The Brooklyn Nets signed free-agent guard Iman Shumpert on Wednesday.
Brooklyn holds a 16th roster spot until forward Wilson Chandler’s suspension ends in mid-December, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Free agent guard Iman Shumpert is signing with the Brooklyn Nets, league sources tell ESPN. Nets have a 16th roster spot until Wilson Chandler suspension ends in mid-December
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 13, 2019
If Shumpert is still on the roster through Dec. 14 or later, the Nets will need to waive or trade a player, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
Shumpert split the previous season between the Sacramento Kings and Houston Rockets, averaging 7.5 points and three boards across 62 appearances.
Shumpert will definitely be able to help the Nets, whose average team age is 26, and has a lot of youth on the roster. After all this year they are playing with “house money” so to speak, as Kevin Durant rehabs a torn Achilles this year.
The Nets have to have that “next man up” mentality this season as a few of their guys have either been banged up (DeAndre Jordan, Durant) or suspended (Wilson Chandler). To add to that, Levert’s thumb injury that caused him to leave in the second quarter of Brooklyn’s 138-112 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Sunday is looking like it’s worse than the team originally thought.
Shumpert spent the entire offseason and first three weeks of the regular season trying to find a job. He wrote on Twitter in August that he was “working quietly behind the scenes” waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
That opportunity has arrived and Shumpert gets to return to the city where his career began