Former Maryland guard Rasheed Sulaimon will play for Hornets D-League affiliate, per report

Former Maryland guard Rasheed Sulaimon has signed with the Charlotte Hornets’ D-League team, according to international basketball reporter David Pick.

Following a stellar freshman year with the Blue Devils, Sulaimon saw his production and minutes drop under Coach Krzyzewski as friction between the two boiled over. Sulaimon, who was recruited by Mark Turgeon when at Texas A&M, believed the Maryland head coach was the only person he could trust following his dismissal from the Duke program. In a mentoring role for his new Terrapin teammates, Sulaimon averaged 11.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 36 games as a graduate student at Maryland.

Sulaimon, played with former Maryland star Dez Wells on this summer’s NBA Las Vegas Summer League-champion Bulls team, but was not a factor in many of its seven contests. Sulaimon averaged just 3.1 points on 23.8 percent shooting during his 12 minutes per game. Sulaimon’s best chance to make and NBA roster was to show off his 3-point shooting ability, but Sulaimon could not demonstrate enough of a stroke from deep while in Vegas.

Similarly to Wells last year, Sulaimon is choosing to spend his first professional year in the developmental league instead of cashing in overseas. The Greensboro Swarm are the Hornets first-year D-League team and will allow him to compete in an NBA training camp back in North Carolina. It is extremely unlikely that Sulaimon will receive a call up to the big leagues this year as the Hornets currently have seven guards on their roster. He’ll still have the chance to put out more tape for the rest of the league to see, which is a positive.

Sulaimon will likely be the only Terrapin in the D-League full-time during the 2016-17 season as Diamond Stone and Jake Layman have signed guaranteed contracts, while Robert Carter Jr., Evan Smotrycz and Wells are taking their talents overseas.