Six-year NBA veteran Daequan Cook has signed a deal with Walter Tigers Tübingen of Germany, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s not clear whether the contract includes an escape clause in case an NBA team comes calling. The 26-year-old has appeared in at least part of every NBA season since he was drafted 21st overall in 2007, but that streak is in jeopardy.
Cook didn’t draw significant NBA interest in the summer and wasn’t on a preseason roster. The client of BDA Sports Management latched on with Budivelnyk Kyiv of Ukraine in November, but the club let him go in December after he averaged 6.9 points per game and shot just 28.6% from three-point range in a total of eight appearances. That’s the same percentage of three-pointers the one-time long-range marksman hit in the NBA last season, which he split between the Rockets and the Bulls. His long-range shooting was once his calling card, as he drained 42.2% of his three-point attempts in 2010/11 with the Thunder, two seasons after winning the three-point contest during All-Star Weekend.
The 6’5″ swingman started 22 games for the 2011/12 Thunder, a team that went to the NBA Finals, so it’s been a precipitous decline. Still, if he can rediscover his outside shot while in Germany, it seems he has a decent shot of returning to the NBA, if not this season, then next.