Grading Tyler Nickel and Jack Kayil's Summer League for Knicks

New York Knicks fans went into draft night last month knowing there was a solid chance that their team wouldn't make any picks.

Yet, they had a myriad of names they wanted their team to draft. Names like Isaiah Evans, Dailyn Swain, Allen Graves, Zuby Ejiofor, Cameron Carr, Tarris Reed, Alex Karaban, and Meleek Thomas were all on the fans' wish list.

Instead, Leon Rose traded down, and the team ended up with Jack Kayil and Tyler Nickel, two second-rounders who both showed some promise during their Summer League minutes in Las Vegas.

Assessing Jack Kayil's Summer League performance

When the summer league roster was first announced, Kayil's name was suspiciously absent, which turned some heads as he revealed on draft night that he intended to stay in the States.

The rookie guard eventually received approval to play in the exhibition games and averaged 8.8PPG, 3 RPG, 3.5 APG, and 1.8 SPG, while shooting 34% from three and 23% from the field across four contests. The stats, much like his initial scouting report, were a pretty mixed bag.

Jack Kayil final summer stats:

🧥 8.8 points per game
🧥 34% shooting
🧥 1.2 threes
🧥 23% three
🧥 3 rebounds
🧥 3.5 assists
🧥 1.8 steals
🧥 22.4 minutes pic.twitter.com/zFgDDEGM7S
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) July 18, 2026

I do think that the stats do him some disservice, though. At first glance, the stats tell you he's a player who lacks the scoring skills and shooting to be effective any time soon. And while that could still be the case, it's hard to judge a player's current skill and potential solely based on statistics.

Having good stats with high efficiency is obviously preferred, but plenty of players have struggled during Summer League and ended up more than okay. The Knicks' very own Jalen Brunson is a perfect example of that.

Brunson averaged 6.8 points, 4.4 assists, and 2.8 rebounds per game, while shooting 22.7% from the field and 30% from three in the 2018 NBA Summer League with the Dallas Mavericks.

Kayil's shooting still needs work. But very few prospects' shots don't. Kayil showed the potential of being able to hit some tough shots off the dribble, both in the midrange and from three, while also still being a driving threat.

With time and work, he could end up profiling as a confident three-level scorer who plays with pace. As a passer, the 20-year-old also showed a knack for hitting cutters with great accuracy and was a willing passer when looking ahead to start transition opportunities. He also showed that his height helps him be a solid defender when engaged.

But Kayil also showed, as expected, that he's still a very raw talent. Besides the shooting inconsistency, his ball-handling still needs some work. He is a plus athlete, but he doesn't have the upper-echelon athleticism to get by on subpar or even mediocre ball-handling.

It's not bad by any means, and again, Kayil had some nice moves throughout the games, but he also had moments where he struggled.

When factoring in his age and the unique circumstances of his route to the Summer League, though, it's hard to look at his minutes as a complete failure. It may not have been the explosive performances that fans were hoping to see. But it's also difficult to realistically expect much more from a 20-year-old taken with the 39th pick.

He still has a lot of room to grow from a shot selection and consistency standpoint, but at least fans were also able to see some of the things the Knicks saw when they chose to draft him.

Jack Kayil: B

Assessing Tyler Nickel's Summer League performance

In many ways, Nickel is the opposite of Kayil. Nickel is a bit of an "older" prospect at 22 years old. He recently played college ball, unlike Kayil, who played professionally overseas.

And unlike Kayil, who showed he may develop into a player with multiple strengths but has no clear one right now, Nickel already has one NBA-ready skill: shooting. And boy did he shoot.

Nickel took not just a team-leading, but Summer League-leading 46 three-point attempts across five games, and he made 19 of them. The awesome part about it? It came in all sorts of ways.

Some shooters are great standstill spot-up shooters. Knicks fans watched one over a decade ago in Steve Novak. And even right now, much of the team outside of a few guys, albeit being great at shooting, are standstill shooters.

These guys are incredible shooters when standing still and spotting up. But they just aren't nearly as dynamic as guys who can shoot on the move.

Think JJ Redick, Kyle Korver, and, for the Knicks, guys like Evan Fournier and Donte DiVincenzo. They can come off down screens, come sprinting across the baseline, or pull up in transition on a whim's notice.

Shooters like them are much more difficult to defend and can often make things even easier for teammates. While it's hard to claim that Nickel will be as successful in the league as any of those guys, he does possess a similar type of shooting ability.

During the summer league, where he averaged 12.2PPG, 3.6RPG, 1.6APG, and 1.0SPG on 37.5% shooting from the field and 41.3% from three, Nickel pulled up pretty much whenever he could. And he did it confidently and without any hesitation.

But he never tried to do more than he could. His shots still came within the offense, and he did a great job of balancing the aforementioned confidence with patience and selflessness.

Tyler Nickel's 19 threes is 2nd most ever by a Knick in a summer

Nickel's final stats from Vegas:

🪙 12.2 points per game
🪙 38% shooting
🪙 3.8 threes
🪙 41% three
🪙 3.6 rebounds
🪙 1.6 assists
🪙 1 steal pic.twitter.com/18yKRbwLWb
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) July 18, 2026

But again, Nickel came in as a shooter. Everybody knew that regardless of how he performed in the NBA Summer League, he was one of the best shooters in the draft class. What surprised many, though, was his motor.

The shooting can get him into games. His effort and defense are what will keep him on the court. And if these games were a sign of things to come, it bodes well for both him and the Knicks. On multiple occasions, Nickel had sequences where he was rotating like a madman and flying around the court, saving balls from going out of bounds and fighting for loose balls.

Kayil may have a higher ceiling. But Nickel's combination of shooting and hustle is something no team can have too much of. New York will be focused on trying to win back-to-back championships, but if there are any injuries or if they want to take the regular season a bit easy, Nickel could end up getting some run as a two-way player.

Tyler Nickel: A-

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