{"id":283668,"date":"2026-07-01T15:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/283668\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T15:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:39:11","slug":"knicks-lose-ariel-hukporti-to-76ers-in-free-agency-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/283668\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks lose Ariel Hukporti to 76ers in free agency: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/sports\/nba\/new-york-knicks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Knicks<\/a> just lost their first free agent.<\/p>\n<p>Backup center and restricted free agent Ariel Hukporti has agreed to a one-year deal worth $3.4 million with the Philadelphia 76ers, according to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania. The deal is a raise for Hukporti, who made roughly $3 million excluding NBA Cup payouts over the first two years of his NBA career and would only have been eligible to re-sign in New York for the third-year player minimum of $2.58 million for a Knicks team under a mandate not to go over the $222 million second apron.<\/p>\n<p>Without Hukporti, the Knicks \u2014 who are expected to lose backup center Mitchell Robinson in free agency \u2014 are barren at the five with Karl-Anthony Towns the lone big man on a roster hoping to repeat as NBA champions.<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks selected Hukporti with the 58th and final pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. He averaged 2.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 54 games for the Knicks last season and was plus-four in two minutes with Towns in foul trouble and Robinson on the bench in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2026\/06\/13\/knicks-are-champions-again-as-jalen-brunsons-45-points-end-53-year-wait\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">New York\u2019s closeout victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story. Check back for more details.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks just lost their first free agent. Backup center and restricted free agent Ariel Hukporti has agreed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23082,89603,10663,22612,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-283668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-76ers","tag-ariel-hukporti","tag-knicks","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}