AUGUST 20TH, 3:55pm: The signing is official, the Pelicans announced.
AUGUST 14TH, 3:15pm: The Pelicans have agreed to sign undrafted shooting guard Bryce Dejean-Jones to a partially guaranteed three-year contract, league sources told Shams Charania of RealGM. Dejean-Jones finished out his collegiate career with Iowa State this past season before playing last month for the Pelicans summer league team. New Orleans has been carrying only 12 players, all of whom have full guarantees, so Dejean-Jones appears to have a strong chance to make the regular season roster, depending on the other moves the team might make between now and opening night.
Dejean-Jones averaged 12.8 points in 21.6 minutes per game for the summer Pelicans, nailing 61.9% of his shots from the floor and nine of his 18 three-point attempts, Charania notes. Those were better numbers than he posted in his lone season with the Cyclones after having previously played at USC and UNLV. The 6’5″ Dejean-Jones, who turns 23 in a week, put up 10.6 PPG in 23.0 MPG with 32.9% three-point shooting as a senior at Iowa State.
Neither Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress nor Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranked Dejean-Jones within their top 100 prospects for this year’s draft. He’ll join new Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry after having spent last season under Fred Hoiberg, who’s since left the school to become coach of the Bulls. New Orleans will use some portion of the $1.294MM it has left on its mid-level exception to make the signing official, since neither the minimum-salary exception or the biannual exception would provide for a three-year deal.