With both the college basketball and NBA seasons officially over, it’s time for a summer of trades, acquisitions, speculations, transfers, and contract negotiations.
Quite a bit of movement will happen at both the college and professional levels, so let’s break down where former Syracuse basketball players are in their professional careers right now.
It’s easy to start with newly crowned NBA champion Oshae Brissett. There’s been a lot of recognition around the fact that Brissett went undrafted after the forward’s final season with Syracuse in 2019. He just won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics. Brissett didn’t have a sizable role as he did in the past few years both with the Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers at times, but he still contributed throughout the regular season and even broke a 70-year SU record in the NBA Finals.
Brissett signed a two-year, $4.6 million contract before this past season, so he’s set for the offseason and can enjoy being on the championship squad.
Jerami Grant, the most perennial former Syracuse star currently in the NBA, is also good to go contract-wise. Grant re-signed with the Portland Trail Blazers last season for five years at $160 million. Grant averaged 21 points per game with the Trail Blazers last season in his 10th year in the NBA.
And then there were two.
Cole Swider and Buddy Boeheim both had productive years in the G-League.
Swider made 50% of his three-point shots this past season with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, the G-League affiliate of the Miami Heat.
Boeheim also had his moments in the G-League with the Motor City Cruise, affiliated with the Detroit Pistons. This includes a career-high 40 points in a game in mid-March against the Texas Legends.
We’ll have to see what the future holds for Swider and Boeheim, both of whom graduated from Syracuse in 2022.
