The Hawks appear to be culling their roster ahead of the official start of the NBA regular season. Atlanta announced today in a press release that it has waived power forward Chris Silva, plus guards Armoni Brooks, Malik Ellison, and Tyson Etienne.
Since going undrafted out of South Carolina in 2019, Silva has bounced around the NBA for the past five seasons, between the Heat, Kings, and Timberwolves. He inked 10-day deals during the 2021/22 season with Miami and Minnesota. In 10 total NBA games last year, the 6’8″ big man averaged 2.6 PPG and 3.6 RPG, across 9.1 MPG. He has also logged time with both the Heat and Timberwolves’ NBAGL clubs, the Sioux Falls Skyforce and the Iowa Wolves, over the years. Silva averaged 17.5 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 3.2 APG, and 0.9 BPG for Iowa over the course of 17 games, including 15 starts.
Brooks, a 6’3″ combo guard, has spent most of his time in the league thus far with the Rockets after going undrafted out of Houston in 2019. The Rockets waived the 24-year-old in February 2022 and he finished last season with Toronto. In 54 games between the Rockets and Raptors last year, Brooks held modest averages of 5.3 PPG, 1.9 RPG and 1.1 SPG.
Ellison was passed over in the 2020 draft out of Hartford. For his initial pro hoops deal, the 6’6″ shooting guard joined Czech club BC Kolin for a brief stint in 2021, then linked up with the Hawks’ NBAGL affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks, near the start of the 2021/22 season. The 26-year-old did sign a 10-day hardship exception deal with Atlanta, but never left the bench for the team, and eventually returned to the Skyhawks once his deal was up. He is thus still technically an NBA rookie. In 26 games with the Skyhawks last year, Ellison mostly came off the bench, averaging 6.8 PPG and 4.7 RPG on .443/.316/.833 shooting splits.
Etienne, 23, signed his training camp deal with the Hawks after going undrafted out of Wichita State, where he was honored as the 2021 AAC Co-Player Of The Year, this past summer. In his final season at Wichita State, Etienne averaged 14.9 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 2.0 APG and 1.1 SPG.
The now-ex-Hawks were all training camp invitees, signed to Exhibit 10 contracts. Lauren L. Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets that all four players are likely to join the College Park Skyhawks. Should that happen, they’ll be eligible for bonuses worth as much as $50K.
The Hawks now have 14 players signed to their standard 15-man roster heading into their regular season opener next week, including the partially guaranteed contracts of Tyrese Martin and Vit Krejci. Trent Forrest and Jarrett Culver are their two-way contract signees.
Well at least they got a free trip to Abu Dhabi