Former Duke guard and team captain Jon Scheyer will attend training camp with the Los Angeles Clippers, AOL FanHouse reported Wednesday.
Scheyer played on the Miami Heat's NBA summer league team back in July after going undrafted, but he suffered a lacerated eyelid in only his second game and was sent home for treatment. While the injury seemed to hurt Scheyer's chances of receiving an invitation to training camp, he has since made a full recovery and received clearance to play basketball and lift weights.
The Clippers have 14 players on their roster, leaving one spot open for Scheyer and whomever else the team brings into camp. Baron Davis and Eric Gordon make up the starting backcourt for Los Angeles, and the team features even more talented guards behind those two as well.
The Clippers selected Eric Bledsoe—one of the Kentucky superfrosh who went one-and-done last season—with the 18th pick in the draft and took Oklahoma guard Willie Warren at the end of the second round. Warren's contract, however, is only partially guaranteed. Four-year player Randy Foye will also be in the mix.
This crowded backcourt could make it difficult for Scheyer to grab the last roster spot, but his ballhandling skills are as good or better than Bledsoe's (three turnovers per game last season as John Wall's sidekick), and he probably has more discipline than volume shooter Warren.
Even if the national-championship winner doesn't latch on to the Clippers, the fact that he received a camp invite after playing less than two summer league games proves NBA teams understand what he can bring to a pro squad in terms of leadership, basketball IQ and reliability.
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