Tony Snell Needs To Sign With An NBA Team By Friday To Complete A 10th Year Of Service Which Would Allow Him Benefits To Help His Family And Two Autistic Sons

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SOURCE: There’s a quiet algebra underneath the NBA’s trade deadline. Front offices scout on-court talent and evaluate skill sets and conduct background intelligence, yet many players sent to a new team, halfway through each season, get included simply because their contracts’ values can be substituted for X. Their salaries balance the equation so their life becomes uprooted and a career can get left behind.

That’s how and why Tony Snell was traded to New Orleans in February 2022, a necessary variable to help the Pelicans acquire C.J. McCollum from the Trail Blazers. Snell held a role in Portland, playing 14.4 minutes and flanking opposing wings with his 7-foot wingspan. He appeared in just 15 games for the Pelicans, shooting along his career average of 39.6% from distance, only to fade entirely from the playoff rotation. Head coach Willie Green never called his number, and no teams came calling that summer after Snell became an unrestricted free agent.

And so one year after his world flipped, when Snell returned to a professional court with a G League jersey now on his back, a strange sensation came with each step of his sneakers. The buzzer blaring and the pregame clock reaching zero always brought a euphoria he could only capture on hardwood, whether Snell was leading the New Mexico Lobos or after the Chicago Bulls made him a first-round pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. A decade later, joining the Maine Celtics at the end of January 2023, Snell found a string of nerves knotting his insides.

“Of course, I want to come back and play, but I have a bigger purpose now,” Snell told Yahoo Sports. “It’s not about me anymore. It’s about my boys.”

SOMEBODY SIGN TONY SNELL!!! I don't usually write NBA news stories like this because I'm not boring like Reags or Greenie, but I felt like this one deserved its flowers and it wasn't written already. Let's call a spade a spade. There are not (checks math) 450 better players than Tony Snell in the league today. And if you're a team like the Pistons, who cares if you sign him, a loved veteran, when you have zero shot of competing this season. Hell, if Thanasis and Robin Lopez can find their way on teams just because they're siblings of two great basketball players, then the brotherhood that is the NBA should be able to help feed Tony Snell too.

Tony Snell isn't going to change your team, but it's a positive PR move which matters to a ton of organizations who can't seem but to continually do wrong. We can have a whole discussion about healthcare in America and how it's pretty fucked up that Snell has to find a 10th season in arguably the hardest league in the world to make to get it adequately, but that's another discussion for another day.

I will say, without Tony Snell we don't have the legendary meme of what may be the best NBA performance of all time:

Pistons, you're on the clock. Hornets, you're on the clock. The entire league, you are on the clock.