Undrafted Players In The NBA

August and September are the months when undrafted players step into the spotlight around the NBA, as many of them sign training camp deals with hopes of making an opening-night roster. Most of them are long shots to make it past the preseason, but as a group, it’s a fair bet that a few of them will stick around for a while, and not just for token appearances.

There were 482 players who appeared in an NBA game last season, and 84 of them were never drafted. That represents about 17.4% of the league. Many of them were just briefly passing through the league, on 10-day contracts or non-guaranteed deals, while others have long since blossomed into mainstays. Jeremy Lin, Wesley Matthews, Jose Calderon, Udonis Haslem and Chris Andersen are just a few of the notable undrafted players around the league.

Many of them hail from the international ranks, since players from overseas are generally more receptive to playing outside of the NBA if they don’t hear their names called on draft night. Still, there’s a diverse mix of players from around the globe and former collegians alike among last year’s 84 undrafted players, as I’ve listed below in alphabetical order, followed by the team with which each of them played:

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