The Toronto Raptors have claimed forward Pops Mensah-Bonsu off waivers, his agent confirmed Tuesday to FanHouse immediately after the waiver period ended. Mensah-Bonsu was let go by the Houston Rockets last Friday, and placed on waivers until 6 ET Tuesday, which is when Mensah-Bonsu's agent, John Greig, said he was awarded to Toronto. Greig said Mensah-Bonsu is in Denver, and could play in tonight's game against the Nuggets. The 6-foot-9 Mensah-Bonsu finished last season with the Raptors, averaging 5.1 points in 19 games. He has a minimum contract that doesn't become fully guaranteed until mid-December so the Raptors could evaluate Mensah-Bonsu for a month before making a decision. But Greig is confident he will remain with Toronto for a while. The Raptors last week waived guard Quincy Douby, whose contract wasn't fully guaranteed for this season, in order to gain some flexibility. "(Mensah-Bonsu is) very happy,'' Greig said. "Toronto is where he wants to be.'' Greig said some other NBA teams, which he wouldn't name, had interest in making a claim on Mensah-Bonsu. And some of those teams would have gotten him due to having a worse record than Toronto. But Greig said discussions were made with those teams about not making a claim because Mensah-Bonsu really wanted to play in Toronto, and he possibly could have gone to Europe had he not ended up with the Raptors. Mensah-Bonsu has played three NBA seasons, including this one. While also having played for Dallas and San Antonio, he's averaged 3.8 points and 3.6 rebounds. http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/11/17/raptors-claim-mensah-bonsu-off-waivers/ Damn we should have kept him!
I have no idea but he's been to Texas, then to Canada, and back to Texas again, and now back to Canada if I got all that right. Only makes sense he comes back to Texas right?
Raptors definitely need him. They have such a "soft" front court w/o him. And with Scola and Landry, why would you guys want a role-playing PF taking up roster spot + salary + luxury tax?
I asked the same thing. They went through all those difficult decisions to decide who gets the last spot on the roster, expelled Conroy and Temple, and made the decision to give Pops the spot and the chance. He ended up with neither so what was the point of all that?
Perhaps Pops thought he'd get playing time here given our lack of height, but soon realized he would not be getting even spot minutes, and asked to be released?
