Demetris

Nichols

Jordan and Nichols both had a chance to make the team, but Nate Robinson seems to have turned his game around, winning the MVP in the summer league and putting up nice numbers in the preseason. Fred Jones was another candidate to be cut, but Isiah Thomas is attached to him after drafting him for the Pacers several years ago.

They will easily have too many players when it comes time to set their roster after adding nine on Thursday. Nichols probably won’t make it out of camp.

“Fred Jones has looked really good,” Thomas said. “We want the best player. We’re not looking at 2-3 years down the road.” The Knicks have 17 players for 15 spots - Either Jones or Nichols will be cut, along with Marist rookie point guard Jared Jordan.

Nichols still has a chance of making the club if they release guard Dan Dickau in the next three weeks, although that would still leave them one over the roster max. “He’s not going to go overseas,” Nichols’s agent, Bill Neff, told The Post. “He wants to play here right away.” Nichols apparently had a pre-draft agreement with the Knicks to play in Europe this season, but that deal was struck with former agent Bill Duffy, whom Nichols has since fired. The Knicks will reportedly have an offer to Nichols by Friday’s deadline to retain his rights. Isiah Thomas is said to not want to part ways with Fred Jones, who he drafted while with the Pacers, making Nichols a long shot to make the team.

Because Nichols was a second-round pick, the Knicks do not have to sign him to a guaranteed contract and would still retain his rights. Isiah Thomas is still trying to make some moves to cut the roster from 17 to the maximum 15 to allow Nichols to play for the Knicks this season. “Obviously you can only have 15 during the season,” senior VP Glen Grunwald told The Post. “We’ll find a way to either keep him on the team or retain him as an asset for the future,” he said.

“He’s behind, he’s definitely behind,” Isiah Thomas said. “It will be (tougher).” Houston missed all of training camp, but also hasn’t played a full season in five years. Houston will have to beat out guard Fred Jones and rookie Demetris Nichols. We don’t think he’ll have trouble getting around Nichols, but Jones is one of Isiah’s favorites, as he drafted him in Indiana. This may come down to a loyalty issue for Thomas, but at this point we’d say Houston has a 50-50 chance of making the team.

The club did not disclose contract terms on Nichols, who averaged 4.8 points in five exhibition games with the New York Knicks, who waived him last week. He’ll provide depth off the bench and could play a role due to the loss of forward Sasha Pavlovic, a restricted free agent who remains unsigned in a contract holdout with the Cavs. Nichols does not offer the kind of help LeBron James is looking for, but at least he has a job.

Varejao is expected to report to the team by the weekend and once he and his teammates work out their differences about some of Varejao’s offseason comments, he should be ready to resume his role off the bench. It might take him a couple weeks to get up to speed, but don’t expect any miracles, as the starting job still belongs to Drew Gooden. To make room for Varejao on the 15-man roster, the Cavs waived guard/forward Demetris Nichols, who played in three games.

The move was made to clear a roster spot for Anderson Varejao, who is now officially back under contract with the Cavaliers after a long holdout.

He’d been sidelined with a back injury and offers no fantasy value currently.