8:50pm: The Suns have officially waived Canaan, the team announced today in a press release.
“We still consider Isaiah to be a member of the Phoenix Suns family,” GM Ryan McDonough said in a press release. “In speaking with Isaiah and his agent, we are fully committed to doing everything we can to help him with his rehab and recovery from his injury. This move is being made strictly to create a roster spot with Isaiah being out for the remainder of the season.”
4:27pm: The Suns will waive point guard Isaiah Canaan in order to clear a roster spot for newly-acquired point guard Elfrid Payton, tweets Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic.
[RELATED: Suns to acquire Elfrid Payton from Magic]
Canaan, 26, appeared in 19 games for the Suns, averaging 9.1 PPG and 4.0 APG with a .382/.333/.902 shooting line. However, his season was cut short when he suffered a brutal ankle fracture last week. Canaan immediately underwent surgery to repair the damage, ending his season.
Although the Suns love Canaan as a player and person and wanted to keep him around, they couldn’t justify using one of their 15 roster spots on him for the rest of the season, per Bordow. The veteran guard, who will still receive his full salary for 2017/18 despite being waived, will be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, so there was little incentive for Phoenix to keep him on the roster.
Canaan’s roster spot has undergone plenty of turnover this season — the Suns waived Mike James in order to create room for Canaan after initially waiving Derrick Jones to open up a spot for James.
I’m happy they still paid the man