Cam Reddish‘s brief and strange Knicks career is over.
New York made a deal on the eve of the NBA trade deadline Wednesday night to acquire Josh Hart from the Portland Trail Blazers, as first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and confirmed by SNY’s Ian Begley.
In exchange, the Knicks sent Reddish and a protected first-round pick to Portland in the deal. Svi Mykhailiuk and Ryan Arcidiacono is also heading to Portland in the deal, per Wojnarowski.
On the season, Hart is averaging 9.5 points per game in 51 games with Portland.
Reddish had fallen out of favor with head coach Tom Thibodeau and had been a DNP since last playing on Dec. 3.
Begley recently reported that at one point before the Knicks’ game on Dec. 4, Reddish expressed displeasure to a Knicks assistant coach about the way Thibodeau was using him, per people familiar with the matter. As is noted above, Reddish did not enter a game after that.
Before being benched, Reddish played in 20 games for the Knicks this season (including eight starts), while averaging 8.4 points per game.
Thibodeau had shortened the Knicks’ rotation, but what made Reddish’s string of DNPs eyebrow-raising was that Thibodeau called on other players who had been removed from the rotation (including Evan Fournier and Derrick Rose) when needed due to injury. Reddish, however, stayed put on the bench.
The Knicks acquired Reddish from the Atlanta Hawks in January of 2022 in exchange for Kevin Knox in what was a trade of former first-round draft picks.
As was the case this season, Reddish’s time on the court with the Knicks in 2021-22 was sporadic. He had four DNPs shortly after being acquired, never played more than 24 minutes in any game, and missed the final 17 games of the season due to a shoulder injury.
