photo by: AP Photo/Pamela Smith

New York Knicks' Kevin McCullar Jr. (9) gestures during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets Sunday, April 12, 2026, in New York.

Former Kansas guard Kevin McCullar Jr. became an NBA champion on Saturday night.

With the New York Knicks winning the title — their first since 1973 — so too did McCullar, a second-year pro who is the 17th Jayhawk in KU history to earn the honor, and the first ever to do so as a member of the Knicks.

McCullar did not participate in the playoffs for New York as they beat the Atlanta Hawks in six games, swept the Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers and then took down the San Antonio Spurs in five to win the NBA Finals.

The decisive result was a 94-90 victory at the Frost Bank Center in McCullar’s hometown of San Antonio on Saturday night in the wake of Wednesday’s record 29-point comeback at Madison Square Garden.

On the season, McCullar appeared in 21 games, averaging 7.4 minutes, with 2.4 rebounds, 1.3 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game. Arguably his best performance came on Dec. 27 in Atlanta, when he supplied 13 points and eight boards in a 128-125 win against the Hawks.

In the meantime, he also played extensively for the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League in 14 Tip-Off Tournament and regular-season games (he had appeared in 13, plus one playoff game, as a rookie). In the G League, he averaged 16.8 points, 6.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds with 34.2% 3-point shooting.

McCullar started his NBA career as the 56th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. The knee issue that derailed his (and the Jayhawks’) 2023-24 season at KU continued to plague him until he finally debuted for Westchester in January of his rookie year. Two months later, he recorded back-to-back triple-doubles, matching a memorable feat from his final year as a Jayhawk before it got derailed by the bone bruise to his knee.

He then made his NBA debut on March 25, 2025, and appeared in a total of three more games in the month of April for the Knicks. That year’s team lost to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Now McCullar, who started his college career at Texas Tech, is a champion, following in the footsteps of eight other Jayhawks who played under Bill Self, including most recently Svi Mykhailiuk, whose title came with the Boston Celtics in 2024.