Emmanuel

Mudiay

This allows Mudiay to play with their G-League team in Iowa. Tim Connelly, Minnesota’s team president, drafted Mudiay in 2015 with the 7th pick for Denver.

The Kings’ search for additional depth in light of multiple players hitting the injury report due to health and safety protocols has led them to Europe. Mudiay, a lottery pick in 2015, has been playing in Lithuania this season after never panning out in the NBA. The expectation is that he’ll be able to join his new teammates on Wednesday. There’s no need to pick Mudiay up in any fantasy league.

The former No. 7 overall pick in the 2015 draft, Mudiay never lived up to expectations in the NBA. He played for the Blazers’ summer league team in Las Vegas earlier this month but was unable to secure an NBA contract.

The Blazers summer league is filled with former NBA veterans such as Mudiay, Kenneth Faried, and Michael Beasley as well as younger players with NBA experience such as Kobi Simmons, and Antonio Blakeney. Faried, Beasley, and Mudiay have all played at least 300 NBA games and are career double-figure scorers. But somewhere along the way, they lost their footing in the league and are now trying to make a comeback on this portland summer league squad. Simmons, though, led the Blazers in scoring on Tuesday with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting (1-of-2 3-pointers) two assists, one rebound, two steals, and two blocks. Blakeney chipped in 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting (2-of-3 3-pointers) with four rebounds, one assist, and one steal. All of these veterans will surely not make Portland’s roster, but they will try to impress at least one franchise into bringing them on for this upcoming season.

Mudiay is a former No. 7 overall pick, but his career has been derailed by stubborn inefficiency. In five NBA seasons he’s averaged 11.0 points on 40.1% shooting, with 3.8 assists and 2.2 turnovers, though he did improve to 46.2% from the field in 2019-20 with Utah. After failing to join an NBA team last season, the 25-year-old guard is hopeful that strong play in Las Vegas will get him back onto a roster.

This was expected, as Conley made it clear from the start that he would be leaving the bubble at some point to be present for the birth of his son. How long he’ll remain in Columbus, Ohio remains to be seen, as the time away from the team and how often Conley is tested for COVID-19 will determine the amount of time that he’ll have to quarantine once back in Orlando. Utah opens its playoff series against Denver on Monday, and his absence will mean even more time on the ball for Donovan Mitchell and Joe Ingles. As for who starts in Conley’s place, it could be Emmanuel Mudiay if Quin Snyder prefers to keep Jordan Clarkson with the second unit as that group’s primary scoring option.

He’ll be joining Mike Conley (knee) on the sidelines today, so Jordan Clarkson should see an uptick in minutes and Donovan Mitchell will have some more playmaking responsibilities. Mudiay should be fine once the postseason begins, but he’s a non-factor in fantasy hoops.

Mike Conley has already been ruled out due to right knee soreness, though that seems like a simple precaution. Miye Oni and Jordan Clarkson will be busy without Conley in action, and would get even more touches if Mudiay can’t suit up.

The Jazz are on the second leg of a back-to-back, so they’ll give Mudiay an off-day after he logged 28 minutes as a starter yesterday. Mike Conley is back, so Mudiay being unavailable doesn’t mean much.

Mudiay got off to a rough start with just one make on 1-of-6 shooting through the first half of action, and he finished the game on 4-of-13 shooting. He’ll return to the bench and irrelevancy on Saturday vs. Denver, assuming all the main guys will be back for that one.