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DJ Kennedy, the 2011 graduate of St. John's who starred for a year under Steve Lavin and for three years under Norm Roberts, gets another shot at playing in the NBA with a partially guaranteed deal with the Denver Nuggets.
Sources: D.J. Kennedy, star on $2M champion in The Basketball Tournament, has agreed to a partially guaranteed three-year deal with Denver.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 16, 2016
Kennedy, 26, is not stranger to the training-camps of the NBA. This deal guarantees him nothing more than a long look int the Denver Nuggets camp, where he can trade stories about Queens with Jakarr Sampson.
The Pittsburgh native played in the NBA D-League for the Erie Bayhawks and the Rio Grande Vipers (where he won a D-League Championship in 2013); has played two late-season games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2012; saw summer league action for Miami in 2013, Minnesota in 2014, Houston in 2015, had a workout with the Lakers in 2015, and had training camps with Memphis in 2012 and with Dallas in 2013.
Outside of the NBA, Kennedy last played in Russia for Siberian team Enisey Krasnoyarsk (2015-16), Volgograd's Krasny Oktyabr (2014), German club Reisen Ludwigsburg (2014-15), French club BCM Gravelines (2014) and Israeli team Hapoel Unet Holon (2014).
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Kennedy has crafted a career as a solid scorer who can draw fouls, pass and rebound well, and force some steals. Will it be enough to finally stick with an NBA team? He played well in the D-League years ago, and has been solid on his foreign one-year deals (typical in hoops outside the United States).
And if not, DJ Kennedy will play abroad and enjoy his winnings from The Basketball Tournament, where his Overseas Elite team repeated as champions.