He's only got a summer league spot. No 2-way deal, not even a training camp invite. I think grateful is perfectly reasonable.
I might agree somewhat if he did not follow up with "I want to show how grateful I am for that and play as hard as I can"......... But I would hope any player has some ability to reflect and be grateful, even if they are a star. Even Dame expresses gratitude, not only in words but in his actions.
Perhaps. I suppose when I see the term, "grateful", I'm just thinking a vanilla just-happy-to-be-here kind of approach. I'd guess I'd rather see confident comments such as, "I'm going to work my butt off to earn a spot on this team! I want to prove that a guy from South Dakota State can fit in just as well with the likes of those dudes from Weber State and Lehigh!"
Wow, you have been out of the loop a while. 2-way deals are basically a way for teams to retain rights to G-league prospects, and even give them some time in the NBA, without actually having to add them to the main 15-man roster. Teams can have up to 2 players on 2-way deals at any given time. Those deals pay about triple a standard g-league deal, and more than that for any time they spend on the NBA team's roster (a max of 45 days), but still much, much less than a rookie minimum deal.
