Brooklyn Nets waive 3, roster now regular-season ready

The Brooklyn Nets waived Tahjere McCall, Shannon Scott and Drew Gordon on Saturday, one day after signing the trio. That puts the roster at 17 players.

One day after signing free agents Tahjere McCall, Shannon Scott and Drew Gordon, the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday announced via Nets.com that the three players had been placed on waivers.

This is not a surprising development. The signing of the three players on Friday had the appearance of being a move aimed at getting players to allocate to the G League’s Long Island Nets.

With the moves Saturday, the Nets now have six players available to allocate to Long Island:

• PG Jordan McLaughlin
• SF Nuni Omot
• SF Mitch Creek
• SG Tahjere McCall
• PG Shannon Scott
• PF Drew Gordon

The moves also get the Brooklyn roster down to regular-season size at 15 players, plus two players — Alan Williams and Theo Pinson — on two-way deals.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, entering his fourth season in Brooklyn, is the longest-tenured player on the roster.

Caris LeVert and Joe Harris return to the Nets for a third season. LeVert is on his rookie contract while Harris is back after re-signing with the club as a free agent in July, Spencer Dinwiddie is also in his third season in Brooklyn. He joined the Nets in December 2016.

Jarrett Allen, DeMarre Carroll, Allen Crabbe and D’Angelo Russell enter their second seasons in Brooklyn.

The rest of the roster is new.

Ed Davis signed as a free agent in July after three seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers. Jared Dudley was acquired from the Phoenix Suns in a July trade and Kenneth Faried also arrived via trade, a deal with the Denver Nuggets in July that also brought with it a top-12 protected 2019 first-round pick.

Treveon Graham signed with the Nets as a free agent after two seasons with the Charlotte Hornets, Shabazz Napier signed with Brooklyn after two years in Portland and Williams had been waived by the Phoenix Suns before joining the Nets on a two-way deal last month.

A trio of rookies round out the 17 players on the roster. First-round pick Dzanan Musa came to the U.S. after three professional seasons in Croatia, while second-rounder Rodions Kurucs spent the last two seasons with FC Barcelona in Spain.

Pinson earned a two-way contract as an undrafted free agent after a four-year career at North Carolina.

The G League Draft will be held Oct. 20, with training camps for the 27 clubs in the circuit beginning on Oct. 22. It is on that date that players waived during training camp can be allocated to an NBA team’s G League affiliate.

This will be the third season Brooklyn has had an affiliate in the G League, with the founding of the Long Island Nets in 2016.

Long Island will also have the services of Brooklyn’s two players on two-way contracts, big man Williams and swingman Pinson.

Long Island was 27-23 last season, missing the playoffs by a single game.

McCall played 37 games for the LI Nets last season, averaging 9.1 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.7 steals in 28.2 minutes per game on .496/.309/.673 shooting.

Scott appeared in 49 games for the Uniondale-based affiliate, averaging 7.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 2.2 steals in 28.3 minutes per game, shooting.416/.340/.817.

Long Island’s leading scorer last season was Isaiah Whitehead, who averaged 22.3 points per game while on allocation from Brooklyn. Milton Doyle, who finished last season on a two-way contract, averaged 20.5 points per game.

Whitehead was traded in July to the Nuggets in the deal that brought Faried to Brooklyn and was waived four days later.

He signed a deal with Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia and in two games — one in the domestic VTB United League and one in Eurocup play — has averaged 14.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.0 blocks in 23.9 minutes per game. He’s shooting .429/3-for-7/8-for-9.

Doyle, meanwhile, is with UCAM Murcia in Spain and has played in five games thus far, putting up 14.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 27.9 minutes per game.

Kamari Murphy, who signed with Telenet BC Ooostende in Belgium, was Long Island’s top rebounder last season at 7.4 per game. Murphy played for Brooklyn in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. Murphy has not gone to Belgium as he recovers from a shoulder injury.

Gordon, who is the older brother of Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic, played last season in Russia with Zenit St. Petersburg and has not played in the U.S. since 2014-15, when he was with the Delaware 87ers in what was then called the D League and made nine appearances with the Philadelphia 76ers.