points. It was not a guarantee that he would ever see the NBA court in 2024-25 because of his knee injury.
Teams need players who can provide an impact on the game, without them spending a lot of money. McCullar is not under contract for 2025-26, but the Knicks only have ten rostered players in 2025-26, so McCullar will have a huge opportunity to make the 15-man roster.
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