Former Arizona Center Kaleb Tarczewski makes D-League Team Roster

Good news! Kaleb Tarczewski will join the OKC Blue D-League training camp roster. 

Kaleb Tarczewski was not drafted out of college in the 2016 NBA Draft, despite being considered a pretty successful player, earning the distinction of become the winningest player in Arizona Basketball history.

Zeus was then picked up by two teams for Summer League. The Washington Wizards’ added Tarczewski to the summer-league roster as well as the Detroit Pistons’. The reason he could make two rosters is because the two teams played in tournaments at different times in different cities; Orlando and Las Vegas.

Kaleb played solidly throughout the summer league and his play earned him a spot on a third team’s NBA roster, this time for the NBA preseason. The Oklahoma City Thunder guaranteed Tarczewski $75K until Tuesday, January 10, 2017.

The October 24th NBA deadline for waiving players to cut all teams rosters to 15 resulted in Zeus being waived by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The OKC Organization automatically allocated our big man to their D-League affiliate preseason roster, the OKC Blue. He must have chosen to sign an NBA D-League contract.

Kaleb is an ‘affiliate’ player. What does that mean? Here is the explanation from HoopsRumors.com:

“However, up to four players waived by teams before the season can be designated as affiliate players and assigned to their D-League squads.

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The players have some say in the decision — if they’d prefer to sign with a team overseas, or if they would like an opportunity with another NBA club, they’re free to turn down their team’s request to have them play in the D-League.

Most NBA and international teams have fairly set rosters by late October though, so having the opportunity to continue playing in the same system is appealing to many of those preseason cuts. Especially since they’ll maintain NBA free agency while they play in the D-League.

There are a few other rules related to D-League affiliate players. A player whose returning rights are held by a D-League team can’t be an affiliate player for another club, which is why undrafted free agents from the current year are commonly signed and assigned. Additionally, an affiliate player must have signed with his team during the current league year, which explains why we often see players signed and quickly waived in the days leading up to the regular season.

Of course, not every NBA team has a D-League affiliate, so clubs like the Hawks, Nuggets, or Clippers have no place to send affiliate players.”

Must Read: TBD

There you have it. Let’s hope this works out for Kaleb. If not, next stop would be overseas, but the way he played on the Thunder this preseason, we can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t keep him. Beardown Zeus!