Like Jose Alvarado, Mike Brown throws new Knick Jeremy Sochan into the fire

Knicks head coach Mike Brown plans to treat newly acquired forward Jeremy Sochan like his predecessor, Jose Alvarado , and insert him into the rotation ahead of Mohamed Diawara to see what the team has in its newest addition.

“Mo’s had a good season so far as a young guy and as you guys know, I’ll play young guys,” Brown said after practice at the team’s Tarrytown training facility on Friday.

“I’ve played young guys in front of vets before but I’m gonna give Jeremy an opportunity.” Alvarado took the lion’s share of the backup minutes from second-year forward Tyler Kolek when the Knicks acquired him ahead of the trade deadline in a three-team deal sending out Guerschon Yabusele.

Brown will use a similar approach, even though Diawara has played well, to give Sochan an opportunity to earn a rotation spot for the playoff run. “Jose is a vet. He knows the league. The league knows him.

He knows the officials and vice-versa, so they’re gonna get an opportunity, but at the end of the day, I’m gonna play who I think is best for us and right now, Jeremy, he hadn’t played for us, so I’ve gotta see — rather quickly — what we have in him before getting to the playoffs The Knicks signed Sochan, 22, on the buyout market after the San Antonio Spurs waived him in a season that saw him on the bench and out of the rotation more often than not.

Sochan, the No. 9-overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, is eager both to help his new team make a deep playoff run and dispel the notion he can’t help a team win games. “Yeah, it’s tough. In my whole career, I’ve never been sitting on the bench and getting DNPs [did not play, coach’s decision]. You go through a process of questioning why or what’s happening.

It can get stressful,” he said on Wednesday. “But at the end of the day, I came from England, where basketball’s not big. I know my worth.

I know what I can bring to the team, and I’m blessed that the organization here has seen that.” “I’m super excited to get a fresh slate and show what I can do.” Sochan is a 6-foot-8 forward with career averages of 10.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. He is known to be a tough-nosed defender capable of guarding four-to-five positions on the court.

“[I bring] energy, the kind of mold that coach has been doing and what the Knicks have been doing and what he wants from me, I feel I can really excel in,” he said.

“I bring versatility, defense, energy, a little bit of that nasty, so I can’t wait.” Three-point shooting is a weak spot, however, for New York’s newest front-court player, as he hasn’t eclipsed 31% shooting from downtown in any of his four NBA seasons, though Brown believes the upside has potential to compensate for the lack of spacing.