Wayne Chism, a 6-foot-9 power forward out of Tennessee, has decided to play his rookie season in Turkey with Antalya.
This typically wouldn't be a surprising story, but Chism's agent, Jared Karnes, told the Knoxville News Sentinel's Mike Griffith that the big man has turned down a Sacramento Kings' training camp invite in order to pursue the guaranteed money that Turkey has offered.
Chism's reasoning for turning down the invite, according to Karnes, was the Kings' loss of roster flexibility after recently signing Pooh Jeter and Antoine Wright. The agent said that "before those signings, Wayne was strongly considering taking advantage of the Kings' open roster spots."
I'm not going to try and guess if Chism had a legitimate chance at making the Kings roster (before or after their recent signings), but his play for the Kings in the recent Vegas Summer League didn't make me believe he immediately needed to be on an NBA team's payroll after averaging 5.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and an enormously-high 4.2 fouls in just over 17 minutes of action.
Chism showed that he does have some redeemable NBA-type qualities in Vegas, specifically running the pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop,but looked too willing to force his inconsistent jump shot and was very very erratic on his outlet passes. His defense, as you might be able to surmise with his higher-than-average foul rate, was not good as he doesn't really have a position that he's able to defend in the NBA.
In Turkey, Chism will play with fellow rookies Devan Downey (South Carolina) and Patrick Christopher (Cal) while hopefully working on his jump shot (or a few back-to-the-basket moves) and shoring up his on-ball defense.
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