Boston Celtics sign guard Daniel Dixon

Almost two months ago CelticsBlog reported that the Boston Celtics had agreed to sign undrafted guard Daniel Dixon to a training camp contract. The Celtics made that official today by inking the William & Mary product to a contract.

Dixon is an extreme longshot to make the Celtics roster. This signing is instead part of the process to fill out the roster for the Maine Red Claws in the NBA G-League. When a player’s NBAGL rights are not owned by an NBAGL team, they are eligible to be an Affiliate Player. Affiliate Players are players who attended camp/preseason with an NBA club, but were waived before the start of the season.

Given that Dixon has almost no shot of making the Boston roster following the preseason, this signing is targeted at gaining his Affiliate Player rights. Dixon is likely to be waived in the next few days and will then play in the NBAGL with Maine. Another team could foil Boston’s plans by claiming Dixon on waivers or by signing him after he clears waivers. However, that is unlikely, as he hasn’t been signed by anyone else to this point.

The Celtics roster currently stands at 20 (the offseason maximum) with the signing of Dixon. Boston has 14 players on fully guaranteed NBA contracts, two players on NBA/NBAGL Two-Way contracts and four players who are on partial/non-guaranteed contracts. The final four players are Dixon, Jonathan Holmes, L.J. Peak and Andrew White. All four are likely to be waived, with Boston hoping to eventually get them to Maine to continue the development process.

This would leave one open roster spot on the 15 man regular season roster. Options have dwindled quite a bit to fill out the roster at this point. Danny Ainge may choose to leave that spot open and see what develops in-season for filling that 15th position.