so he can make so moola for nothing

he was skinny when he was in the states. sad thing is he still probably sucks

He’s a good sixth man..: )

If several independent sources aren’t wrong, we also hold the rights to unsigned draft picks Doron Sheffer (Israeli, 36th pick in 1996, selected by the Clippers, Uconn legend), Marcelo Nicola (50th pick in 1993, Italian-Argentinian), Nedzad Sinanovic (a 7’3’’ 26 years old Bosnian center, has played for Real Madrid and German Cologne, 54th in 2003) and Federico Kammerich (German-Argentinian, bench national team player, 6’9’’ forward, 51st in 2002).

I put these guys also on my draft overview chart, along with the players AK mentioned (those are guys who retired – but never handed in their papers to the league so technically they are still eligible for contracts). I’m not 100% sure about the first two Sheffer and Nicola, since according to the rules teams should lose the rights to the players one year after the expiration of the player’s most recent professional contract. Nicola last played for Tau Ceramica in Spain and became an assistant coach in Italy in 2007, so I think I have to remove him in the next version. Sheffer might still have played in Israel in 2008 but my Hebrew is bad :)

Why did the Blazers never renounce players who will very likely never play in the NBA? Well, they might with some house cleaning one day. But unlike unsigned first round draft picks they cost them nothing in cap holds. There are currently less than ten unsigned first round picks in the league (we have two, Petteri and Freeland. Other prominent examples are Fran Vazquez, Tiago Splitter and Serge Ibaka). To keep those second rounders draft rights, the team extends them a minimum salary contract offer every year that is fully unguaranteed. Would one of them actually take that offer and say “hey, when do I have to report to practice?”, the team would probably immediately waive them.

Why keep them in the first place? To prevent other teams from signing them should they make an unexpected jump in their pro careers, and to throw them into trades, since you have to give up something (a pick, a player, or such an unsigned draft pick right). It rarely happens, but it happens.