February 19: The Hawks have officially converted Houstan to a standard deal after waiving Djurisic, the team confirmed today in a press release.
February 18: The Hawks are converting Caleb Houstan‘s two-way contract to a standard, rest-of-season deal, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
A 2022 second-round pick who spent his first three NBA seasons in Orlando, Houstan signed an non-guaranteed Exhibit 10 contract with Atlanta and then had it converted to a two-way deal at the end of the preseason. Of the eight players whose Exhibit 10 deals were converted to two-ways before the season, Houstan will be the first one to be promoted back to a standard contract.
Houstan, 23, averaged 14.4 minutes per game in 168 outings for Orlando and made 37.2% of his three-point tries. However, he has played a very limited role for the Hawks, logging just 49 total minutes in 10 appearances.
Presumably, Atlanta envisions a more significant role at the NBA level for Houstan in the final two months of the season. The 6’8″ forward has spent most of the season in the G League, averaging 15.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.4 assists in 32.9 minutes per contest across 30 appearances. He has knocked down 37.5% of 9.1 three-point attempts per game for the College Park Skyhawks.
The Hawks have a full 15-man roster, so they’ll need to waive someone in order to open up a spot for Houstan. According to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link), the odd man out will be Nikola Djurisic, a 2024 second-round pick who signed his first NBA contract during the 2025 offseason but has yet to make his NBA debut.
Although Djurisic signed a three-year contract, only the first year was guaranteed, so Atlanta won’t carry any dead money on its books beyond this season as a result of waiving him.
I really don’t understand the point of keeping Djurisic on the roster this whole time and never playing him. At least let him get in garbage time in one game
He was dealing with a couple injuries this season and played all in the G League. His minimum contract cost a little over a million. In 2024, the Heat traded the rights to Djurisic to Atlanta for Pelle Larsson so a W for the Heat
No point putting him on the NBA court when he was pretty dismal in the G-League. He is a career 19 3PT% in the G-League (53 games) as a SG/SF.
The main reason he was signed to a standard in the first place was because his rookie minimum was cheaper than Caleb Houstan’s. Now that the tax isn’t an issue they are swapping in the better player.
Maybe they retain Djurisic on a Two-Way if they want to keep him around. Unless he wants to go back to Europe, it’s not likely he’ll have any other NBA suitors.
Yeah Djurisic isn’t anywhere near NBA ready. He was drafted to be a a project anyway