SEPTEMBER 24TH, 10:43pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
AUGUST 22ND, 1:13pm: The team has yet to make an official announcement, but Morris has signed his contract, according to the RealGM transactions log.
AUGUST 21ST, 2:29pm: The Blazers and point guard Darius Morris have reached agreement on a non-guaranteed deal that will bring the three-year veteran to training camp, reports Joe Freeman of The Oregonian (Twitter link). He’ll join Diante Garrett and James Southerland, who inked non-guaranteed contracts with Portland earlier this month. Morris is surely receiving a deal for the minimum salary, since the Blazers are limited to paying no more than that.
Morris reportedly turned down an offer from a Serbian team earlier this summer, and that seemed to suggest that NBA teams were interested. Still, there hasn’t been much chatter surrounding the 23-year-old, who had stints with the Sixers, Clippers and Grizzlies last season but didn’t sign another NBA contract after his 10-day deal with Memphis expired in February. He’s nonetheless been one of the top ball distributors remaining on the market, as I noted earlier today, and he also made his way onto our list of the top available free agent scorers.
Morris, like Garrett and Southerland, faces long odds of making the opening-night roster in Portland, since the Blazers have 15 players with guaranteed deals. The Blazers dropped their one-to-one D-League affiliation with the Idaho Stampede this offseason, so even if Portland cuts Morris after camp but elects to retain his D-League rights, the Blazers wouldn’t be able to exert much influence over his continued development.