Milwaukee Bucks Make 2 Roster Moves w/ Training Camp Close
By Paul Bretl
Training camp is almost here for the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks, but they continue to tweak the back-end of their roster. The first move that was announced on Friday was that they waived Mamadi Diakite, according to Keith Smith of Spotrac.
Diakite spent four years at Virginia, playing a key role on the 2019 National Championship team. He was signed to a two-way deal for the 2020-2021 season after going undrafted and put on a show while in the G-League–attracting the attention of many Bucks fans.
In 12 games with the Lakeland Magic, Diakite averaged 18.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in over 27 minutes per game.
With the Milwaukee Bucks, Diakite appeared in 14 games, averaging 10.1 minutes per contest along with 3.1 points and 2.4 rebounds on 40 percent from the field.
However, Milwaukee did not waste much time replacing Diakite as it was reported a short while later by Keith Smith that the Bucks were signing Javin DeLaurier to a non-guaranteed training camp contract.
The 6’10” – 234-pound DeLaurier went undrafted in 2020 after spending four years at Duke. With the Blue Devils, DeLaurier averaged 3.4 points per game along with 3.8 rebounds while averaging 13.4 minutes per game.
He spent a portion of this past season with the Greensboro Swarm, a G-League affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets. There DeLaurier would average 2.9 points and 3.3 rebounds over seven games and 11.1 minutes per contest. He then spent the 2021 summer league with the Atlanta Hawks.
Javin DeLaurier replaces Mamadi Diakite as a depth piece in the frontcourt for this Milwaukee Bucks team during training camp, but that is likely all that this move is.
Training camp will begin on September 28th and then the Milwaukee Bucks regular season kicks off against the Brooklyn Nets at Fiserv Forum on October 19th.