The Indiana Pacers and forward Enrique Freeman have agreed to terms on a two-way contract. Shams Charania of The Athletic reported the agreement earlier on Thursday.
Freeman, 24, was the 50th overall pick by the Pacers in the 2024 NBA Draft. He was a five-year player at Akron who wasn’t even on the basketball team when he first attended the school. But, at the urging of his mom, he tried out for the squad and improved enough to become an NBA-level player.
In his final season with the Zips, he averaged 18.6 points and 12.9 rebounds per game. That year, he did something crucial and improved his modern NBA big man skills by taking more threes and developing a floor game.
That made him an NBA-level player, and the Pacers scooped him up late in the second round in June. Normally, players drafted that late are shoe-ins for a two-way deal, but Freeman was impressive in summer league, which suggested perhaps he could be in line for more. Indiana signed two other players to two-way deals last month, so some wondered if Freeman was being considered for a full roster spot.
But in the end, after being one of the last unsigned draft picks, Freeman did land on a two-way agreement, according to Charania. He joins Tristen Newton and Quenton Jackson as Indiana’s two-way players.
Indiana now has three two-way players and 16 under standard contracts, including the recently agreed-to-terms forward Cole Swider. They can add two more players this offseason prior to training camp, but they’ll have to get down to 15 standard deals before the season starts.
Freeman averaged 8.2 points and 4.4 rebounds per game during summer league for Indiana.
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