AB was released… (Antonio Blakeney from Chicago that is)
— On Sept. 7, exactly one month before the preseason starts; Antonio Blakeney was released from the Chicago Bulls according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. The Bulls had 16 contracts on the books originally, and they had to purge one to reach the maximum 15 before the season.
The 2018 NBA G League Rookie of the Year, Antonio Blakeney, will no longer be on the Bulls roster and will have to find a new NBA team or retract back to the G League. Antonio Blakeney was the third lowest paid player on the Bulls team this year with a salary of $1.58 million guaranteed leading only Shaquille Harrison ($175,000 guaranteed) and Daniel Gafford with a salary of $898,310. The caveat is that if the Bulls released Shaquille Harrison it would impact the salary cap with a hit of $1.6 million and Daniel Gafford is guaranteed two years at a total of $2.41 million, making Antonio the least valuable player in an economic sense.
The rumors of waving Blakeney have been surfacing since mid July, so this news should not be extremely astonishing. Antonio Blakeney also might be the least valuable in a talent sense as well. Known in Chicago as a notorious bad shot taker, Antonio Blakeney averaged 7.3 points a game off of 41.9% shooting from the floor, 1.9 rebounds and a mediocre 0.7 assists agame in 14.5 minutes per game as an interchangeable point guard and shooting guard.
Despite his NBA regular season woes falling from 7.9 to 7.3 points a game, Blakeney has performed well in the summer league of 2017 and 2018 along with immense G League success.
With Kris Dunn still on contract, the addition of Coby White through the draft, and signing Tomas Satoransky via free agency, it was only a matter of time for Blakeney.
The previous SEC second team player from LSU initially was a two-way player for the Windy City & Chicago Bulls in 2017–18 and then got a new Chicago Bulls contract in the summer of 2018. Antonio will still receive his guaranteed $1.58 million while his basketball future may seem unclear at the at moment.
