Buddy Boeheim

Contract Details: Bitim, Evbuomwan, Funk, Spencer, Hagans, Goodwin

Onuralp Bitim‘s new standard contract with the Bulls covers two seasons beyond this one, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). The three-year deal is guaranteed for the rest of this season but is non-guaranteed in years two and three, Scotto notes.

The Bulls used $500K of their mid-level exception to give Bitim a rest-of-season salary worth more than the rookie minimum, Hoops Rumors has learned. And while the Turkish wing isn’t owed any guaranteed money beyond this season, he can earn a partial guarantee worth $350K if he’s still under contract by the start of the 2024/25 regular season.

Here are more details on a few contracts recently signed around the NBA:

  • Like fellow signee Buddy Boeheim, Tosan Evbuomwan agreed to a two-year two-way contract with the Pistons, tweets Keith Smith of Spotrac. Both players received partial guarantees for 2024/25, but those guarantees are very modest (projected to be worth approximately $78K) and won’t count against the cap, so they don’t necessarily assure either player of starting next season on Detroit’s 18-man roster.
  • Andrew Funk‘s two-way contract with the Bulls and Pat Spencer‘s two-way deal with the Warriors each run through the 2024/25 season as well, according to Smith and Scotto (Twitter links).
  • Conversely, the two-way contracts that Ashton Hagans signed with the Trail Blazers and Jordan Goodwin signed with the Grizzlies are both just rest-of-season deals, Hoops Rumors has learned. As a result, Hagans and Goodwin will be eligible for restricted free agency this summer.

Pistons Officially Confirm Reported Roster Moves

The Pistons have officially issued a press release (Twitter link) to formally confirm that three previously reported roster moves have been finalized. Those roster moves are as follows:

All three transactions were reported on Thursday, but Evbuomwan’s 10-day contract with Detroit was still active through last night’s game in Indiana, so the team waited an extra day for it to expire before essentially swapping his and Umude’s spots on the 18-man roster. Boeheim’s two-way deal was completed at the same time.

The Pistons now have a full squad, with Umude taking the 15th spot on the standard roster while Evbuomwan and Boeheim join Jared Rhoden as Detroit’s two-way players.

A player who signs a two-way contract during the season is subject to a prorated portion of the usual 50-game limit, so Evbuomwan and Boeheim will each be eligible to be active for up to 15 of the team’s remaining NBA games this season.

For more information on the three players involved in the Pistons’ latest transactions, be sure to check out our previous full stories on each move.

Pistons Signing Buddy Boeheim To Two-Way Deal

The Pistons are signing free agent guard/forward Buddy Boeheim to a two-way contract, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter). The deal will cover two years.

A long-range shooting specialist, Boeheim has averaged 14.3 points and 3.1 rebounds while shooting 41.8% from three on high volume in 36 games this season (24.3 MPG) for Detroit’s NBA G League affiliate, the Motor City Cruise.

The son of longtime Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was on Detroit’s roster last season as a rookie on a two-way deal. The Pistons declined to give him a qualifying offer last June and renounced his rights in July, but the younger Boeheim played on their Summer League team and signed an Exhibit 10 deal in August that gave him a bonus for playing for the Cruise in 2023/24 after he was waived in October.

Boeheim appeared in 10 games with the Pistons in ’22/23, averaging just 9.0 minutes in those outings. He spent most of his time with the Cruise, where he averaged 12.1 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 18 games (17 starts). He shot 37.4% on 3-point attempts in the NBAGL but only converted 4-of-25 in his NBA appearances.

The 24-year-old wing will occupy Detroit’s open two-way slot, so no corresponding move will be necessary to sign him. Jared Rhoden and Stanley Umude are the Pistons’ other two-way players, as shown by our tracker.

Pistons Sign, Waive David Nwaba, Three Others

The Pistons have completed a series of signings ahead of the regular season, announcing today (via Twitter) that wings David Nwaba and Treveon Graham, forward/center Nate Roberts, and forward Ryan Turell all received Exhibit 10 deals from the team.

All four players were later waived, per NBA.com’s transaction log. According to the Pistons (Twitter link), camp invitees Buddy Boeheim, Tosan Evbuomwan, Jontay Porter, and Zavier Simpson were originally cut to make room for the new signees.

