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538 has its team and player forecasts out for this season.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-player-projections/

Here are its WAR forecasts for the 20/21 season for the 25 Canadians (and quasi-Canadians) it has data for:

Murray 8.6
SGA 5.7
Olynyk 2.7
Brooks 2.4
Wiggins 2.2

Boucher 2.1
Clarke 2.0
Dort 2.0
Joseph 1.8
Mulder 1.6

Powell 1.6
Thompson 1.3
NAW 1.2
Birch 0.9
Lyles 0.6

Brissett 0.5
Kbangele 0.4
Mitrou-Long 0.4
RJ Barrett 0.3
Stauskas 0.1

Alexander 0.0
Brazdeikis 0.0
Shayok 0.0
Mane -0.1
Darling -0.3

Simi Shittu played the last quarter for Chicago today. 13 points, 6 rebounds, and +21 in a comeback win against OKC. Will he get a roster spot this year? I thought he looked pretty good. Active on the boards, strong, and quite accurate in the paint (though not from the line). Also looked fine defensively, but it was too little to relaly judge.

Hair Canada wrote:Simi Shittu played the last quarter for Chicago today. 13 points, 6 rebounds, and +21 in a comeback win against OKC. Will he get a roster spot this year? I thought he looked pretty good. Active on the boards, strong, and quite accurate in the paint (though not from the line). Also looked fine defensively, but it was too little to relaly judge.

I see a bunch of people on the Bulls board calling for them to find a way to keep him, but I'm not sure what their roster situation is, and if they realistically have any spots open.

O'Shae Brisset waived by the Raptors this morning. Tough news for him. My guess is the knee surgery put him a step behind. Doesn't sound like his Contract is G-league eligible. Not sure what's next for him.


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Kenter16 wrote:O'Shae Brisset waived by the Raptors this morning. Tough news for him. My guess is the knee surgery put him a step behind. Doesn't sound like his Contract is G-league eligible. Not sure what's next for him.


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Not sure how much it was the knee surgery, or if it's just that his lack of shooting touch from everywhere on the court finally did him in. At his size he really needs to be a 3-and-D type wing who can slide over to play minutes at the 4. People in those positions absolutely have to be able to shoot in today's NBA, and unfortunatley, Brissett just doesn't seem to have made much progress on that front since his freshman year at Syracuse. He's still far too inconsistent.

It's a shame, because he seems like a good guy, and does some other things well on the court. I'm just not sure that the NBA is the place for him.

Nick Stauskas cut today. Never seemed to get much of a chance with a loaded Bucks roster. In a podcast he mentioned the Raptors and G State also offered him a training camp spot. I wonder if he would have been better off pursuing those opportunities ?

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2020/12/bucks-request-waivers-on-treveon-graham-nik-stauskas.html

Shittu sent packing as well , it's a cruel business. I note he scored most of his points in garbage time. He probably should have just stayed at Vanderbilt.

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aminiaturebuddha wrote:

Hair Canada wrote:Simi Shittu played the last quarter for Chicago today. 13 points, 6 rebounds, and +21 in a comeback win against OKC. Will he get a roster spot this year? I thought he looked pretty good. Active on the boards, strong, and quite accurate in the paint (though not from the line). Also looked fine defensively, but it was too little to relaly judge.

I see a bunch of people on the Bulls board calling for them to find a way to keep him, but I'm not sure what their roster situation is, and if they realistically have any spots open.

I think it was more the matter of the guaranteed contracts already on the books. There was never really a roster spot for Simi to win.

Logical cut would have been Felecio but he had 7.5MM guaranteed.

You’d think Simi sticks around for another year with the Windy City Bulls unless someone offers him a 2 way. No idea how many are open.

The cut I'm most surprised about is Shayok. I thought he had shown some promising things last year, particularly in the G League. But I haven't really heard anything about him this pre-season, so maybe he had a really bad camp. Or sometimes it's just a numbers game and he just got squeezed off of a roster that already had too many established players in guaranteed contracts.

If it's the latter, he'll probably be best suited going back to the G League, continuing his strong play there, and hoping that he gets picked by another team at some point, given that there is likely to be lots of roster fluctuating this year with Covid protocols and injuries due to a condensed season.

aminiaturebuddha wrote:The cut I'm most surprised about is Shayok. I thought he had shown some promising things last year, particularly in the G League. But I haven't really heard anything about him this pre-season, so maybe he had a really bad camp. Or sometimes it's just a numbers game and he just got squeezed off of a roster that already had too many established players in guaranteed contracts.

If it's the latter, he'll probably be best suited going back to the G League, continuing his strong play there, and hoping that he gets picked by another team at some point, given that there is likely to be lots of roster fluctuating this year with Covid protocols and injuries due to a condensed season.

I don't know. Shayok is 25.5. For me, his best role is as a volume scorer, and he's actually very good at that, as he's shown in both Iowa State and the G. But I don't see any NBA team letting him become a scorer off the bench any time soon. I actually hope that he goes to Europe, where he gets some room to show his skills and get paid a decent salary for a few good years while becoming the best version of who he is and also learning the FIBA game. I think he's a player that can thrive in a bigger role. That's different from someone like Brissett, who is still younger and might still be able to carve a limited role as a defensive specialist with an NBA team.

