Category Archives: Player News

Bryce Cotton

San Antonio Spurs Announce Summer League Roster and Schedule

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Below is from this link at Spurs.com where they released the roster and schedule for the Vegas Summer League. The Summer League team will be coached by Spurs’ assistant coach Ime Udoka. It will be interesting to see how 1st round draft pick Kyle Anderson is used as many believe they will not use him as a point guard.

Spurs Summer League Schedule
Fri, 7/11
Sacramento
COX Pavilionv
9 p.m.
NBATV

Sun, 7/13
Cleveland
COX Pavilion
1 p.m.
NBA TV

Mon, 7/14
New Orleans
T&M Center
5:30 p.m.
NBATV

7/15-21
TBD

*All Times CDT

No. Player Pos. Ht. Wt. DOB Prior to NBA/Country Yrs
1 Kyle Anderson G/F 6-9 230 9/20/93 UCLA/USA R
4 Darius Morris G 6-5 195 1/3/91 Michigan/USA 3
7 Xavi Rey C 6-11 252 7/13/87 CB Gran Canaria/Spain R
11 Jeff Ayres C/F 6-9 250 4/29/87 Arizona St./USA 4
17 Trey McKinney-Jones G 6-5 220 8/27/90 Miami/USA R
19 Ryan Richards C 6-11 230 4/21/91 Ikaros Chalkidas/England R
23 Austin Daye F 6-11 200 6/5/88 Gonzaga/USA 5
24 Marcus Denmon G 6-3 185 3/20/90 Missouri/USA R
26 Bryce Cotton G 6-1 165 8/11/92 Providence/USA R
28 Deshaun Thomas F 6-7 215 8/28/91 Ohio State/USA R
34 Melvin Ejim F 6-6 220 3/4/91 Iowa State/Cananda R
35 Vander Blue G 6-4 200 7/22/92 Marquette/USA 1
37 Viktor Gaddefors F 6-8 216 10/8/92 Virtus Bologna/Sweden R
41 JaMychal Green F 6-8 228 6/21/90 Alabama/USA R
61 Nobel Boungou-Colo F 6-8 215 4/26/88 Limoges/France R
Bryce Cotton

Bryce Cotton Officially Signs with Spurs

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The first report came on July 2nd by Shams Charania of RealGM. A source confirmed to me that Cotton was in San Antonio on Monday and the deal is done. The Spurs have now announced it to make it official.

The terms were not released but a source confirmed the report from Charania that its a 2 year deal where the 2nd year of the deal would be guaranteed if Cotton makes the team out of training camp.

Cotton will suit up for the Spurs in the Las Vegas Summer League beginning on July 11th.

Click here to read the official release from the Spurs.

Josh Fortune

Josh Fortune to Transfer to Colorado

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CBSSports.com’s Jon Rothstein is reporting that Josh Fortune will transfer to Colorado, per Angela Fortune, Josh’s mother.

While the original reasoning for Fortune’s transfer was to be closer to home, Colorado is in fact further away in miles from his home in Hampton, VA. Per Google Maps, Hampton, VA is 548 miles from Providence. It’s a roughly 3 hour flight and about a 9 hour drive. Now let’s look at those same stats, again via Google Maps, for Hampton, VA to Boulder, CO. The distance from Hampton to Boulder is 1,764 miles. A flight is roughly 4 hours. Driving time is 24 hours. Let that sink in for a minute.

Following the “closer to home” reasoning provided, Mrs. Fortune told Inside the Peninsula District‘s Dave Johnson “it was for professional reasons. He believes it’s in his best interest to transfer to find, in his words, ‘an environment conducive to my academic, athletic and social growth.'”

Any less confused?

In the end, Fortune leaves a school where he a school where he played in 69 games, 1,941 minutes (an average of 28.1 mpg) in his career. He would have likely been the unquestioned starting shooting guard a year after being named the team’s Most Improved Player at the end of the year banquet a month before announcing his transfer. Fortune’s competition at Colorado will likely include Jaron Hopkins, George King, Eli Stalzer, Xavier Talton, Dustin Thomas and anyone the Buffs coaching staff brings in during the 2015 recruiting class.

