JULY 10th, 10:45pm: Felton has officially signed with the club, according to a team press release.
JULY 7th, 4:58pm: The Thunder have agreed to a one-year deal with veteran point guard Raymond Felton, Chris Haynes of ESPN tweets. The 32-year-old suited up for the Clippers in 2016/17.
The journeyman playmaker has bounced around over the course of the past decade, suiting up for seven teams since 2009/10. This year, on the heels of a 6.7 point-per-game campaign, he’ll slot in behind Russell Westbrook on Oklahoma City’s depth chart.
The Thunder had been actively seeking support for when Westbrook took breathers, unsatisfied with what rookie point guard Semaj Christon was able to provide in his first season with the club.
Felton’s track record has left much to be desired over the past few seasons but there’s hope that in the right situation he can be a serviceable reserve. In five playoff games for the Clippers in 2015/16, including four emergency starts, he averaged 15.0 points and 4.6 assists per game.
Oklahoma City has already used its taxpayer mid-level exception, so Felton figures to get a minimum salary deal.
Thunder doing everything they can to become the Wizards of the West.
What does this mean?
Be almost good enough to almost contend
The big thing the thunder are trying to fix is the bench. Russ would often leave games up double digits and then no less than a quarter later reenter down points and he would have to save us time and time again.
I like the signing. Low risk, possible reward, worst case, he is better than man bun singler. (How he is making 5 million to suck is beyond me.)
Agreed. This is a solid signing. Felton’s ceiling is that of a solid backup point guard and that’s exactly what the Thunder need from him.
Next move should be to ship out Kanter or waive Singler, look for bench fire power. I like Shabazz Muhammad a lot for this team that doesn’t have anyone off the bench that can come in and light it up. Ian Clark is another interesting option but he’s a bit pricy for the minimum. You can look at some young guys from G League and summer league like Vander Blue. Could always run second unit offense through Kanter. A lotta good options out there, will be interesting to see how the thunder fills out the rest of this team. Bench will prove to be extremely important for this team.
He was really good for Dallas the year before going to LA. OKC needs guards/wings that can shoot. So nice deal for them
“He was really food for Dallas the year before going to LA”
Formerlyz, allow me to expand Felton’s career in a nutshell
He was good for Charlotte before going to NY
He was good for NY and Denver in one of his best NBA season of his career (2010-2011)
Worst year of his career for Portland (2011-2012)
OK for NY (second stint) (2012-2014)
“He was really good for Dallas before going to LA”
Felton’s a bum. He needs to be more consistent.