Trail Blazers News: Why Portland Could Afford To Elevate Duop Reath Midseason

Rookie Portland Trail Blazers center Duop Reath was recently elevated from a two-way contract to a spot on the club's 15-man standard roster. He had appeared as a regular rotation player for the injury-depleted Blazers across 40 games for the club ahead of the promotion. 

At 18-46, Portland can afford to experiment with long-term development projects. The club inked Reath to a fresh three-season deal. Per Bobby Marks of ESPN, the contract has been guaranteed for two seasons, this year and next, and non-guaranteed for the third. Marks writes that, given that the Trail Blazers inked Reath to a portion of its non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($1.95 million, to be precise). Sometimes, it pays to not be a taxpaying team. Because Portland remains $1.3 million under the league's luxury tax, the Trail Blazers have been able to pay Reath over times the veteran's minimum deal for a rookie with no years of prior service.

The 6'11', 245-pound big man out of LSU is averaging 9.5 points on .475/.374/.712 shooting splits, 3.8 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.6 blocks and 0.5 steals a night across 49 contests. He's been particularly motivated of late, and even though his team is in the tank, Reath has been going hard for months.