{"id":734170,"date":"2026-06-30T04:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734170\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:25:11","slug":"fields-signs-nba-summer-league-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734170\/","title":{"rendered":"Fields Signs NBA Summer League Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waff.com\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WAFF<\/a>) &#8211; A former University of North Alabama men\u2019s basketball standout is now making waves in the professional ranks, as Taye Fields signed an NBA summer league contract with the Philadelphia 76ers this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Lions have had tremendous success sending players to the professional ranks over the years, including five players in Europe this past season. However, Fields becomes the first UNA player to sign with or be drafted by an NBA franchise since UNA Hall of Famer Otis Boddie, who was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more excited for Taye and this opportunity with the Philadelphia 76ers Summer League team,\u201d said UNA Head Coach Tony Pujol. \u201cFrom the moment he arrived at North Alabama, Taye embodied everything you want in a student-athlete. He was an exceptional player, a tremendous competitor and an outstanding representative of our program on and off the court. His work ethic, toughness and commitment to continuous improvement allowed him to maximize his abilities and earn opportunities at the highest levels of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fields helped guide UNA to its first-ever regular season conference championship in any sport at the Division I level in 2025, as the UNA men\u2019s basketball program finished with a 24-11 record and a trip to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After graduating from the program, Fields signed a professional contract with the Hefte Helfen Bulls in Austria\u2019s Basketball Superliga (BSL). In his rookie professional season, the 6\u20324\u2033 guard won the BSL Defensive Player of the Year award and won the Finals MVP award. He was a regular starter for the Bulls, leading them to the Austrian Championship. He averaged 12.7 points per game, 7.2 rebounds per game and 3.3 assists per game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"> While at UNA, Fields won the 2024-25 Atlantic Sun Conference Newcomer of the Year, earned second team all-conference honors and was named to the ASUN All-Tournament Team. He ranked second in the ASUN and 32nd nationally with 300 rebounds (8.6 RPG) and was the only player in the league to rank top three in both steals and blocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\">Click Here to Subscribe on YouTube:<\/a> Watch the latest WAFF 48 news, sports &amp; weather videos on our YouTube channel!<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WAFF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) &#8211; A former University of North Alabama men\u2019s basketball standout is now making waves in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[315924,355,1755,315923,315922,99,315921],"class_list":["post-734170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-lee-high-school","tag-nba","tag-nba-summer-league","tag-north-alabama-lions","tag-otis-boddie","tag-sports","tag-taye-fields"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}