Yesterday, Luke Adams ran down the status of this year's amnesty victims. Only 14 NBA teams came into the summer of 2013 with the ability to use the amnesty provision and just five took advantage of the provision and released a player in July during the '13 amnesty period. Three of those players have already found new homes for the 2013/14 season. Metta World Peace hooked on with the Knicks after intimating for a good while that he would explore opportunities in China. Mike Miller returned to the Grizzlies after being cut loose by the Heat. Linas Kleiza had his $4.6MM deal taken off the books by the Raptors and signed a two-year pact in Turkey. Still left: Drew Gooden and Tyrus Thomas.
Things have been fairly quiet on both players. Thomas was said to have been of interest to the Knicks, but we haven't heard anything on that front in over a month. Meanwhile, we haven't heard any reports on Gooden since he was let go on July 16th.
The Bobcats cut bait with Thomas, the former No. 4 overall pick, in order to give themselves enough breathing room to sign Al Jefferson. Thomas hasn't been able to stay on the floor much in his last three seasons, seeing time in just 121 games. In that stretch, he averaged just 7.0 PPG and 4.0 RPG, not quite the production they would have liked from someone making $17.1MM over the next two seasons.
Gooden, 32 in September, was on the block for a while in Milwaukee, so it wasn't a surprise to see him cut loose last month. He had arguably his best season as pro in Milwaukee in 2011/12, averaging 13.7 points and 6.5 rebounds in 26.2 minutes per game, which added up to a PER of 18.88. However, he was only able to play in 16 games for the Bucks last season.
Both veterans are on the market for any NBA club to pickup – who would you rather have on your team?