Ellington to join Knicks as team's 6th FA pickup
Free-agent guard Wayne Ellington has agreed to a two-year, $16 million deal with the New York Knicks, agent Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports tells ESPN.
The Knicks made another move in free agency Monday afternoon, agreeing with point guard Elfrid Payton on a two-year, $16 million contract, per ESPN's Tim Bontemps and multiple reports.
The deal, first reported by The Athletic, is the sixth acquisition by the Knicks since free agency began Sunday at 6 p.m. ET.
Payton, 25, will join his fourth team in three seasons. The 6-foot-4 Louisiana native was a lottery pick by the Magic in 2014, when current Knicks general manager Scott Perry was the assistant GM in Orlando.
Payton averaged 10.6 points and a career-best 7.6 assists this past season, his only year with the New Orleans Pelicans.
Signing Ellington and Payton isn't the completion of the star-studded free-agent class that Knicks imagined this summer, but it has turned into a hard-playing, professional group of veterans for coach David Fizdale.
Ellington, who averaged 10.3 points on 40.3% shooting with the Miami Heat and Detroit Pistons a year ago, joins Julius Randle, Bobby Portis, Reggie Bullock and Taj Gibson in a run of Knicks commitments in the first day of NBA free agency.
NBA free-agent contracts can't be officially signed until Saturday.
