Undrafted combo forward C.J. Fair will audition with the Pacers next month, his father tells Mike Waters of The Post-Standard. The Mavs and other NBA teams have invited the former Syracuse standout to camp, but he’s held out for guaranteed money, as Waters reported earlier.
Fair entered draft night as the 54th best draft prospect in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com ratings, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress had him down at No. 75. He averaged 4.0 points and 2.6 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game for the Mavs’ summer league team but put up more impressive numbers in college, where he averaged 16.5 PPG and 6.4 RPG in 37.8 MPG. The 6’8″ Fair shot an eye-popping 46.9% from behind the arc on 1.6 such attempts per game as a junior, but he suffered a severe regression this season, nailing just 27.6% of his 2.6 three-point attempts per contest. Waters reported last month that Fair received an offer worth $200K from a European team, but the 22-year-old turned it down and changed agents, hiring Joel Bell.
Indiana has 13 guaranteed deals, plus two partially guaranteed pacts with Luis Scola and Shayne Whittington and a non-guaranteed arrangement with Adonis Thomas. That would give Fair plenty of competition were he to join the team for training camp, but it nonetheless appears as though he’d have at least an outside chance of making the opening-night roster.