Talen Horton-Tucker Nearing Deal With Fenerbahce, Hoping To Stay In NBA
Guard/forward Talen Horton-Tucker, who has spent the past six years in the NBA after being selected 46th overall in the 2019 draft, is finalizing a contract with Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce, reports Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com.
According to Urbonas’ sources, Horton-Tucker is still hoping to sign another NBA contract, but if he is unable to find a deal he likes, he’s expected to sign with the reigning EuroLeague champion.
Bugra Uzar of Eurohoops.net confirms the news, stating that Horton-Tucker has a deal in place with Fenerbahce but it won’t be completed yet as the 24-year-old awaits another NBA opportunity. A final decision is expected to be made in the next few days, Uzar adds.
Horton-Tucker won a championship as a rookie with the Lakers in 2020 and spent three years in Los Angeles prior to being traded to Utah in the 2022 offseason. He spent the next two years with the Jazz, but was unable to find a guaranteed contract as an unrestricted free agent last summer.
The Chicago native signed a non-guaranteed Exhibit 10 deal with the Bulls last September and wound up making the team’s regular season roster — he was the only player on an Exhibit 10 contract last fall to have that deal become a standard non-guaranteed deal.
Horton-Tucker, who said it was a “dream come true” to open the 2024/25 season with his hometown team, not only made the roster but eventually had his contract guaranteed when the Bulls decided to keep him around past the January deadline to waive non-guaranteed deals.
Overall, Horton-Tucker appeared in 58 games last season off the bench, averaging 6.5 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 12.5 minutes per contest, with a shooting line of .457/.336/.735. He holds career averages of 9.2 PPG, 2.6 RPG and 2.8 APG on .427/.299/.771 shooting in 305 games (19.5 MPG).
As Urbonas notes, Fenerbahce’s roster features several former NBA players, including Brandon Boston Jr., who spent last season with New Orleans.
Mavericks Re-Sign Dante Exum
September 1: Nearly two months after his deal was first reported, Exum has re-signed with Dallas, per NBA.com’s official transactions log. As we detailed in a separate story, the Mavs opened up room under the hard cap and a roster spot by waiving and stretching Prosper.
July 2: The Mavericks and Dante Exum have reached an agreement on a one-year deal that will extend the veteran guard’s stay in Dallas, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
Exum, who will turn 30 later this month, spent the first seven years of his professional career in the NBA, playing for Utah and Cleveland after being selected fifth overall in the 2014 draft. However, he struggled to establish himself as a reliable rotation player, due in part to his lack of offensive production.
Exum played in Europe for two seasons from 2021-23, developing a reliable three-point shot during his time with Barcelona and Partizan Belgrade, then returned stateside during the 2023 offseason and has played in Dallas since then.
Injuries, which hampered Exum’s development earlier in his career, have continued to be an issue during his second NBA stint, limiting him to 75 total appearances across the past two seasons, including just 20 last season due to right wrist surgery and a broken left hand.
But he has been a very effective role player for the Mavs when healthy, averaging 8.0 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.4 rebounds in 19.5 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .516/.472/.768.
Once Irving’s new deal is done and Russell officially signs, the Mavs won’t have enough room below a hard cap at the second tax apron to re-sign Exum on a minimum-salary deal, so they’ll need to make a corresponding roster move at some point to finalize all those moves, as cap expert Yossi Gozlan notes (via Twitter).
Waiving Brandon Williams, whose salary is mostly non-guaranteed, would be the easiest path to creating that space below the second apron, but he was productive in a rotation role during the second half of last season. Olivier-Maxence Prosper, a 2023 first-round pick, has been considered a trade candidate.