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Andrew DBailey is the featured Columnist for the NBA.
David Zalubowski is an Associated Press photographer.
The NBA's health and safety protocols hammered rosters around the league, and a new policy was instituted to ease the burden on teams turning up positive COVID tests.
The agreement will allow a team to sign a replacement player for each positive COVID-19 case that crops up on its roster, according to Tim Bontemps. If a team has five positive cases of COVID-19, it could sign five replacement players.
The new rules have given us a few blasts in the past.
Lance has played in three games for the Hawks. In his first two games with the Los Angeles Lakers, he scored 32 points, but he's already been released.
We feel nostalgic now that all the call-ups have come and gone. Why can't those below get another chance at the NBA?
Michael Beasley's recent activity suggests he's hungry for another chance.
He was working out with John Wall and other athletes on the day after Christmas. He said he can play off the ball.
"I should've played more in every situation because I was played withgiannis, James, and lebron twice, but they didn't get the ball," he wrote.
As it relates to those situations, Beasley may be onto something. He averaged 22.4 points per 75 possessions and shot 37.4 percent from three. There are 12 players who match or exceed both marks.
You can't fault a team that needs a little offensive boost for going after Beasley. The man said that "every 10 seconds another person that can't guard me comes into the world."
The Denver Nuggets' G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold, signed two-time NBA champion Mario Chalmers just over a week ago.
The signing has not been very good. In the two games, he is 5-of-22 from the field. He had six assists and six turnovers in 56 minutes.
Despite being a solid team defender and being willing to play off the ball, Chalmers was still able to survive a decade in the NBA.
He hasn't played in an NBA game in over a year, but his experience is an advantage over the younger players.
Crawford has expressed a desire to return to the league. After Allonzo Trier wondered why Crawford hadn't gotten a 10-day deal, the legendary sixth man wrote, "I'm obviously on some secret list that is black..."
Crawford has been passed over during this signing spree, whether it's a black list or his career true shooting percentage. He showed that he was still capable of random magical moments as recently as the 2018-19 season.
In a loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Crawford scored 51 points on 18-of-30 shooting.
He's close to 42. Crawford's athletic ability is not where it was, but watching him dance around the perimeter and put up high-arching jumpers for a team decimated by health and safety protocols would be a treat.
Jimmer Fredette was stuck in a basketball purgatory for a long time. He was a below-replacement-level player in the NBA, but he's looked great in every other league he's played in.
He averaged 21.2 in the G League. He averaged 23.3 points per 36 minutes and shot 49.5% from three in two seasons in Greece. He averaged 34.3 points per game in four seasons in China.
Fredette hasn't appeared in the NBA in the last year. He was 0-of-13 from three appearances that season.
This is a unique moment in NBA history, and it might take a leap of faith to expect much different from Jimmer.
Jeremy Lin knows the value of a non-guaranteed deal, which makes it difficult to get out of his contract with the Beijing Ducks.
No one could've predicted what was going to happen when he joined the Knicks. After dropping in and out of the lineup, Linsanity began in February.
Lin averaged 21.1 points and 8.6 assists for the New York Knicks from February 4 to March 9. He scored 38 points against the Los Angeles Lakers on February 10.
Lin showed how a player can turn an opportunity into a career when he ran a run like his.
Like Lin, Anthony is on a team. That makes a call-up for health and safety protocols beyond realistic.
The NBA leaned into the kind of positionless basketball that may have served him well when he was the 14th pick.
He averaged double figures in the previous year but never had a season with an above-average effective field- goal percentage.
Over the last six seasons in the ACB, he's averaged 18.0 points, 7.6 rebound, 2.2 threes, 1.2 steals and 1.1 blocks.
J.R. Smith is a member of the North Carolina A&T golf team, but he is still interested in playing basketball.
We just gave out 10 days to see who wants to play. Smith wants to play basketball. My phone number is the same.
Smith already has years of experience playing the role he'd likely be asked to play when he's called up.
No one will want Smith to run a bunch of pick-and-rolls, but he should still be able to move off the ball and shoot three-point attempts.
This version of the lottery has already given a chance to the man. He signed a 10-day deal with the Lakers after scoring 42 in a G-League game. He was off to a good start, scoring 32 points in two games, but he fell out of the rotation and wasn't re-signed after that deal ended.
Multiple teams are expected to express interest in Thomas.
There is a lack of defense in this slideshow. He showed in his brief stint with the Lakers that he still has the ability to be an offensive sparkplug.
There will be more teams in need of replacement scorers between now and the end of the season, and Thomas can score.
