The New Orleans Hornets announced in an afternoon press release that they have waived guard Mustafa Shakur and center Darryl Watkins to cut their training camp roster down to 16 players.  

A decision between D.J. Strawberry, Joe Alexander, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and the newly-acquired Curtis Jerrells is likely looming since the Hornets will need to release at least one of them to reach the 15-player maximum by the time the regular seasons begins next week.

It probably won't surprise anyone that Shakur and Watkins were the first players to be released by the Hornets if only because it's sounded like Strawberry was ahead of Shakur for a couple of weeks now and Watkins, while solid, probably isn't much more than a serviceable training camp big man in the NBA at this point.  It probably didn't help that D.J. Mbenga was also recently brought in to be a backup big man.

I would expect, if Shakur isn't picked up by another NBA team, that he'll return to the Tulsa 66ers in hopes of a quick call-up as he'd likely be the top point guard in the D-League. Watkins, after sitting out all of last season dealing with a staph infection, would be property of the Iowa Energy if the 25-year-old decides to stay stateside.