5:03pm: The move is official, the team announced via press release.
4:32pm: The Grizzlies are releasing swingman Luke Hancock, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders hears (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, though Pincus indicates that the move has already taken place. The 24-year-old out of Louisville was on a non-guaranteed contract, so Memphis won’t be stuck paying him any salary. The move would reduce the Memphis roster to 18 players.
Hancock appeared in only one of the team’s three preseason games so far, making the only basket he attempted while coming up with three steals in nine minutes. He was a part-time starter at Louisville this past season before going undrafted in June, and he was with the Magic and Rockets in summer league this past July.
Memphis, which has a one-to-one D-League affiliation with the Iowa Energy this year, can keep the D-League rights to as many as four of the players it cuts before opening night, so it’s conceivable that it’ll do so with Hancock. Should the team formally let Hancock go, Patrick Christopher, Earl Clark, Kalin Lucas and Hassan Whiteside would be the lone remaining non-guaranteed contracts on the team’s books.