Arinze Onuaku

Cavs Sign Onuaku To 10-Day Contract

The Cavs have signed Arinze Onuaku to a 10-day contract, the team announced today. Onuaku inked a deal with the Pelicans last summer, but the club waived his non-guaranteed contract in November. Onuaku went undrafted out of Syracuse in 2010, but executives around the league have been praising his abilities for at least a year, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio.

After parting with New Orleans, Onuaku hooked up with the D-League affiliate of the Cavs, the Canton Charge. While in the D-League, he put up impressive averages of 14.4 points and 9.7 rebounds per game and caught the attention of acting Cavaliers GM David Griffin.

This move will help further supplement Cleveland’s frontcourt depth after acquiring Spencer Hawes at Thursday’s trade deadline. The Cavs will be looking to make a late run to sneak into the playoffs, as the club currently sits four games back from the eighth and final playoff seed. With this signing, Cleveland’s roster now sits at a league maximum 15 players.

Arinze Onuaku Signs With D-League’s Charge

Former Pelicans power forward Arinze Onuaku has signed with the D-League’s Canton Charge, the team announced (hat tip to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio). The Charge have a one-to-one affiliation with the Cavs, but Onuaku’s D-League contract doesn’t constitute any agreement between him and the NBA team. The 26-year-old remains eligible to hook on with any NBA club, including the Cavs.

Onuaku was allowed to sign directly with the Charge rather than go through the D-League’s waiver process, as Kendall Marshall must do, because he played with Canton before. The one-time member of the Syracuse Orange averaged 12.6 points and 9.5 rebounds in 38 games with the Charge last year, and participated in the D-League All-Star Game.

That performance led to a summer-league stint with the Suns this year and a training camp invitation from the Pelicans. New Orleans briefly carried him on its regular season roster before waiving him a couple of weeks ago, just three games into his NBA career.

Pelicans Waive Lance Thomas, Arinze Onuaku

The Pelicans have officially waived two players on non-guaranteed contracts, Lance Thomas and Arinze Onuaku, according to a press release from the team. The cuts clear two roster spots for the team to sign Josh Childress and Louis Amundson, who have now formally been added to the roster.

While Thomas’ contract had included a $15K guarantee, that partial guarantee was so small that the 25-year-old had already earned more than that. The Pelicans will be on the hook for about two weeks’ worth of salary for both Thomas and Onuaku. Terms of the team’s agreements haven’t been reported yet — we can assume they’re both minimum salary contracts, but it’s unclear whether or not they’re partially or fully guaranteed.

Neither Thomas nor Onuaku had played a significant role so far for the Pelicans. Thomas had appeared in five games, while Onuaku had played in three, and both players averaged just over eight minutes per contest. I imagine New Orleans will be expecting more consistent production off the bench from veterans Childress and Amundson, as the club looks to contend for a playoff spot.

Pelicans Sign Arinze Onuaku

THURSDAY, 1:07pm: The Pelicans have officially announced the signing of Onuaku in a press release.

WEDNESDAY, 10:16pm: The Pelicans have agreed to sign Arinze Onuaku to a two-year deal, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.  The first year of the deal is unguaranteed and the second is a team option. 

The Syracuse product has never played in the NBA, but does have 43 D-League games under his belt.  He's averaged 11.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game for his career in the D-League, which included five games in 2010/11 and a 38 games last season which were good enough to earn him an appointment to the league's 2013 All-Star team.  Onuaku will have to prove he belongs in training camp to have a shot to stick on the New Orleans roster.

The Pelicans have had a busy Wednesday night.  News broke earlier that the team had inked Lance Thomas to a two-year deal which contained a partial guarantee for the first year and a team option for the second.

Amico On Cavaliers, Gibson, D-League

According to a tweet from FoxSportsOhio.com's Sam Amico, the Lakers are said to be interested in Cavaliers guard Daniel Gibson, but they don't have much to offer.

Regardless, Gibson, who's set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, probably will not return to Cleveland next season, as Amico is reporting the team will let him walk if they can't move him in a deal before February's deadline. Gibson's ability to knock down three-pointers would make him a great fit in Mike D'Antoni's system. 

  • The Cavaliers have an open roster spot after waiving Samardo Samuels earlier this month, and they could be looking at the D-League to fill it. Some possible options are Micheal Eric and Arinze Onuaku.