With so many players currently on the league’s Health and Safety Protocols, there is room on various team rosters for some guys that we’d like to see would return to the NBA.
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Some make perfect sense, others are just a few guys that we think would make the league a lot more fun through a turbulent season.
Ray allen
From the start, why would no one want to see ‘Sugar’ Ray back in the league for any reason other than Ray Allen? Note that Steph Curry recently surpassed him on the all-time triple record and this narrative suddenly gets a little juicier.
Bring him back home to the Bucks and let Giannis, Jrue and Khris give him open looks. Just to make it even more interesting, imagine him playing beside Curry on the Warriors?
Curry currently has 2,986 career 3s, just 13 ahead of Allen, so wouldn’t it be fun to see these two fight in real time for the 3-point record?
Sure, Steph still wins in the long run, but seeing Jesus Shuttlesworth’s perfect shooting form in the modern NBA with a license to shoot one more time would be so sweet.
JR Smith
The two-time NBA champion is pursuing liberal studies at North Carolina A&T State University and is playing golf for the school team.
.@ElRealJRSmith finished his first semester at NC A&T with a 4.0 💯
Caught up with @ ae11__ to talk about student life and the HBCU experience before the @legacyclassic! pic.twitter.com/s7a04ZEbQv
– NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 18, 2023
Smith spent 16 NBA seasons playing for five franchises and won titles with LeBron James in 2016 as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers and in 2020 with the Los Angeles Lakers. He is now 36 years old, but he still appears to be in great shape. It sounds like he’s comfortable in the next chapter of his life as a student, and overall inspiration, but are you telling us that it wouldn’t be fun to see Swish Gawd back in the league shooting one more time?
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Dante Exum
The fact that Exum is not already on an NBA roster is questionable.
The Australian entered the NBA with high hopes after being selected No. 5 overall by the Utah Jazz in the 2014 NBA Draft, but has been plagued with injuries throughout his career. Exum had spent the first five and a half seasons of his NBA career with the Utah Jazz, before spending some time with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and then being included in the successful four-team trade that saw the Brooklyn Nets land James. Harden. , arriving in Houston.
Exum impressed during the Olympics helping secure Australia’s first men’s international medal with his tenacious defense and three-point shooting. He finished the game for the bronze medal with 12 points on 4 of 5 shots and two assists.
The Houston Rockets were impressed enough to sign him to an incentive-laden deal, but he was fired before the season. He currently plays for Barcelona in the Spanish League, and on December 23 he had his best game for the club, scoring 13 points (3 of 6 field goals), getting two rebounds and two assists in a victory in overtime against Unics. .
His contract with Barcelona expires on February 28, so his return to the NBA could be at stake if he makes an impression in Spain.
Nick young
There was a time when Nick Young was one of the most trusted 3-point shooters in the NBA. He has played in the league for 12 seasons for six franchises and also has NBA championship experience.
Most recently he played for the Enemies in Ice Cube’s Big 3 league. Even though he’s been out of the NBA for three seasons, he’s definitely unwashed and can still play.
Jeremy lin
Lin attempted to return to the NBA and held onto the Santa Cruz minor league affiliate team of the Warriors in the NBA’s G League last year. Lin played well, averaging 19.8 points per game and 6.4 assists with Santa Cruz in nine games, but the NBA call-up never came.
“For months, I watched others get contracts, opportunities, opportunities,” Lin wrote on Instagram on May 18. “I told myself that I only needed ONE ten-day contract, one chance to get back on the court and I would ruin it.” After all, this is how my entire career began: an opportunity to prove myself. For reasons I will never fully know, that opportunity never materialized. But I showed that I am better than ever and an NBA player. “
Lin is now with the Beijing Ducks in the Chinese CBA, but given the Knicks’ current battles with injuries and Covid protocols, wouldn’t a final in New York be the latest highlight of Lin’s NBA career?
Matthew dellavedova
Dellavedova’s time in the NBA was polarizing. It was provocative, it encouraged people.
While he was a member of the Cavaliers, everyone in Cleveland loved him. Rival fans, not so much. Every loose ball, ‘Delly’ would go for it. Do you need a brave defense? Delly has you. He had his great success playing alongside LeBron James in the 2015 Finals.
“It’s made of steel, or something like that,” James said. “If there is a ball on the ground, it will be the first to fall. It appeared several times tonight. It is huge. It is huge for our team. He gives us that value, that value that we need. He gives us everything until the tank is empty. And he has a little reserve tank that he continues to work on. It’s huge for us. “
A variety of ailments, including a concussion, whiplash, an emergency appendectomy and a neck strain, derailed his second season with the Cavaliers, but he currently plays for Melbourne United in the Australian National Basketball League. With teams looking to beef up their playoff rosters later in the NBA season, Delly could be back in the game sooner than we think.
