If Mohamed Diawara and Kevin McCullar Jr. want to carve out a spot in the New York Knicks rotation moving forward, they could have as few as three left games to do it.
Because Josh Hart is nearing a return.
After spraining his right ankle on Christmas Day against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the 30-year-old is back to doing “on-court work,” and will be re-evaluated around January 9, per SNY’s Ian Begley.
Josh Hart (ankle) is doing light court work in his rehab and will be reevaluated in one week, Knicks say
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) January 3, 2026
Hart’s return is coming not a moment too soon. The Knicks are slumping hard, and while he won’t solve everything, he will address a handful of issues that have cropped up since he last played.
By rejoining the rotation, he will also eat into the minutes that Diawara and McCullar have been receiving from head coach Mike Brown. Though both have turned heads for stretches at a time, New York’s title aspirations don’t give them the latitude to lean on developmental projects. Youth needs to be ready, and even then, they will have a finite runway. Just ask Tyler Kolek.
Josh Hart’s return could end the Diawara and McCullar experiments
After assuming a smaller role to begin the year, Hart is up to around 30 minutes per game for the season. That more than covers the 24 to 25 combined minutes going to Diawara and McCullar since he last played. New York can simply insert Hart back into the rotation, and forget about the two young combo wings.
This feels extreme, but it’s already happening.
Diawara has logged a total of 15 minutes during the Knicks’ latest three-game losing streak. Over this same stretch, McCullar has racked up just 27 minutes, nearly two-thirds of which came in the Jan. 2 clunker against the Atlanta Hawks.
Believe it or not, this is pretty surprising. Not only is New York woefully thin on the wings without Hart, but it has a bottom-five defense through its past 10 games. Neither McCullar nor Diawara is close to a finished product, particularly on the offensive end. But each of them brings a defensive energy the Knicks aren’t getting from, basically, anyone other than Deuce McBride.
Diawara and McCullar should get one last chance before Hart returns
Everything right now for the Knicks feels like a slog. This happens over the course of an 82-game schedule. But top-tier title contenders don’t drop three games in a row willy-nilly.
If Mike Brown’s previous lineup tinkering is any indication, he will once more liberally futz and fiddle with the rotation over the next week. This should bode well for Diawara or McCullar, at least one of whom figures to get additional reps as functional curveball, or even just as a means of conveying a message to the rest of the roster.
What they do with it could have massive implications. The Knicks aren’t about to curtail Hart’s usage in favor of a rookie and/or sophomore. But the extent to which they feel comfortable turning to Diawara and McCullar will absolutely shape their trade deadline.
If either proves that they can consistently deliver on the defensive end, it allows New York to focus its attention on acquiring another big man, or maybe a ball-handler, depending on where you land with Tyler Kolek. If Diawara and McCullar can’t crack the rotation again before Hart returns, though, they probably won’t get another chance unless disaster strikes.
And the Knicks, in turn, will need to earnestly scour the trade market for a wing with a defensive pulse who they actually trust—and will subsequently play.