Welcome to the Morning Shootaround, where every weekday you’ll get a fresh, topical column from one of SI.com’s NBA writers: Howard Beck on Mondays, Chris Mannix on Tuesdays, Michael Pina on Wednesdays, Chris Herring on Thursdays and Rohan Nadkarni on Fridays.
We all know the NBA season was hanging in the balance about a year ago. But even prior to the league’s virus-related stoppage, Cam Payne’s NBA career seemed to be hanging by the flimsiest of threads, too.
By the summer of 2020, it had been almost a year and a half since the point guard had played in an NBA game.