Cleveland Cavaliers waive five players, including Mamadi Diakite; plan to keep 15th roster spot open
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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — The Cleveland Cavaliers waived five players on Saturday afternoon, getting their roster below the maximum threshold.
Training camp invites Sharife Cooper, Mamadi Diakite, Nate Hinton and Jamorko Pickett were all let go. Combo guard R.J. Nembhard, who originally signed a two-way contract with Cleveland on Oct. 16, 2021, and appeared in 14 games for the Cavaliers last season, was also released.
All five players have been placed on waivers, giving other NBA teams up to 48 hours to submit claims.
After Saturday’s round of cuts, the Cavs have 14 players under contract for this coming season. While that is one less than the 15-player max, the team is temporarily planning to keep that final spot open because of its current salary cap situation. Cleveland is about $2.5 million away from the luxury tax.
“We’re in those conversations with (president of basketball operations) Koby (Altman) and Gans (general manager Mike Gansey) and understand the financial flexibility and all those things,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said following Saturday’s practice. “There’s going to come a point where we may need to, but right now, we are in agreement with the decision to leave that 15th spot open.”
Nembhard’s release adds more roster flexibility. It will also lead to another decision. The Cavs will monitor the leaguewide cuts over the next few days before making a final call on who to sign with the second two-way contract. Diakite, who appeared in all four preseason games and drew praise from Bickerstaff throughout camp, is a strong candidate to be brought back on the two-way deal — if he is not claimed off waivers.
Per NBA rules, teams may have up to two players under two-way contracts who will split their time between the NBA and G League. They are eligible to spend no more than 50 games in the NBA. Only players in their fourth NBA season or earlier are able to sign these specific contracts, which can be for either one or two seasons.
“These are things where we start having conversations in advance to kind of hash it all out and figure out what we want to do next,” Bickerstaff said. “The conversation for me is nowhere near as difficult. In essence, their dream at the moment is being paused at a minimum, and sometimes for guys it’s taken away. That’s more difficult. That’s the hard part. It’s the human aspect that makes it so difficult.”
Sources say the Cavs plan to bring Cooper, Hinton and Pickett back as members of the G League affiliate Charge. Nembhard is also a candidate to play for Cleveland’s G League team once again. But that’s still to be determined based on whether he can land a two-way spot with another NBA organization.
In 15 games with the Charge last season, Nembhard averaged 24.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 38.4 minutes.
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