11:37am: The Blazers have officially waived Williams, the team confirmed today in a press release.
9:52am: The Trail Blazers will waive shooting guard Jeenathan Williams before his salary for the 2023/24 season becomes guaranteed, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Williams’ $1,719,864 salary for ’23/24 is fully non-guaranteed — it would have become guaranteed if he had remained under contract through August 1, as our tracker shows.
Sean Highkin of Rose Garden Report previously noted that the 24-year-old was unlikely to be retained through that date.
Williams, who went undrafted out of Buffalo in 2022, spent most of his first professional season with the Salt Lake City Stars, Utah’s G League affiliate. In 32 regular season appearances for Salt Lake City, he averaged 14.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.2 assists in 29.8 minutes per game, posting an impressive .523/.417/.848 shooting line.
That G League performance earned Williams a late-season call-up with the Blazers, who signed him to a multiyear deal on April 1. He played a major role for the lottery-bound club down the stretch, averaging 10.6 PPG, 3.0 RPG, and 2.0 APG on .615/.375/.667 shooting in five contests (25.4 MPG), including four starts.
Releasing Williams will leave Portland with 12 players on standard contracts and a pair on two-way deals. If they’d like to keep Williams around without having to guarantee his salary, the Blazers could try to re-sign him on a new non-guaranteed or two-way contract, but he would have to pass through waivers first.
I feel bad for these guys who sign a multi-year deal, get excited, and then get waived a few months later.
We have to waive you a day before this date so you don’t get a guarantee of NBA pocket change while the “Super Stars”get the bank plus more.
Terrible name spelling probably had at least a small factor in the decision.
I always try to follow this guy b/c he looks exactly like Jimmy Butler lol