<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> SEATTLE - The Seattle SuperSonics have waived guard Ibrahim Kutluay and activated guard Mateen Cleaves from the injured list, General Manager Rick Sund announced today. Kutluay, 31, who was signed as a free agent on Sep. 22, played in five games after being activated from the injured list on Dec. 14. In 12 minutes of action, he grabbed one rebound and committed two turnovers. Kutluay became just the fourth Turkish player in NBA history when he made his debut on Dec. 22 vs. Denver. He missed the season's first 21 games with patellar tendinitis in his left knee. </div> <a href="http://compuserve.nba.com/sonics/news/cleaveskutluay050131.html" target="_blank"> Full story</a> courtesy of Supersonics.com
An absolute waste of a signee. He was paid pretty handsomely for a 30 year old rookie and didn't even last the season. The bad part about this is that he was paid his full salary this year b/c the Sonics missed the deadline to release a non guaranteed contract player w/o having to pay the full salary. I thought that he had a guaranteed contract for two seasons. If that is the case he will count against the cap for this season and the next while he plays in Europe. There are a ton of Richie Frahm replacements that would have played for the league minimum. Predrag Savovic comes to mind. John Reimold, my friend at Bowling Green, would be a great second round draft choice. Why offer a 30 year old rookie a contract for over 3 million (spread out over two years) when you are trying to cut cost. My best to Ibo in his future endeavors b/c I do think that he is a quality player--at least at the international level. He just should have received a much cheaper contract that was only partially guaranteed.
Does seem a bit pointless in the end, but what can ya do? Although my sources tell me he requested to be released.
