OKC Thunder waive TyTy Washington Jr to alleviate some roster crunch

The OKC Thunder have waived second-year guard TyTy Washington Jr after acquiring him earlier this summer. The Houston Rockets selected TyTy Washington in the first round of the 2022 NBA Draft, though he only cracked 31 NBA games for the Houston Rockets in his rookie campaign. Due to a roster crunch, the Rockets shipped Washington Jr and Usman Garuba, who the organization nabbed in the first round of the 2021 NBA Draft, to Atlanta paying the Hawks to take the prospects.

The duos’ stint in Atlanta did not last long; the Hawks packaged them to Oklahoma City, paying the Thunder to take the former first-rounders. In the NBA, it is tough to shake labels, and the label for these two guys are assets that had to see compensation attached to them to deal them away despite their relevantly cheap deals.

The OKC Thunder have spent the last few weeks at the maximum capacity of 21 rostered players allowed during the offseason under the new CBA. Even with this move to cut Washington Jr, the Thunder will continue to carry all 21 guys through training camp to make practices and preseason tilts more manageable.

OKC Thunder waive TyTy Washington Jr to help with the roster crunch, but more moves loom

The Oklahoma City Thunder waiving TyTy Washington always felt inevitable; despite adding him to the Summer League roster, where he played well for the Bricktown boys, someone just had to be shown the door. The Thunder still need to waive four more standard contracts ahead of the 2023-24 season opener on October 25th in Chicago.

This will not be the last move, mainly because they legally need to make more standard contracts cut, but it also opens the door for the OKC Thunder to start to fill their two-way slots. Keyontae Johnson entered the day as the lone two-way player for the Thunder, with two open slots alongside him that OKC could not use due to being at roster capacity, but the day closes with a familiar face back in town.