Fortune visited Minnesota and LSU  in addition to Colorado which was his first visit during the transfer process. According to Rothstein, Fortune chose Colorado over LSU and Valparaiso. Fortune will have to sit out the 2014-15 season per NCAA transfer rules and have 2 years of eligibility remaining.

Bryce Cotton

Report: Bryce Cotton To Sign Two Year Deal with the San Antonio Spurs

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RealGM.com is reporting that Bryce Cotton and the San Antonio Spurs have agreed to a two year deal that will be signed Wednesday. The report says that the deal is partially guaranteed with the guarantee portion being that if Cotton makes the roster after training camp, the second season becomes guaranteed. The salary is reportedly at the league minimum which is $507,336 for the 2014-15 season.

Cotton will suit up for the Spurs’ Summer League squad in Las Vegas from July 11th-21st. His final decision reportedly was between San Antonio and Dallas.

One interesting note is that Spurs’ free agent guard Patty Mills will have surgery to repair his rotator cuff that could keep him out until at least January 2015. ESPN.com’s Marc Stein is reporting that the Spurs do want to re-sign Mills and contract negotiations have already begun. This injury might ultimately hurt Cotton ironically because less teams may be willing to offer Mills a free agent contract now that he is injured.

Bryce Cotton

Undrafted Free Agent Bryce Cotton to Play for the San Antonio Spurs in the Las Vegas Summer League

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While it was surely disappointing to Bryce Cotton that he wasn’t drafted, sometimes being an undrafted free agent with a lot of interest can be even better because you get to evaluate each situation and find the best fit. It’s sort of like high school recruiting but this time Cotton had multiple teams to choose from. In the end, there was interest from multiple teams but Cotton will play for the San Antonio Spurs in the Las Vegas Summer league. No official word has come from the Spurs themselves but the Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara is reporting that Cotton will play for the Spurs in Vegas from July 11th-21st.

Looking at the Spurs roster, the most obvious opportunity for Cotton to latch on would be if the Spurs didn’t re-sign Tony Parker’s backup, Patty Mills. Mills seems in line to receive a deal in the JJ Barea range of 4 years and $19 million. Cotton would be on the roster for a fraction of that if he makes the team. Once confirmation comes down from San Antonio I’ll have a more detailed breakdown of the Spurs opportunity.

 

Tyler Harris

Tyler Harris to Attend Kevin Durant Skills Academy

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Tyler Harris will once again attend the Kevin Durant Skills Academy. This year’s camp will be held from June 27th-29th in Washington, DC. Here is a short description of the event from the website:

The 2014 NBA MVP Kevin Durant will host the top 30 high school and top 15 collegiate wing players from across the country at the annual Durant skills academy. Over two and a half days and five workouts, Durant will relay to the next generation of wing players what it takes to be named NBA MVP.

Harris has been down in Houston working with John Lucas this offseason.

https://twitter.com/Tyler25Harris/status/482231394739830784

https://twitter.com/Tyler25Harris/status/482375233744023553

Bryce Cotton

Bryce Cotton Goes Undrafted

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It’s nothing new for Bryce Cotton. He is being overlooked again by evaluators. Last time it was colleges. This time it’s NBA executives. Cotton sat through all 60 picks without hearing his name called while players with names no one can pronounce were picked only to be stashed in Europe for a year or more in most cases for team’s to develop and save cap space.

I’m told that there was interest from San Antonio to draft Cotton but they wanted him to agree to be stashed overseas. Ultimately it appears Cotton will have plenty of suitors as an undrafted free agent so he will be able to select the best situation. While he showed very well in his workouts, the draft continues to be more about potential, upside and measurables than purely good basketball players so Cotton will have to earn his way onto an NBA roster by showing well during NBA Summer league and training camp.