Former first-round pick Archie Goodwin is headed back to the G League. The Greensboro Swarm, the Hornets’ G League affiliate, announced today in a press release that they’ve added Goodwin to their roster as a returning rights player.
The 29th overall pick in the 2013 draft, Goodwin spent the first three years of his NBA career in Phoenix, then played sparingly last season for the Pelicans and Nets. The 23-year-old guard, who has averaged 6.3 PPG and 2.0 RPG in 165 career NBA games, was in camp with the Trail Blazers this fall, but Portland waived him at the end of the preseason.
Now that he has signed a new G League contract, Goodwin will return to Greensboro, where he spent much of last season. In 2016/17, the former Kentucky Wildcat put up 17.0 PPG and 5.2 RPG in 34 games (32.7 MPG) for Charlotte’s affiliate, which still held his G League rights.
Goodwin parlayed his solid G League performance last season into a pair of 10-day contracts and then a rest-of-season deal with Brooklyn down the stretch. He likely hopes to take a similar path back to the NBA this year — because he’s not on a two-way contract, he’ll be free to sign with any of the 30 NBA teams if he makes a strong impression with the Swarm.