The Oklahoma City Thunder held their annual preseason media day on Monday Morning, with training camp opening up on Tuesday. The team sits at a max capacity roster of 20 players and the team will have to waive three NBA contracts by October 17th as Sam Presti pointed out a week ago. Ty Jerome entered this week as one of the guys on the bubble.
Jerome is on his second team since being drafted in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft by the Phoenix Suns. Involved in the Chris Paul trade, Jerome had his best shooting season as a member of the OKC Thunder during the 2020-21 campaign where he stroked the trey ball at a 42 percent clip. For his career though, the Virginia product shoots just 34 percent from deep.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Ty Jerome is away from the team as the organization starts training camp on Tuesday
While Sam Presti still has his work cut out for him in deciding the two other OKC Thunder players to let go, moving on from Ty Jerome is a huge step forward. Despite his quality playmaking, his shooting never came around as projected, and his defense was not enough to keep him on the floor.
Jerome was part of our roster projection 1.0, there just is not a role there on this team that is loaded with guards fighting for minutes in Mark Daigneault’s rotation.
Now the OKC Thunder training camp roster is down to 19 active players for tomorrow’s practice, 18 if you subtract the injured Chet Holmgren as well, but Jerome still costs OKC a roster spot toward the 20-man roster for now as the team announced their training camp roster this morning.
Waiving Ty Jerome will cost the OKC Thunder 4.2 million dollars though his contract is expiring deal so the team’s cap-sheet for the 2023 offseason still projects to be clear of dead salary.