Orlando Magic giving Chuma Okeke a redshirt year benefits everyone

Chuma Okeke remains unsigned as the Orlando Magic round out their training camp roster. It is looking more and more like he will get a redshirt year.

The Orlando Magic took another step toward completing their training camp roster, signing South Carolina Gamecocks point guard Hassani Gravett to what is reported to be an Exhibit 10 contract.

Gravett averaged 11.4 points per game in winning the SEC’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. He shot 39.9 percent from beyond the arc, taking more than half his shots from outside the arc for the Gamecocks last year.

He is likely another player headed to Lakeland to play in the G-League, joining Exhibit 10 contract signees DaQuan Jeffries, Vic Law and Isaac Humphries (reported, but not official yet) and two-way signees Josh Magette and Amile Jefferson.

The Lakeland Magic are looking like a pretty stacked team.

They will all spend at least training camp with the Magic (getting a bit more guaranteed money in the process). Then they will head to Lakeland to play out their season and hopefully get a future NBA call-up.

Orlando though is focused on rounding out their camp roster and hoping to find someone to fill out their last roster spots.

Up to 20 players can take their camp with the Magic this year. Orlando currently has 13 players under contract plus the three Exhibit 10 contracts and two two-way players. That brings the total up to 18 players likely to join the Magic for training camp.

There is still one name noticeably absent from the list. One player who remains unsigned and absent from the team’s training camp rolls.

And as the Magic continue to add to their training camp roster, it looks more and more likely Chuma Okeke will not be joining the team.

But this could be a good thing for both the Magic and for Chuma Okeke.

Okeke, still recovering from a torn ACL suffered during the NCAA Tournament, needs the time to recover and the chance to play. He will not get a lot of that playing with the main roster. A stint in Lakeland seems inevitable.

So Okeke sitting out a year saves a year on his contract — and gives him a small pay bump. All the while Okeke will still have the ability to use the Magic facilities and staff to help in his recovery.

Waiting a year seems to be best for both parties and one that will cost both the Magic and Okeke very little in the long run.

Okeke’s current status

There is no official word yet on what his contract status is. It remains based on reporting from those that follow NBA contract statuses closely.

According to all reports, Chuma Okeke remains the only unsigned first-round pick. And it has been that way for a month as most first-round picks signed their contracts in July before Summer League began.

There are some signs that a contract is imminent or that the team has kept plenty of contact with him.

This past weekend, Okeke was in New York as part of the Rookie Transition Program. He donned an Orlando Magic uniform for the first time and got his photo taken for his official trading card.

That is not the only evidence that Okeke has spent plenty of time with the Magic this offseason.

His future teammates have talked about the work Okeke has put in at the Amway Center as he rehabs from a torn ACL suffered during the NCAA Tournament in March. It is not like Okeke is somehow forgotten or pushed to the wayside. He is around the Amway Center and the building.

Yet, there has been no announcement he has signed with the team. And the reporters clued into the contract information around the league continue to report he is not officially part of the team.

Okeke is just sort of there rehabbing and working.

That is what the Magic expect of him at this point regardless of his contract status. The main priority for Okeke is to help him recover and regain strength so he can play again.

Torn ACLs are not as serious injury as they used to be. The Magic would not have drafted Okeke so high without confidence he would be able to return.

The main question is about his recovery. And it is here that letting him redshirt without a rookie-scale contract will cause little harm.

Rehab, Access and Recovery

The Orlando Magic have had a general policy throughout several front offices of preferring to have players rehab with the main roster.

They have long preferred players be able to practice with the NBA team, believing they get more quality experience traveling with the min team and practicing with them rather than staying separate or playing with the G-League team.

Things have slowly changed especially since the Orlando Magic bought the Lakeland Magic and brought them closer to the city. Players can shuffle between the team much easier now and Orlando has used Lakeland as a venue for a few rehab starts — Jonathan Isaac notably played a few games with Lakeland as he recovered from his injury.

But undoubtedly, Chuma Okeke’s situation is unique.

The main focus right now is getting him healthy so he can contribute to the team in the long-term. That is always the thought process is his long-term health and outlook.

Orlando Magic

Getting him with a NBA training staff and into the Amway Center medical facility would seemingly be the primary goal. It would follow that he would need to be under contract to access everything the Magic have to offer.

But this is not entirely true.

The rules on access to the training facility are a bit fuzzy. I could not find anything governing this within the collective bargaining agreement. But it appears through some anecdotal evidence, Okeke would still be able to do rehab and meet with medical staff within the Amway Center without being under contract.

The main restriction is access to coaching and the inability to practice. Okeke would not be able to get coaching from the Magic’s coaching staff or participate in any practices.

The Magic have used this in their recent history.

When the team drafted Tyler Harvey, he did not participate in camp for several years. The plan when the Magic took him was to have him spend at least his first year with Erie. So he did not sign a contract with the team immediately, allowing the Magic to retain his rights. But he was spotted in the Amway Center throughout training camp.

