The Los Angeles Lakers announced the signing of Travis Wear to a 10-day contract. He’d arguably been the best player on the South Bay Lakers roster this season to not receive a call-up at any point.
The UCLA product has been on the Lakers’ training camp roster twice and Summer League roster once, but never gotten a shot to play for them. Wear might have been making his strongest case yet, averaging 16.7 points and 7.1 rebounds while knocking down a scorching 44.5 percent of his 7.1 3-point attempts per game with South Bay.
All of that resulted in Wear getting the opportunity to represent the United States as part of the official 12-member team that was put together for the FIBA World Cup Qualifying first round, second-window games against Cuba on Feb. 23 and Puerto Rico on Feb. 26.
Wear will give the Lakers the type of stretch four they haven’t really had this season if he gets some minutes, with the threat of his shooting giving the rest of the roster more open driving lanes.
With Wear signed, the Lakers roster is now at 16 players, including their pair of two-way players, Alex Caruso and Gary Payton II. Wear’s next opportunity to play will come against the Spurs in San Antonio Saturday.
Although, the team also may elect to make most of their evaluations of Wear in practice as they did with Nigel Hayes earlier this season.
In 2014-15, Wear averaged 3.9 points and 2.1 rebounds in 13.2 minutes with the New York Knicks.
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