The New York Knicks went bargain bin shopping this summer in their efforts to repeat as NBA Champions. Because the CBA is constructed so that keeping a contender is downright impossible, they had to find diamonds in the rough. Funny enough, they turned to several Utah Jazz alumni to accomplish this.
While they already had old friend Jordan Clarkson, they added John Konchar right after the Jazz traded him, and he wasn't the only one. They also brought in players that played in Utah not too long back, including Drew Eubanks, Ochai Agbaji, and Tony Bradley. So many Jazz alumni were brought in for training camp that it was almost comical.
Well, the fun's over for quite a few of these alumni. ESPN's Shams Charania reported that New York is cutting Eubanks, Agbaji, and Bradley, thought Konchar's name not being mentioned makes it sound like he is sticking around.
In all fairness, it sounds like Eubanks won't make the team because of a pectoral tear. Reading between the lines (and this could be incorrect), it sounds like even though Eubanks was cut, once he gets a clean bill of health, New York may revisit adding him.
This is a fun bit of Jazz history!
It's true that Eubanks, Ogbaji, and Bradley are all likely to be Jazz trivia questions more than anything else if anyone in Utah brings them up, but it is funny to see all of this happen at once, especially since they happened to be cut by the team that just won the title.
Eubanks was a harmless addition in 2023, and when they traded him mid-season, it led to a chain reaction that led to PJ Tucker, who was cut to which he then joined... (wait for it!) the Knicks! Ogbaji was part of the deluxe package the Jazz got back for Donovan Mitchell in 2022. Utah had him for a year and a half before they ultimately decided that they were good.
Bradley is probably the most notable Jazz alum among the Knicks' cuts, as he was there during the peak of the Rudy Gobert/Donovan Mitchell era, although he wasn't really part of why those teams were as successful as they were. But hey, he was there!
It's not like any of these three did all that much for the Jazz in their brief time with the team, but it's not like they did badly enough that anyone's rooting against them going forward.
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