Veteran Kenneth Faried signs G League contract

Veteran big man Kenneth Faried has signed a G League contract, league sources tell Marc Stein (Twitter link). Stein first reported on Friday that a contract had been sent to Faried.

A first-round pick in the 2011 draft, Faried appeared in 478 regular-season games from 2011-19. The 6-foot-8 power forward played for the Nuggets for most of his career, but also spent time with Brooklyn and Houston in 2018-19. He played for Portland’s Summer League team earlier this year.

Although Faried has solid career averages of 11.4 PPG and 8.1 RPG in 24.5 minutes per contest, he isn’t a great rim protector or floor spacer, which has limited his appeal to NBA teams in recent years. The 32-year-old has played in China, Puerto Rico and Russia since 2019 — he recently finished a two-month contract with CSKA Moscow.

The G League is on a brief hiatus right now, as the start of its regular season has been pushed back to Jan. 5 to give teams more time to adjust to the recent exodus of talent to the NBA. As Stein points out, Faried himself is a candidate to earn a 10-day hardship deal with an NBA team. If he doesn’t, he’ll be available to any G League club, first on waivers and then (if he goes unclaimed) via the player pool.