Hair Canada wrote:

aminiaturebuddha wrote:The cut I'm most surprised about is Shayok. I thought he had shown some promising things last year, particularly in the G League. But I haven't really heard anything about him this pre-season, so maybe he had a really bad camp. Or sometimes it's just a numbers game and he just got squeezed off of a roster that already had too many established players in guaranteed contracts.

If it's the latter, he'll probably be best suited going back to the G League, continuing his strong play there, and hoping that he gets picked by another team at some point, given that there is likely to be lots of roster fluctuating this year with Covid protocols and injuries due to a condensed season.

I don't know. Shayok is 25.5. For me, his best role is as a volume scorer, and he's actually very good at that, as he's shown in both Iowa State and the G. But I don't see any NBA team letting him become a scorer off the bench any time soon. I actually hope that he goes to Europe, where he gets some room to show his skills and get paid a decent salary for a few good years while becoming the best version of who he is and also learning the FIBA game. I think he's a player that can thrive in a bigger role. That's different from someone like Brissett, who is still younger and might still be able to carve a limited role as a defensive specialist with an NBA team.

I think all these guys should be looking at European options. A plan for a G League season still isn't set. The last I saw was that they want to do a bubble from Mid January to the end of March.
Shittu and Brissett has an outside chance of carving out a few bench minutes this season in the NBA. But a break out or even more than 10 minutes a game is very unlikely. I only add Shittu here because recency bias is a real thing. He was excellent in his last outing and that may lead to another team wanting to take a closer look. But, is that the best for a 20 year old? To play every third or fourth game for maybe 5 minutes.
In my opinion, Stauskis, Shayok and Naz should head overseas.

Shouldn’t Shayok be someone’s 10th man because he gets a ton of 3s up on decent accuracy and is wing sized? Is his defence that bad?

I wonder if we’ll look at Shittu as a development Canadian with an NBA body, seems like the kind of thing we’d give a go with the 905.

I mostly agree but the problem is that its mid season in Europe and there are not allot of good jobs available. And now you have a whole load of good players recently cut looking for work. I’d expect a couple will be able to land something but i think most won’t. Might be a wasted year for a number of guys.



Edit- Nik and Naz showing up here as two of the more likely cuts to head to Europe.

https://www.eurohoops.net/en/trademarks/1145239/top-5-nba-waived-players-potentially-on-their-way-to-europe/3/

24 Canadians played in the NBA last season. 20 will be on rosters at the start of this coming season. Last season we had 9 Canadian rookies, which resulted in a huge spike in the tally of Canadians, so it shouldn't be that surprising to see the number come down a bit this year. We could see this number go up or down through out the season of course.

Holdovers:
Tristan Thompson
Dwight Powell
Jamal Murray
Mychal Mulder
Andrew Wiggins
Mfiondu Kabangele
Dillon Brooks
Brandon Clarke
Kelly Olynyk
Nickeil Alexander-Walker
RJ Barrett
Ignas Brazdeikis
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Luguentz Dort
Khem Birch
Cory Joseph
Trey Lyles
Chris Boucher

New Additions:
Nate Darling
Karim Mané

Out:
Naz Mitrou-Long
Kyle Alexander
Oshae Brissett
Marial Shayok

With expanded rosters and the inevitable Covid breakouts it's not a bad idea to just stick around and wait as teams need extra depth. There will be guaranteed situations where guys find a real home/role because of it.

The interesting thing about the list of 20 above is that except for 3 of them (Mulder, Kabangele, and Brazdeikis), all are expected to be rotation players and get steady minutes on their respective teams, either as starters or as bench players. That is, we have a strong core here, most of it quite young, to which others might be added in the future.

Somebody set me straight here. Everyone is saying there are 17 Canadians on opening rosters. I count 18. Does Boucher not count because he was born in St Lucia?

Kenter16 wrote:Somebody set me straight here. Everyone is saying there are 17 Canadians on opening rosters. I count 18. Does Boucher not count because he was born in St Lucia?

Yes the NBA released an official list of international players which is based on place of birth, therefore they only noted Canada as having 17 players. They also aren't including two-way contract players, which would bring the total to 20 (Darling, Mane + Boucher).

https://www.nba.com/news/nba-rosters-feature-107-international-players-from-41-countries

Boucher is most definitely Canadian, as he moved here as a 5 year old and became a citizen. This isn't a Sam Dalembert like situation where he only became a Canadian citizen as an adult.

BilboBanginz wrote:

Kenter16 wrote:Somebody set me straight here. Everyone is saying there are 17 Canadians on opening rosters. I count 18. Does Boucher not count because he was born in St Lucia?

Yes the NBA released an official list of international players which is based on place of birth, therefore they only noted Canada as having 17 players. They also aren't including two-way contract players, which would bring the total to 20 (Darling, Mane + Boucher).

https://www.nba.com/news/nba-rosters-feature-107-international-players-from-41-countries

Boucher is most definitely Canadian, as he moved here as a 5 year old and became a citizen. This isn't a Sam Dalembert like situation where he only became a Canadian citizen as an adult.

But they have Brazdeikis, so I think they just forgot Boucher all together.