On Saturday morning, the Washington Wizards waived point guard Donald Sloan, which means the team is likely to retain wing Carrick Felix. The Wizards’ roster now stands at the maximum of 17 players (15 on the NBA team and a pair of two-way contract players who will spend the majority of the year in the G League) as the team prepares for the regular season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.
Sloan, 29, signed with the Wizards on a training-camp deal but faced long odds in making the final roster as the point guard behind backups Tim Frazier and Tomas Satoransky. When Sloan did not appear in the Wizards’ preseason finale Friday night against the New York Knicks, his fate appeared to be set. Sloan has played five seasons in the NBA and scored his career-high 31 points in 2014 against the Wizards while playing with the Indiana Pacers.
The move clears Felix, a second-round draft pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2013, to make an NBA roster after recovering from a career-threatening injury.
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In January 2014, Felix suffered a small fracture in his left knee cap. And near the end of 2014, Felix broke his knee cap in half while attempting a dunk in a minor-league game. After that Felix required several surgeries and spent the next two years rehabilitating.
“Things like that, the injury I suffered, it happens to one percent of the world,” Felix said this week. “I lot of people break their knee cap and it kind of stays together [but] mine had a really big displacement, so I just had to take the time and really rest and let my body heal at once.”
The 27-year-old Felix could replace Sheldon Mac on the wing depth chart. Last Sunday, Mac tore his left Achilles’ tendon and will likely miss the season but will remain inactive on the roster, occupying a spot as a player on a guaranteed contract.
More on the Wizards:
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