After making a slew of moves via the trade and buyout market, many New York Knicks fans feared that standout rookie Mohamed Diawara would suffer most from the club's new talent acquisitions, particularly with the arrival of 2022 lottery-selected wing, Jeremy Sochan.
However, over the weeks since Leon Rose and company's wheeling and dealing escapades, it's become more than evident that the biggest loser has, instead, been point guard Tyler Kolek.
Tyler Kolek's role with Knicks radically declining after mid-season moves
Following a sluggish start to his professional career, one where he posted mere averages of 2.0 points and 1.7 assists in a mere 7.2 minutes per game and revolved in and out of the G League all throughout last season, the Marquette product finally found himself breaking out onto the scene during the early stages of 2025-26.
From his much-improved long-range scoring efficiency (shooting at a 36.0 percent clip) and impressive assist-to-turnover ratio (2.80) to his near triple-double of 20 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, and three steals in his lone start of the year, Kolek managed to turn himself into a favorite among the franchise's faithful followers here in his sophomore go-around.
Unfortunately for him, however, since their big deadline addition in Jose Alvarado was integrated into the Knicks' rotation back on February 8, the second-year guard has been drastically phased out.
Over the 35 games directly leading up to Alvarado's debut, Kolek was seeing roughly 16.0 minutes per night and was dropping solid averages of 5.8 points, 3.6 assists, and 2.3 rebounds on 37.0 percent shooting from deep while ranking fifth on the team in plus-minus per 100 possessions (plus-6.2) among those who logged at least 20 games of action.
Since his first outing in the orange, blue, and white threads, however, the sophomore has logged right around 16 minutes combined, has seen spurts with the JV squad out in Westchester, and has been on the receiving end of three DNPs.
Now, it goes without saying that the acquisition of Alvarado is one that both fans and the Knicks as a whole should be extremely happy about, as he brings a level of homegrown intensity and scrapiness this team seemed to be missing during the first half of the campaign.
Unfortunately, on a personal level, his arrival has undoubtedly plummeted the 24-year-old Kolek's in-game activity and, in turn, has put his development on pause for the time being.