Thunder officially waives Nate Robinson

We knew this was coming, but now it’s official: The Thunder have reached a buyout agreement with Nate Robinson. The roster now stands at 15.

This was necessary for one, to get down to the required 15-man roster but also because there was absolutely no reason at all to keep Robinson on the roster. Now the Thunder can keep Ryan Reid as part of the team instead of being forced to waive him, in which they’d lose their rights to him.

(Since Reid was drafted by OKC 57th overall in 2010, Oklahoma City owns his rights but with the Thunder bringing him to camp, they’d forfeit those rights if they waived him. More than likely, the Byron Mullens trade was to open room to keep Reid more than anything else as OKC needed that extra roster spot in order to keep him, and Royal Ivey who has a non-guaranteed contract.)

Robinson is now a free agent able to sign anywhere, which is what he wanted. He was never going to see playing time with the Thunder and Oklahoma City didn’t want to just pay him to do flying motions and to scream on the bench. I’m sure Presti tried to unload him in a trade for a future pick, but there probably weren’t too many takers.