Kevon Harris signs two-way contract with Magic, filling Orlando’s roster
Days after Admiral Schofield signed his two-way qualifying offer with the Orlando Magic, the team has filled its other two-way roster slot.
The Magic signed Kevon Harris to a two-way contract Monday afternoon, the team announced.
Multiple league sources confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel on Monday morning before Orlando’s announcement that the Magic reached an agreement with Harris on a two-way deal.
Harris will occupy the Magic’s second two-way roster spot and along with Schofield also will be eligible to play for the Lakeland Magic, Orlando’s G League affiliate.
Introduced during the 2017-18 season, two-way contracts are deals intended for development, with players going back and forth between a franchise’s NBA team and G League affiliate. Only players with fewer than four years of NBA experience can sign two-way contracts. Each team can sign a pair of players to two-way deals.
Two-way players will once again have a 50-game limit in the regular season to be on their NBA team’s active roster in 2022-23 after the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association had scrapped that limit in 2021-22 because of teams’ COVID-19 outbreaks.
Harris, a 6-foot-6, 216-pound guard/forward out of Stephen F. Austin who’s best known for his scoring ability as a ballhandler, was a standout during summer league for the Minnesota Timberwolves, averaging 15.8 points (57.7% from the field, 45.8% on 3-pointers), 2.8 rebounds and 2 assists in five games (27.1 minutes).
He’s spent the last two seasons in the G League and overseas since going undrafted in 2020.
Harris, 25, averaged 15 points (47.2% shooting from the field, 34.3% on 3s), 5.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 24 games (30.2 minutes) during 2021-22 with Raptors 905, the Toronto Raptors’ G League affiliate.
He averaged 14.4 points (48.3% shooting, 39.7% on 3s), 5.3 rebounds and 1.6 assists during his four years at Stephen F. Austin, including 17.5 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.1 assists his senior season when he was named the Southland Conference men’s basketball player of the year.
Harris, a Georgia native who graduated from Martin Luther King Jr. High in Lithonia, Ga., completed a postgraduate year at DME Academy in Daytona Beach in 2015-16.
The Magic have 18 players under contract for 2022-23 after signing Harris — 15 on guaranteed standard contracts, one on a fully non-guaranteed deal (Devin Cannady) and Schofield and Harris on two-way contracts.
Teams can have up to 20 players, including two-way players, signed to deals during the offseason before having to cut their rosters down to 15 players on standard contracts (plus a pair of two-way players) before the regular season starts.
That means the Magic will have to trade or waive at least one player to become roster compliant.
With the season not starting until mid-October, Orlando has time to make that decision.
This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Khobi Price at khprice@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @khobi_price.
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