More recently, during the offseason and after his injury, Isaiah Briscoe was spotted doing his rehab within the Amway Center. That is reportedly a common practice to provide training facilities for injured players after they are cut when in a similar circumstance.

It therefore seems to follow the team can open its training facility and team doctors to Okeke. But he would not have access to the team’s coaches.

G-League Precedent

The next step to the plan then if Chuma Okeke is redshirting would be to play in the G-League when he is ready.

That will probably be best for him anyway. There is not much room on the Magic roster to afford him many minutes to play. He might have been sitting on the bench anyway.

It is not entirely clear when Okeke will be ready to play after tearing his ACL. He was walking without a boot or crutches when the team introduced him in June after the draft. The assumption is that he could play again by January or February.

So it makes some sense for both player and team to wait or use him primarily in Lakeland this season. There are financial implications to that part of the decision too.

Wiz of Awes

If Okeke is indeed out for more than half the season, it would be difficult to integrate him into the group at that point. Especially if the Magic are in the midst of a playoff chase. It was always going to be problematic to bring Okeke back on that timeline if the Magic are where they hope to be. He was always destined to play most of his recovery games in the G-League.

It only made sense to have Okeke lose a year off his rookie contract if he was going to practice with the team primarily. The Magic have always preferred their roster players get practice time with the main roster.

But if Okeke cannot practice, then that point is probably moot.

It is exceedingly rare for a first-round pick to take a redshirt year like this. Josh Huestis is the most prominent example.

The Oklahoma City Thunder took Huestis with the 29th pick in the draft. It was a surprise pick as nobody seemed to have Huestis picked that high. It turned out the team agreed to take Huestis that high — along with the guaranteed contract that comes with the first-round pick — with the condition he would spend his first year in the G-League.

Huestis was healthy though when Oklahoma City took him. The Orlando Magic taking Okeke and planning to let him rehab the year without signing him is a bit more unprecedented.

While president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman said in defending the pick that NBA teams had Chuma Okeke rated higher than most media pundits did, this kind of an agreement or the possibility of this plan could explain why the Magic were willing to “reach” on Okeke with the 16th pick.

Financial implications

Holding off a year would benefit Chuma Okeke financially too. Albeit a small amount.

Waiting to sign his rookie-scale deal by a year would allow him to sign under the 2020 rookie scale rather than the 2019 rookie scale. That would bump his salary up by $400,000 in the first year. That is a small amount — especially considering if he signed with Lakeland, his salary would top off at $35,000.

The other financial implication comes from the Orlando Magic’s end.

While the team has to keep a cap hold to retain Okeke’s draft rights, that does not count against their payroll for the luxury tax. The luxury tax line only deals with actual payroll and does not include any cap holds.

Okeke’s rookie-scale cap hold is $2.2 million. That would affect the Magic’s available cap space. But they have none at this point anyway, having spent it all.

Orlando’s guaranteed payroll for the 2020 season right now $128.8 million, according to Basketball Insider’s salary database. The luxury tax line is $132 million. Okeke’s salary would put the Magic right below the luxury tax line.

Orlando spent a lot of capital this offseason to stay under the luxury tax line — including waiving and stretching Timofey Mozgov’s contract. That is certainly a financial goal for the team.

Keeping Chuma Okeke off the books another year would allow the Magic to add another player to the roster — such as DaQuan Jeffries — without going into the tax.

That has been a guiding principle for a lot of the Magic’s moves after their big rush to start free agency. It appears that letting Okeke redshirt helps accomplish this goal.

Keeping the faith

The Orlando Magic are not giving up on Chuma Okeke by any means.

By all accounts, they still believe in him and are giving him all the resources he needs to recover from his torn ACL. The Magic will welcome him to the team at some point.

This is not a Fran Vazquez situation, as some might quickly fear. Okeke has gone through all the other normal rookie processes. He is still hanging around the Amway Center and, most importantly, working to recover from his knee injury.

The Magic retain his draft rights for whenever the team opts to bring him onto the team. It is just a matter of when.

That when though remains unclear. Orlando has not signed its first-round pick yet. There is not a clear-cut path for minutes for him at this point and so letting him recover on his time and having him play in Lakeland as part of that recovery process makes the most sense.

It appears Okeke does not need to be under contract to take advantage of all of the Magic’s resources in his recovery. And so patience and a “redshirt” year seems to benefit everyone.

That will also leave a roster spot open for the Magic to shore up their depth in Okeke’s stead, since Okeke is not likely to play for most of the 2020 season.

Fans are excited about the potential of a player like DaQuan Jeffries, who is now training with Team U.S.A. in Los Angeles ahead of their exhibition game against Spain on Friday. And Melvin Frazier is still around to soak up some minutes.

Having Okeke sit a year to rehab and recover is not the worst thing in the world for him or for the team.

This late in the offseason, it is looking like the plan is to give Okeke a “redshirt” year to recover with a possible stint to play in Lakeland continuously when he is healthy.

There is still no concrete information to support this, but each day he goes unsigned seems to support this possibility.