Report: Knicks to sign P.J. Tucker to 10-Day Contract…
The final roster spot is temporarily filled with an enforcer…
Michael Zeno is a college student at Penn State University and a diehard Knicks fan who has written for P&T since 2024.
For months, the fanbase has been pondering who the Knicks would fill their vacant 15th roster spot with. The Knicks were allowed to sign a player to a rest-of-season deal starting on February 28th but elected not to.
After mixing up their two-ways by cutting Jacob Toppin and Matt Ryan for Anton Watson and MarJon Beauchamp, the Knicks finally filled their roster for the first time this season on Saturday with their signing of P.J. Tucker, as reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Many possibilities for this roster spot were discussed across multiple platforms by analysts, reporters, and fans, but P.J. Tucker came out of left field.
Tucker, who turns 40 on May 5, was on an NBA roster the entire season until he was waived by the Toronto Raptors on the 28th to be eligible to be signed by a playoff team. Despite that, Tucker has not played a single second this season with either the Clippers or Raptors.
The reason? Tucker has been rostered but not with the teams he’s been on. He left the Clippers during the preseason due to frustration about his role and never joined the Raptors after being traded for salary matching. In a span of a few days last month, he was tossed around several different teams before finally finding a “home” after a five-team trade was finalized.
Tucker was drafted 35th overall in 2006 by the Raptors, but played just 17 games as a rookie before going overseas, eventually resurfacing with the Suns in 2011. With career averages of 6.6 points and 5.9 rebounds, he’s never been one to put the ball in the basket.
Tucker averaged 1.3 steals a game over a six-season span in the mid-2010s, where he received a downballot Defensive Player of the Year vote in 2014 with Phoenix before bouncing around, eventually becoming the infamous small-ball five in Houston with the Harden-era Rockets.
Since the bubble, he’s played valuable minutes on various contenders before splitting last season with the Sixers and Clippers and averaging just 15 minutes a night, his lowest since he re-joined the NBA in 2012.
One strength of his on the floor is his perimeter shooting. Tucker is a career 36.6% shooter from deep, including shooting over 40% over the past three seasons. Another one is his always fiesty defense, which could be valuable to a Knicks team that lacks wing depth.
However, with the fact he hasn’t played in ten months, his value may be more in the locker room.
If you asked 100 NBA fans about P.J. Tucker in 2025, almost all of them would mention that he’s a goon, an enforcer, and a locker room vet.
A frequent complaint of this Knicks team is the lack of an edge or certain physicality. Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges have been criticized as soft and we all remember the odd public response to Trae Young’s dice roll back in December. With an upcoming game against Draymond Green and the Warriors after some gross accusations on Green’s podcast, you might want to bring some popcorn to wherever you watch that game.
Tucker is a grizzled old veteran who has always had the mentality of not taking sh*t from anyone. On a Knicks team whose oldest player is Cameron Payne, this archetype of player could help more behind the scenes. He also has 104 games and 90 starts in the playoffs under his belt.
Oh yeah, he’s also quite the sneakerhead.
Financially, this doesn’t stop the Knicks from making a signing of a player with more on-court value down the road.
A 10-day contract costs about $120,000 in terms of the cap hit, but Tucker will make nearly $190,000.
Because of that, the Knicks now sit $420,000 beneath the hard-capped second apron. If Tucker’s 10-day expires and they wish to sign a replacement, they are permitted to immediately. However, if they wanted to keep him and waived someone else to make another signing, they would need to wait until early April to do so.