Of the four newly signed players, Nwaba has the most NBA experience, having appeared in 237 regular season games from 2017-22 for the Lakers, Bulls, Cavaliers, Nets, and Rockets. He averaged 6.8 points and 3.7 rebounds in 19.3 minutes per game at the NBA level, but didn’t play in the league last season, instead spending most of the season with the Motor City Cruise’s Detroit’s G League affiliate.

Nwaba put up 15.8 PPG, 8.6 RPG, and 3.1 APG in 27 games (32.1 MPG) for the Cruise last season and appears likely to rejoin the team in 2022/23. His Exhibit 10 contract will put him in line for a bonus worth up to $75K as long as he spends at least 60 days with the club. Graham, Roberts, Turell, Boeheim, Evbuomwan, Porter, and Simpson figure to be headed to the Cruise as well.

Graham, who will turn 30 next Saturday, has 180 games of NBA experience under his belt, but hasn’t been in the league since the 2019/20 season. The former VCU standout has played in the G League and in the Canadian Elite Basketball League since then.

Roberts and Turrell – who went undrafted in 2022 out of Washington and Yeshiva, respectively – were both role players for Motor City last season. The Cruise still control their returning rights.

Notably, Detroit’s series of roster moves didn’t involve Stanley Umude, a training camp standout who was also on an Exhibit 10 deal. The Pistons still have one open 15-man slot and one open two-way slot — Umude looks like a prime candidate to fill one of those openings.

Pistons Re-Sign Buddy Boeheim On Exhibit 10 Deal

AUGUST 3: Boeheim’s deal is official, per RealGM’s transaction log.


AUGUST 1: The Pistons have reached an agreement with swingman Buddy Boeheim, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin tweets. It’s an Exhibit 10 contract, James Edwards III of The Athletic tweets.

The son of longtime Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was on Detroit’s roster last season as a rookie on a two-way deal. The Pistons declined to give him a qualifying offer in June and renounced his rights in July, but the younger Boeheim played on their Summer League team last month.

He appeared in 10 games with the NBA club last season but only averaged 9.0 minutes in those outings. He spent most of his time with the G League Motor City Cruise, where he averaged 12.1 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 18 games (17 starts). He shot 37.4% on 3-point attempts at that level but made only four of 25 in his NBA appearances.

If Boeheim is waived by the Pistons, he can also earn a bonus of up to $75K by re-joining the Cruise and spending at least 60 days with that NBAGL club.

Contract/Cap Notes: Middleton, Lopez, C. Johnson, Watanabe, More

The three-year contract Khris Middleton signed with the Bucks only has a base value of about $93MM, well below the reported figure of $102MM, reports ESPN’s Bobby Marks (via Twitter).

As Marks explains, the deal features approximately $9MM in total incentives — $2MM are currently considered likely to be earned, while the other $7MM are unlikely (meaning Middleton and/or the Bucks didn’t achieve the criteria last season). For now, the forward’s annual cap hits, which take into account his base salaries and likely incentives, will be $29.3MM, $31.7MM, and $34MM.

Meanwhile, Brook Lopez‘s two-year, $48MM contract with the Bucks has a declining structure, according to Marks. The veteran center will earn $25MM in 2023/24 and $23MM in ’24/25.

Here are a few more contract and cap details from around the NBA:

  • Marks also has the specifics (via Twitter) on Cameron Johnson‘s four-year contract with the Nets, which includes several incentives and declines in years two and three before rising again in year four. Johnson has base salaries of $24.5MM, $22.5MM, $20.5MM, and $22.5MM, with annual bonuses of $4.9MM, $4.5MM, $4.1MM, and $4.5MM. Currently, a total of $4.4MM of those incentives are considered likely, while the other $13.6MM are unlikely.
  • The Sunsdeal with Yuta Watanabe is a two-year, minimum-salary agreement with a second-year player option, confirms Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). That was the common structure on the contracts Phoenix offered to free agents — Eric Gordon, Keita Bates-Diop, and Drew Eubanks received similar deals.
  • A pair of two-way contracts that have been signed early in the 2023/24 league year will cover two seasons instead of just one. Craig Porter‘s deal with the Cavaliers and Jaylen Martin‘s agreement with the Knicks are each for two years, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter links).
  • A handful of teams using cap room this season have renounced their free agent rights to one or more players in order to maximize their space. According to RealGM’s transaction log, the Pacers (George Hill), Kings (Terence Davis, Jeremy Lamb, Corey Brewer), Pistons (Hamidou Diallo, Rodney McGruder, and Buddy Boeheim), and Thunder (eight players, including Dario Saric, Jared Butler, and Nick Collison) all renounced players. In some cases, those cap holds had been on teams’ books for multiple seasons — they won’t be there going forward.

