Despite not getting drafted, Jose Alvarado said that receiving a two-way contract from the New Orleans Pelicans was nevertheless a dream come true.
And, after not getting drafted nor getting a two-way contract offer, Moses Wright is ready to prove himself once again, this time in the colors of the Toronto Raptors. The two former Georgia Tech stars will soon be headed to Las Vegas for NBA summer-league games, each with his own mission.
“Once the 60 names were called (in the draft), I was more so relieved,” Wright told the AJC. “I was like, Whew, got that stress of worrying if my name was going to get called (over with). Now it’s just time to get back to work.”
“I’m in the league,” Alvarado said in an interview with the AJC. “I’m in the NBA. Now my focus is how can I improve, how can I make the team better, how can I get everybody in the right situation and stay in (the league) and win games?”
Wright said that not getting drafted or receiving a two-way deal (a guaranteed contract under which he would play for his NBA team and its G League affiliate) didn’t cause him to revisit his decision to leave Tech with a year of eligibility remaining (a choice Alvarado made as well). The ACC’s player of the year recognized that going undrafted was a possibility and didn’t pin his hopes on getting chosen.
“No shoulda, woulda, coulda stuff went through my head,” Wright said. “It was a choice that I stuck with. This is the outcome. I’m not mad about the outcome. Just have to work. This outcome doesn’t make the future.”
Wright said that he had offers for Exhibit 10 contracts, which are essentially training camp invitations that come with a guarantee of up to $50,000. He chose to go with Toronto’s offer that only attaches him to the team for summer league.
He’ll be a free agent once summer league ends, giving him the ability to sign with any team going into training camp. If he can play to his potential, he would seem a strong candidate to sign a two-way deal, either with Toronto or another team.
“If I play well, I have opportunities all over that I could go to,” he said.
The risk is forgoing the guaranteed money in the Exhibit 10 contract and not having a secured spot in a training camp. Essentially, it’s a bet on himself. It’s a situation he’s comfortable with.
“I’ve been proving to people that I can play basketball ever since I really started,” he said.
He recalls failing to impress the director of Garner Road Basketball Club in his hometown of Raleigh, N.C., when he showed up as a scrawny ninth-grader.
“And then I proved it to the ACC by winning ACC player of the year,” he said. “So now it’s starting all over again, and proving it to the NBA.”
As for Alvarado, he is ecstatic over his situation.
“One day, I’m really going to have a Pelicans jersey that’s going to say ‘Alvarado’ on it, and that’s amazing,” Alvarado said.
With the two-way deal, a guaranteed contract that last year was worth $450,000, the Pelicans have made a significant investment in Alvarado, whose determination drove him from earning only one scholarship offer from an ACC school (Tech) to being named the conference’s defensive player of the year.
“You can’t make it up in a story,” Alvarado said. “It really happened. It’s just everyone’s road is so much different than everybody else’s. My road is so like a roller coaster. A lot of people don’t understand how much of a roller coaster it is.”
Like Wright, Alvarado was hoping to get drafted, and nearly was. He said that his agent (Ronald Shade, also Wright’s agent) told him during the second round that if the Pelicans didn’t trade their upcoming pick (the 51st), they would take him. (New Orleans did trade it, and the team and Alvarado agreed on their two-way deal minutes after the draft was over.)
Getting the call from the Pelicans, he said, was just as meaningful to him as if he had been taken first overall.
“I was just so happy that I got the phone call,” he said. “It’s like a dream come true. Even though, like I said, it wasn’t my name called, I swear it means so much to me.”
Alvarado said he had worked out with the Pelicans prior to the draft and had a strong performance and positive experience.
“The energy, it was all in the right place,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised when they said that they wanted me.”
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