The Suns are close to making a partially guaranteed offer to two-year veteran Justin Hamilton, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). Hamilton, who finished last season with the Timberwolves, had reportedly been close to a deal last week with Valencia of Spain, but he remains a free agent. In any case, he’s uncertain about signing just a partially guaranteed deal, according to Wolfson.
Minnesota last month decided against making a qualifying offer of only about $1.147MM, $200K more than Hamilton’s minimum salary, an inauspicious sign for his NBA future. He’d been mostly stuck at the end of the bench with the Heat the past two seasons until the three-team Goran Dragic trade took him to the Pelicans, who waived him a couple of weeks later. Minnesota claimed the 7-footer off waivers, sacrificing 2014 second-rounder Glenn Robinson III to do so.
Hamilton averaged 9.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 24.9 minutes per game across 17 games with the Wolves. That’s a small sample size, but it appears to be enough to tempt Phoenix to some degree. The Suns have only 13 fully guaranteed contracts and the $2.184MM room exception available, though it would be surprising if they offered Hamilton more than the minimum.
Do you think Hamilton deserves a spot on an NBA roster? Leave a comment to let us know.
I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions thay I really like this guy’s game. I was disappointed the Heat lost him, to be honest. He always seems to be in the right spot defensively, and is a good individual defender, as well as team defender, and he can block shots and take charges when necessary. Offensively, he is versatile. Very good passer. Can play out of the high post, and on the low block, and he can shoot the 3. Good fit with Phoenix, though they’ve added a few similar options as that floor spacing big this offseason…
You wonder if the Heat might circle back around to the guy at some point. They clearly liked him on some level, but he never really got a chance to show it. The irony was that Bosh went down just as they traded Hamilton; otherwise, he might have had his chance.
I said the same thing at the time. When he got playing time, he did all the right things. They saw a lot of his all around game in the D-League a couple of years ago. There have been a few guys that have run through there, or in summer league, recently that have been at least interesting for them, and a bunch of them have relayed it into other opportunities at one time or another