Robert Covington didn’t really know what he was missing while he toiled away on a 72-day assignment to the D-League, by far the longest any NBA player has endured this season. The power forward from Tennessee State had yet to make his NBA debut, so when the Rockets finally called him up to the big club on Saturday, the moment had to be extra sweet. He got into Houston’s 10-point win over the Bucks that night for a scant 54 seconds, but that was still no doubt a welcome appearance for the 23-year-old.
Covington at least had someone to commiserate with for most of his time with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Teammate Isaiah Canaan spent 45 days there until the Rockets called him up last month. Now that Patrick Beverley is ready to return from his broken hand, Houston has once again assigned Canaan to the D-League, the team announced today via Twitter.
Canaan would surely like to avoid joining Jared Cunningham of the Hawks as the only player to have two separate D-League stints of more than two weeks this season, as noted in the list below. Cunningham’s second lengthy assignment is still active, as he’s been with the Bakersfield Jam since New Year’s Day.
Here’s every D-League assignment of 15 days or longer this season, ranked by number of days:
- 72 — Robert Covington, Rockets (November 7th to January 18th)
- 45 — Isaiah Canaan, Rockets (November 7th to December 22nd)
- 37 — Ricky Ledo, Mavericks (November 30th to January 6th)
- 35 — Jared Cunningham, Hawks (November 11th to December 6th)
- 29 — Chris Smith, Knicks (November 18th to December 17th)
- 20 — Marquis Teague, Bulls (December 26th to January 15th)
- 19 — Jared Cunningham, Hawks (January 1st to present)
- 18 — Tony Mitchell, Pistons (December 26th to January 13th
- 18 — Peyton Siva, Pistons (December 26th to January 13th)
- 16 — Malcolm Thomas, Spurs (January 3rd to January 19th)
The Hoops Rumors list of D-League Assignments and Recalls was used in the creation of this post.