The Portland Trail Blazers waived veteran center Festus Ezeli on Friday, the deadline for the team to move on from him before guaranteeing his entire 2017-18 salary.
The Trail Blazers have waived center Festus Ezeli.
— Trail Blazers PR (@TrailBlazersPR) June 30, 2017
The Ezeli experiment was a tremendous waste of time and money for Portland. The team signed him to a two-year, $15.1 million contract last summer. This, despite the fact that he was coming off an injury-plagued career with the Golden State Warriors.
In the end, Ezeli did not play a single game for the Blazers this past season while dealing with more injury issues to his knee.
This means that Portland paid Ezeli a grand total of $8.4 million for his presence on the bench throughout the 2016-17 campaign.
Ezeli, a first-round pick of the Warriors back in 2012, put up his best performance during the team’s run to NBA Finals back in 2015-16. That season saw him average 7.0 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.