{"id":304021,"date":"2025-11-23T18:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304021\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T18:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:47:08","slug":"injury-ravaged-grizzlies-to-sign-kobe-bufkin-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304021\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury-ravaged Grizzlies to sign Kobe Bufkin, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763923628_740_charania_shams.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Shams CharaniaNov 24, 2025, 05:16 AM<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Shams Charania is a senior NBA insider for ESPN. Charania reports NBA news and information across ESPN platforms and also contributes to ESPN&#8217;s exclusive coverage of the NBA draft. Charania has previously worked for FanDuel TV, Stadium, The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, RealGM and ChicagoNow. He is a Chicago native and graduated from Loyola University in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"af5d4942-aeb5-2d07-2a8a-f70b54617e51\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/mem\/memphis-grizzlies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> plan to sign guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4683736\/kobe-bufkin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kobe Bufkin<\/a> via 10-day hardship exception, sources tell ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>The injury-ravaged Grizzlies have <a data-player-guid=\"de5f87e0-8571-a730-ade4-6d00d10b8577\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4279888\/ja-morant\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ja Morant<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"3988c3e5-1081-3a70-9405-ac8d0df09972\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4431785\/scotty-pippen-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scotty Pippen Jr<\/a>., <a data-player-guid=\"ac9aa77d-dbe6-3064-8bef-208071246a63\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3906665\/brandon-clarke\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brandon Clarke<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"c3105754-89ce-5055-3b1b-61c45e7ce40a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4065733\/ty-jerome\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ty Jerome<\/a> sidelined for multiple weeks while <a data-player-guid=\"dbe0e9e5-0046-c414-000b-f4e629b08f5d\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4277961\/jaren-jackson-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaren Jackson Jr<\/a>. has been out recently with an ankle sprain. Memphis improved to 6-11 after its second straight victory on Saturday night in <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"f00d1f4e-4ce6-d581-466c-5b52531cf7ad\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/dal\/dallas-mavericks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bufkin is expected to be available to play in Monday&#8217;s home game against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c4aceb39-0eb9-a30b-1120-9cb5b12b677a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/den\/denver-nuggets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Denver Nuggets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/47069151\/mavs-thompson-scoffs-morant-trash-talk-grizzlies-win\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/r1579427_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bufkin, the No. 15 pick in the 2023 draft, is receiving a call-up from the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"2876e98b-b9bc-2920-4319-46e6943f8be4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/lal\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>&#8216; South Bay G League team and enters his third NBA season. Bufkin averaged 22 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5 assists in two G League games this season.<\/p>\n<p>Bufkin played his first two seasons with the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"15096a54-f015-c987-5ec8-55afedf6272f\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/atl\/atlanta-hawks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Hawks<\/a> and was traded to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"926db769-d35e-e282-9d7e-a05001d774ab\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/bkn\/brooklyn-nets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brooklyn Nets<\/a> in the offseason. He was waived by the Nets after training camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shams CharaniaNov 24, 2025, 05:16 AM CloseShams Charania is a senior NBA insider for ESPN. Charania reports NBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-304021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}