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Oklahoma City Thunder Sign Ish Smith Making Him Third Gatorade Call-Up

The NBA D-League season doesn't start for another nine days yet we have already seen three Gatorade Call-Ups over the last couple of days. Last season there were a record 49 Gatorade Call-Ups and it appears that record will be broken in the 2014-15 season.

By ChrisReichert
David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

Early Wednesday morning Darnell Mayberry, reported that the Oklahoma City Thunder had Ish Smith going through a physical with plans to sign him via the NBA's hardship exception. The Thunder have been ravaged by injury early this season and the hits kept coming last night as Perry Jones III went down with a knee contusion. The hardship exception allows teams with at least four injured players who will be sidelined for at least two weeks to exceed the 15-player maximum roster.

Smith can be considered an NBA veteran as he has 191 games in The Association, and has proven himself to be a reliable backup point guard option and a pest on defense to boot. Last season Smith played 70 games with the Phoenix Suns and averaged 3.7 points and 2.6 assists.

Ish played this NBA preseason with the Houston Rockets and in seven games averaged 4.9 points and 2.1 assists, however he also averaged 2.1 turnovers in those games.

He was recently waived by the Houston Rockets, and subsequently cleared waivers before signing a D-League contract. He ended up being traded from the Delaware 87ers to the Texas Legends and has been in training camp with them since Monday.

Terms of the deal with OKC were not disclosed per team policy, however we can assume that as with Will Cherry and Kalin Lucas his deal with most likely be for the league minimum (pro-rated).