The New Orleans Pelicans made a move that left one of the NBA’s oldest players without a team.
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New Orleans waived the veteran on Wednesday, less than a day after getting him from the Memphis Grizzlies. The trade sent Jordan Hawkins and Micah Peavy to Memphis, along with a future second-round pick and a future second-round pick swap. AJ Johnson and the veteran came back to the Pelicans.
He never got on the court for New Orleans.
The player involved was Taj Gibson, who was 41 at the time of the trade. He had been the second-oldest active player in the league, behind LeBron James. With Gibson now a free agent, James is once again the oldest player on an NBA roster.
Gibson has been around the league for a long time. He has played 17 seasons and appeared in 1,012 regular-season games. He started 462 of those games and has career averages of 8.3 points and 5.7 rebounds.
Taj Gibson’s Long NBA Run Continues Without a Pelicans Game
The Chicago Bulls picked Gibson with the 26th pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. He did not take long to find a role in the league. As a rookie, he played all 82 games and put up 9.0 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. That was enough to earn him All-Rookie First Team honors.
Chicago was only the beginning. Gibson later played for Oklahoma City, Minnesota, New York, Washington, Detroit, Charlotte and Memphis. The Pelicans would have been his ninth team.
His NBA career followed three seasons at USC. Gibson finished there with 253 blocks, which put him at the top of the school’s career list at the time. He also won the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year award in 2009.
Things were different for Gibson in Memphis last season. He joined the Grizzlies in February and played 10 games, starting one. In those appearances, he averaged 3.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 0.6 assists in 9.7 minutes. He shot 46.2% from the field.
Those numbers were a long way from his rookie season, but Gibson’s value over the years was never just about one season’s statistics. He stayed in the league through multiple generations of NBA players and reached 1,000 regular-season appearances.
The Pelicans, however, did not keep him around after the trade.
New Orleans’ move was tied to its efforts to create room financially during the offseason, including the team’s work on a deal for Bennedict Mathurin. Gibson was waived before he could play his first game for the franchise.
Now the veteran is back on the market.
Another team could still give Gibson a chance to continue his career. If that happens, he would have an opportunity to add to the 1,012 games he has already played.
For the moment, though, his departure from New Orleans has one other effect. LeBron James is once again the NBA’s oldest active player.