The Nets issued a press release two weeks ago announcing that they had signed Michael Beasley, then voided that contract after the forward tested positive for COVID-19. According to John Hollinger of The Athletic (Twitter link), Beasley’s case is technically being treated as if he failed his physical and had his contract disapproved. As Hollinger puts it, “it’s like he was never there.”
Substitute-player contracts don’t count against NBA teams’ cap sheets this summer, so the Nets’ cap will be unaffected either way. However, presumably the team won’t be on the hook for the $183K they would have owed Beasley.
More importantly, the five-game suspension that Beasley would have had to serve if he had stuck with the Nets appears to still be in play — if and when the former No. 2 pick signs with a new NBA team, he’ll still have to serve that five-game ban before being activated.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Former Stephen F. Austin guard Thomas Walkup, who has spent the last three seasons overseas, received some NBA interest, but has decided to remain with Lithuanian team Zalgiris Kaunas rather than exercise his opt-out, according to Donatas Urbonas (Twitter link).
- The NBA has terminated its relationship with a basketball academy located in the Xinjiang region of China, according to a letter sent by the league to a U.S. senator, obtained by Ross Dellenger of SI.com. “The NBA has had no involvement with the Xinjiang basketball academy for more than a year, and the relationship has been terminated,” deputy commissioner Mark Tatum wrote to Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. The Xinjiang region, where Chinese authorities are holding approximately one million Muslims in “re-education” camps, is “known as one of the world’s worst humanitarian zones,” Dellenger writes.
- A handful of NBA players are taking part in a basketball tournament in Paris this week, according to Marc Berman of The New York Post, who reports that Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina, Pistons forward Sekou Doumbouya, and Bulls two-way player Adam Mokoka are participating in the event.