Training-camp invitees enjoying the atmosphere
A year ago, Alex Hamilton was growing anxious in his apartment outside Dabrowa Gornicza, a town of roughly 123,000 in southern Poland. The 2015-16 Conference USA Player of the Year had signed with a team in the Polish Basketball League, only to not play a game as he nursed a badly sprained ankle.
“I was just sitting around, and I didn’t know anyone,” Hamilton recalled Wednesday. “I couldn’t play basketball to get away from it all and forget about where I was.”
His six weeks in Poland taught Hamilton perspective. Now, as he slogs through Warriors training camp with little shot at making the regular-season roster, Hamilton, 23, is appreciative simply to play alongside a cast of NBA All-Stars.
Though the preseason is a chance for players on guaranteed contracts to find a rhythm and ease into the grind of an 82-game schedule, Golden State’s four exhibitions are about more macro goals for the four players — Hamilton, Georges Niang, Antonius Cleveland and Michael Gbinije — who signed training-camp deals with the team last week.
“They all know coming in before they arrive what the deal is,” Warfrom riors head coach Steve Kerr said. “With that in mind, they’ve all been really good. I’ve been really impressed with them.”
Because the Warriors already have the regular-season maximum 15 players on guaranteed contracts, the odds of Hamilton, Niang, Cleveland or Gbinije hanging with Golden State long-term are slim. Over the next three weeks, as the Warriors trim their 20-man roster to 15, each of those four training-camp invitees likely will be waived so he can be designated to Golden State’s Gatorade League affiliate in Santa Cruz.
Realistically, Hamilton, Niang, Cleveland and Gbinije are vying for Golden State’s remaining two-way deal.
Under the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, teams have two additional roster slots for players to spend up to 45 days with their respective NBA team and the rest of their season with a G-League affiliate.
Anyone on a two-way contract will make $75,000 in the G-League and a prorated portion of the NBA rookie minimum salary — about $816,000 this season — for any days with the big club.
Rookie Chris Boucher, who won’t play in the preseason as he recovers a torn ACL sustained in the Pac-12 tournament with Oregon, has inked a two-way contract with the Warriors. Of Golden State’s four training-camp invitees, Niang and Gbinije probably have the best chances at securing the other two-way deal.
A four-year starter at Iowa State, Niang was a consensus second-team All American as a senior before going No. 50 overall in the 2016 draft to the Pacers. Indiana waived the 6foot-6, 231-pound small forward in July.
Gbinije, who was taken one spot ahead of Niang in 2016 by the Pistons, averaged 12 points and 4.3 rebounds last season with the GLeague’s Grand Rapids Drive.
“You get humbled real quick at this level,” Niang said. “It’s like starting over all over again. If you’re not ready to work from Day 1, someone’s going to pass you. That’s the one thing I’m focusing on right now. No days off. Just continuously try to get better.”
While with the team, the Warriors’ four training-camp invitees make $2,000 per week and receive roughly $127 in per diem.
“It’s cool being out here with the stars,” Hamilton, who played with Santa Cruz last season after leaving Poland, said as he glanced at Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant hoisting jumpers on a nearby court. “But at the same time, they’re real people just like us.”