Free agent guard Isaiah Taylor was one of the Raptors’ final cuts this fall, having been waived just two days before the regular season began in order to create room on the roster for the team to retain Malcolm Miller. Now, Taylor is headed to the G League, where he has joined the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Rockets‘ NBAGL affiliate, a source tells JD Shaw of Hoops Rumors (Twitter link).
Taylor, who received a $50K guarantee from Toronto on his training camp deal, has logged 71 regular season NBA games. Most of those came in 2017/18, when he appeared in 67 contests with the Hawks, but the other four occurred in 2016/17 with the Rockets. Taylor has previously signed multiple NBA contracts with Houston and has spent time with the Vipers, so he’ll be re-entering a familiar environment as he looks to play his way back to the NBA.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- James Wiseman, a candidate to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft, has officially left the University of Memphis and signed with Excel Sports for representation, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links). Woj notes that the seven-footer met with several agents before deciding on Excel.
- Speaking of the 2020 draft, Sam Vecenie of The Athletic recently shared some of the draft-related tidbits he heard of this month’s G League Showcase. According to Vecenie, draft evaluators are split over who should be the top pick — Anthony Edwards was mentioned most, but Wiseman and LaMelo Ball also have backers.
- According to a report out of Puerto Rico relayed by Alessandro Maggi of Sportando, Puerto Rico’s new Mets de Guaynabo expansion team was interested in Metta World Peace as its head coach, but the former NBA forward declined an offer.