1:18pm: The Pelicans have officially signed Childress, the team announced today in a press release.
11:36am: The Pelicans have reached an agreement to sign free agent forward Josh Childress, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Childress has been on the open market since being released by the Wizards last month.
ESPN.com’s Marc Stein reported last night that New Orleans was set to sign another veteran free agent, Louis Amundson, so it’s not clear if that deal fell through, or if the team is bringing both players aboard. The Pelicans currently have 15 players on their roster, so if they plan to officially sign both Childress and Amundson, they’ll have to cut two players to make room.
Childress, 30, auditioned for the Pelicans over the summer, so the team has some level of familiarity with him. The Stanford product appeared in 14 games for the Nets last season, and is still being paid by the Suns, who amnestied him back in 2012. That salary from Phoenix likely afforded Childress the flexibility to continue hunting for an NBA job this fall, rather than heading overseas.