Eastern Notes: Boeheim, Marks, Avdija, Hunter

Rookie Buddy Boeheim is on a two-way contract with the Pistons and the undrafted guard is eager to prove he belongs at this level, Mike Curtis of the Detroit News writes. “I think (proving people wrong) has always been one of my bigger motivations,” Boeheim said. “I’ve always been doubted and just been ‘the coach’s son’ and ‘Jim Boeheim’s son’ and you know, ‘I’m on the team because of (his father)’ or whatever it is.” He averaged 7.0 PPG in 19.5 MPG during five Summer League contests.

We have more from the Eastern Conference:

  • Howard University has hired Daniel Marks away from the Bucks’ front office to become the school’s chief program strategist, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington tweetsMarks, who was part of Milwaukee’s scouting department, will head up the school’s NIL program and deal with the transfer portal, among other responsibilities.
  • Deni Avdija has become a dogged defender for the Wizards, but his long-term future in the league hinges on improving his shooting, Josh Robbins of The Athletic writes. Avdija has only made 31.6% of his 3-point tries during his first two seasons. Robbins polled several anonymous scouts to gauge the former lottery pick’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Ruth Hunter has been promoted by the Heat to the title of senior director of team development, according to Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald. She will be involved with player programs, analytics and basketball operations and report to GM Andy Elisburg. Hunter was added to the Heat’s basketball operations department last offseason while also remaining a broadcaster.

Buddy Boeheim Signs Two-Way Deal With Pistons

JULY 2: The Pistons have officially signed Boeheim to a two-way contract, according to a team press release.


JUNE 24: Former Syracuse guard Buddy Boeheim has agreed to a two-way contract with the Pistons, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPN (via Twitter).

The 6’6″ wing played for four seasons with the Orange, under the tutelage of his father, legendary coach Jim Boeheim. McMenamin adds that Boeheim was the ACC’s leading scorer during the 2021/22 college season. He was named to the 2022 All-ACC First Team.

In his senior season, the 22-year-old averaged 19.2 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 3.1 APG, and 1.5 SPG in 38.0 MPG while starting in all 32 games he played. He was a full-time starter during his final three college seasons. He sported shooting splits of .406/.341/.884.

Beyond the addition of new rookie Boeheim, Detroit has had a busy draft night. The Pistons selected two lottery players, Purdue guard Jaden Ivey (No. 5) and Memphis center Jalen Duren (No. 13), and the draft rights to a high second-round pick, Fortitudo Bologna guard Gabriele Procida, thanks to a trade with the Trail Blazers that netted Detroit the No. 36 selection.

Southeast Draft Notes: Wizards, Magic, Hawks, Hornets

The Wizards have six draft prospects visiting on Tuesday, Josh Robbins of The Athletic tweets. They’ll evaluate Jules Bernard (UCLA), Theo John (Duke), Davion Mintz (Kentucky), Alex O’Connell (Creighton), Nate Roberts (Washington) and Au’Diese Toney (Arkansas).

We have more draft-related news involving Southeast Division clubs:

Southeast Notes: Hornets, Hawks, Magic, Wizards

The Hornets hosted a pre-draft workout with six prospects on Monday, the team tweets. That group included Keon Ellis (Alabama), Michael Foster Jr. (G League Ignite), Kellan Grady (Kentucky), Ron Harper Jr. (Rutgers), Brandon Horvath (Utah State) and Žiga Samar (Fuenlabrada/Spain).

We have more from the Southeast Division: