A week after naming recently retired Ryan Blackwell, one of Osaka Evessa's veteran leaders, the team's new head coach, the bj-league club signed veteran swingman William Knight to a one-year contract.

The deal was announced on Friday.

Knight played a pivotal role for the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix's 2009-10 championship squad, teaming up with regular-season MVP Wendell White to give the club the league's best one-two punch. Knight averaged 19.6 points per game and drained 39.5 percent of his 3-point shots. He also averaged 5.3 rebounds in 47 games. (A Phoenix front-office official confirmed in an e-mail on Friday that the Eastern Conference club doesn't plan to re-sign White, either.)

White, 31, starred at UCLA before embarking on a professional basketball career that has included stops in Sweden, France, Venezuela, Qatar, China and several other countries.

"I am happy to come back to Japan and play in the bj-league and I am thrilled to play at Osaka and to help them win another championship," Knight said in a statement.