Reports: As seen in Exhibit 10, the Knicks have signed another star player and traded Alec Burks to rivals…..

Ian Begley of SNY reports that Alex O’Connell, a wing who played for Duke and Creighton, will be signed to an Exhibit 10 contract by the Knicks.

Alexander O’Connell, a graduate of Duke and Creighton, will reportedly participate in the Knicks’ Summer League. O’Connell wowed the Knicks during their recent free agent minicamp, and the Knicks have the rights to his G League play. A revised version of this tweet: Rumor has it that O’Connell has an E-10 deal with Buffalo. It was only last year that he appeared in Serie A.

This was tweeted by Ian Begley. Wednesday, July 3, 2024
The Knicks will have Alex O’Connell, a former player for Duke and Creighton, in Summer League, according to sources. O’Connell wowed the Knicks during their recent free agent minicamp, and the Knicks have the rights to his G League play. Regarding this tweet, sources have informed us that O’Connell has an E-10 deal with New York. On July 3, Begley wrote on X that he had played in Serie A the previous year.

Since no NBA team selected O’Connell in the 2022 draft, he was free to sign with any team he wanted. In his rookie year of professional basketball, he played 21.7 minutes per game for the Stockton Kings and averaged 9.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.7 assists. He appeared in 48 games throughout the G League. In that year, AOC cut.476/.379/.769 inches.

The previous season, AOC played for Reyer Venezia in Italy’s Serie A, the highest level of professional soccer. In 35 games, including 16 EuroCup games, he shot 41.9% from the field and finished the season with an average of 3.5 points and 1.5 rebounds per game.

After purchasing O’Connell’s rights from Stockton in September of last year, the Westchester Knicks sent him to play in Europe. This 25-year-old will be joining the Summer League team in Las Vegas later this month after spending time with the Knicks at their free agent mini-camp recently.

Before transferring to Creighton, O’Connell played college basketball at Duke. He averaged 11.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game in his final season of college. Throughout his 35 games for Creighton, he shot 41.6% overall and 32.7% from beyond the arc.

A “non-guaranteed minimum-salary deal” that “doesn’t count against a team’s cap unless the player makes the regular season roster” is what an Exhibit 10 contract is, according to HoopsRumors. For O’Connell, it’s already a done deal; the former Dukie will never have a chance to be on the Knicks’ final roster for the 2024–25 season.

E10 deals can be converted to a two-way contract before the season begins, however, which is probably the best-case scenario for O’Connell if he puts on a Summer League show and convinces Thibs to keep him at an arm’s reach next season in case of emergency.