Feb 3, 2025; New York, New York, USA; New York Knicks guard Miles McBride (2) shoots the ball during the second half against the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Knicks Guard Battling to Stay in Rotation

Originally posted on New York Knicks on SI
By Henry Brown | Last updated Oct 3, 2025 9:00 AM ET

Miles McBride got off to a strong start in the New York Knicks' 2025 preseason debut, and few Knicks needed such a boost quite like he did in entering a season of relative uncertainty.

New York is all he's known since getting selected by the team in the 2021 NBA Draft, and he's sustained as a regular reserve shooter in the Knicks' ever-changing back court. He's nowhere near the on-ball scoring and playmaking maestro as teammate Jalen Brunson, but his play-finishing and two-way activity bought him steadily-increasing minutes under former head coach Tom Thibodeau for the majority of their four-year partnership.

But the only NBA coach he's ever had no longer controls the Knicks' on-court results. He was fired in favor of Mike Brown at the start of his team's offseason, who has his own ideas of how creative offenses and rotations should be for those in contending situations. With him came sweeping changes in New York's summer approach, as they held onto all of their core pieces while adding supplementary scorers such as Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele for additional bench help.

McBride, one of the few incumbent role players, has been left in a somewhat awkward spot while backup minutes grow more competitive. He helped quell some of the doubts about his security in Brown's system the first chance he got, though, netting a team-high 12 points on several contested jumpers and some aggressive on-ball work whenever he sniffed the right matchup.

Deuce McBride 12/5/2/3
pic.twitter.com/bHxwBcTDxW
— Teg (@IQfor3) October 2, 2025

Few Knicks looked fresh in their first organized ball of the fall, especially anyone who was looking to base their performance off of shooting. Clarkson, one of McBride's presumed positional rivals as a fellow heat-check 2-guard, particularly felt the tightness of the rims in trying to locate his rhythm.

McBride will need that jumper, a generally-productive weapon that usually finds ways to work at the right times, to ensure that he maintains value alongside Brown's other assortment of reserves. But it's been his defensive energy that have helped make up for a lack of superior physical traits, and his ability to remain engaged and hold his own on that end will be the determining factor for when the coaching staff figures out which guards will emerge from the bench and in what order that'll come in.

He's coming off of a career-highs in minutes per game at 24.9, as well as points at 9.5 and 2.9 assists a night. He can keep the ball moving, run and shoot in transition and fit into a variety of roles, each of which line up with the sort of core tenets that Brown envisions for his squad going forward.

He'll, in all likelihood, find himself right back within the Knicks' big game rotation, benefitting from the starters' diminished workloads in their top-heavy Eastern Conference while still playing helpful complementary basketball.

This article first appeared on New York Knicks on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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