The Pacers signed Terran Petteway on Sunday night and waived him after practice today, tweets Wheat Hotchkiss of Pacers.com. The moves took place so that Indiana could grab his D-League rights, as Robin Washut of HuskersOnline.com reported that Petteway is joining the D-League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the affiliate of the Pacers (Twitter link). Teams are allowed to claim the D-League rights of up to four players they waive, but usually those players have to spend the majority of the preseason on the NBA roster. That’s not the case for Petteway, whom the Hawks waived last week, through a quirk in the affiliate player rule, one that Adam Johnson of D-League Digest recently pointed out. The Hawks don’t have a D-League team, so any NBA team with an affiliate could have snagged him and quickly released him to gain his D-League rights as the Pacers did.
Petteway, 23, went undrafted out of Nebraska this year but joined the Hawks on a partially guaranteed deal for camp. Lamar Patterson won the open spot on Atlanta’s regular season roster as Petteway saw little time on the floor during preseason games, scoring five points in only about 21 minutes total.
Indiana was one of the NBA teams that worked out Petteway prior to the draft this year. The 6’6″ swingman was an All-Big Ten Third Team selection as a junior last season after earning First Team honors as a sophomore.
He’ll join Indiana’s D-League roster instead of being subject to the D-League draft, assuming he clears NBA waivers. The Pacers trimmed their roster to 15 players today when they released Toney Douglas and his partial guarantee.