The Oklahoma City Thunder had three tough decisions to make at the end of the 2011-12 NBA season. Three veteran players, including former Los Angeles Lakers’ great Derek Fisher, came to the end of their contracts. With the Thunder needing to save money to re-sign Serge Ibaka and James Harden, all three vets had to go. One of them, Royal Ivey, found a new team on July 18 with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Ivey, who had played with the Thunder for the past two seasons, also played for Philadelphia from 2008-10. It was almost a homecoming for the former Texas Longhorns’ star.
Philadelphia made it to the second round of the 2012 NBA playoffs and head coach Doug Collins hopes that Ivey’s experience will help the younger players on the team get even better.
"The beauty of every day in practice is that we think we've got opening day of training camp," Collins told the Philadelphia Daily News. "We have Jrue (Holiday) going against Royal Ivey every day. We think Royal is going to really make Jrue work every single day."
Ivey, considered one of the Thunder’s old men, is actually only 30 years old, although he has been in the NBA for eight seasons. He finished this last season averaging 2.1 points over 10.4 minutes in 34 games for Oklahoma City.
Guard Derek Fisher and center Nazr Mohammed remain unsigned.
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