Sonny Weems, Quincy Miller To Play In Israel

THURSDAY, 1:19pm: Miller’s deal is a two-year, $2.1MM arrangement that includes an escape clause that would allow him to return to the NBA, a source tells Pick (Twitter link).

WEDNESDAY, 1:51pm: Recent Suns and Sixers swingman Sonny Weems is putting the finishing touches on a two-year guaranteed deal with Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel, reports international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). Philadelphia released Weems late last month a few weeks after claiming him off waivers from Phoenix, which signed him this past summer to a two-year deal worth about $5.755MM. The second year on his NBA contract was non-guaranteed.

The Israeli team, poised to lose Dragan Bender to the NBA draft, has also reached agreement with three-year NBA veteran Quincy Miller, Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi reports. The club had been a heavy favorite to land Miller, as Pick reported earlier this week (Twitter link). The Nets waived Miller in October, but he quickly latched on with Serbian team Red Star Belgrade.

Weems, 29, is headed back overseas after what appears to have been a brief return to the NBA. He started 29 games for the Raptors in 2010/11 but spent the next four seasons playing for Zalgiris in Lithuania and later CSKA Moscow. He put up 2.5 points in 11.7 minutes per game for the Suns this season, failing to secure a more significant role even amid a rash of injuries. The Sixers reportedly intended to take a hard look at him even though they acquired him chiefly to eclipse the minimum team salary, but his playing time in Philadelphia was almost identical to what it was in Phoenix as he averaged 2.4 points in 11.1 minutes.

Miller is only 23 and less than four years removed from having been the No. 38 pick in the 2012 draft, but he’s made it into only 69 NBA games, 10 of which came last season, when he split time between the Kings and Pistons. Detroit traded him to Brooklyn last summer for Steve Blake.

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