Payne, Payne will go away from the New York Knicks roster.
Stefan Bondy of the New York Post reported on Saturday that reserve guard Cameron Payne will not return to the Knicks next season. The Knicks were Payne’s seventh stop in an NBA career that began as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first-round pick out of Murray State in 2015.
Payne, 31, appeared in 72 games (5 starts) for the Knicks last season and averaged 6.9 points in his lone Manhattan tour. Previously a teammate of Mikal Bridges in Phoenix, a collaboration that saw them run to the 2021 NBA Finals, Payne signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Knicks last summer. He had won the Knicks over with a strong performance as a Philadelphia 76er when the division rivals did opening round battle during the 2024 playoffs.
In Knicks lore, Payne will likely be best-remembered for his unexpected ascension in the opening stages of the the team’s recent run to the Eastern Conference Finals, as he put up a clutch 14 points in New York’s 123-112 win over the Detroit Pistons in Game 1 of the first round at Madison Square Garden. All but three of those tallies came in the final period, as Payne united with franchise face Brunson to score every points of a late 19-2 run that turned an eight-point deficit into a lasting double-figure lead.
May 21, 2025; New York, New York, USA; New York Knicks guard Cameron Payne (1) looks on in the third quarter against the Indiana Pacers during game one of the eastern conference finals for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images / Brad Penner-Imagn Images
Alas for Payne, he slowly but surely fell out of the playoff rotation shortly thereafter: he played over 10 minutes in just one more game (in the Game 5 loss to Detroit) and was held out of the final four games of the ECF series against Indiana entirely, his minutes passed onto Landry Shamet and Delon Wright.
All that seemed to hint at Payne’s departure and his metropolitan fate was likely sealed with the moves the Knicks made this offseason: New York began the campaign by shoring up its backcourt depth with the addition of former Utah Jazz standout Jordan Clarkson and this week saw it re-sign Shamet before adding both Malcolm Brogdon and Garrison Mathews to step up an intriguing training camp battle for the team’s final roster spot.