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Everyone loves an underdog. Everyone loves a good story.
The most satisfying thing about sports is when someone comes out of nowhere and becomes a folk legend.
Linsanity. David Freese for the 2011 Cardinals. Travis Ishikawa for the 2014 Giants. Miguel Rojas for the 2025 Dodgers. Big Shot Bob Horry for multiple NBA championship teams. Alec Martinez for the 2014 LA Kings (sigh).
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Maybe Landry Shamet isn’t on their level… yet, but what I will promise is that he will go down in Knicks history, regardless of how this season inevitably ends. That’s something that would’ve sounded unfathomable when he first put pen to paper two years ago.
After all, this was a journeyman. In six seasons, he played for five teams, bouncing from Philly to the Clippers to Brooklyn to Phoenix to Washington. While he carved out a nice bench role on multiple playoff teams, including the 2021 Suns team that made the NBA Finals, he was banished to the lowly Wizards in 2023 as part of the Bradley Beal trade.
As many players do, his performance suffered after joining a destitute Washington squad. The longtime three-point maestro shot a career-low 33.8% from deep in 46 games, and he was dangerously close to teetering on the line of being out of the NBA. After all, there are only so many spots for veterans in a league that caters to young players with upside towards the bottom of rosters.
He stayed unsigned for several months that offseason until the Knicks came calling, looking to fill the final roster spot ahead of the 2024-25 season. At the time, it was assumed that Villanova alum and OAKAAK Ryan Arcidiacono would be given the 15th roster spot to complete the Nova Quintet, but Leon Rose elected to sign Shamet along with Marcus Morris Sr. and Chuma Okeke in mid-September to compete for the final spot.
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Then came the mega trade. Karl-Anthony Towns was in, Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle were out. Due to the complicated financials of the trade, the Knicks needed to clear space and elected to temporarily waive Morris instead of Shamet. That move showed early who the team entrusted more, but the Knicks planned to…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/landry-shamet-became-knicks-unlikeliest-202842643.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-24 20:28:00
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