{"id":818148,"date":"2026-08-18T23:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818148\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T23:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:14:08","slug":"malik-dia-signs-two-way-contract-with-pelicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818148\/","title":{"rendered":"Malik Dia Signs Two-Way Contract With Pelicans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Undrafted free agent forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/malik-dia-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-18_cbb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Malik Dia<\/a> has signed a two-way contract with the Pelicans, per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/players\/transactions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NBA.com\u2019s transaction log<\/a>. Shams Charania of ESPN (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/2089799152062390770\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter link<\/a>) broke word of the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>New Orleans had a two-way spot open on its roster alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dickihu01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-18_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hunter Dickinson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pierrja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-18_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jaron Pierre Jr.<\/a>, so no corresponding move was necessary to make room for Dia. The team now has 21 players under contract, which is the offseason limit.<\/p>\n<p>Dia, 22, played for Vanderbilt as a freshman and Belmont as a sophomore before transferring to Ole Miss for his junior and senior seasons. As a senior in 2025\/26, the 6\u20199\u2033 forward started 31 of 35 games, averaging 14.5 points and 5.7 rebounds with a .452\/.275\/.683 shooting line in 24.3 minutes per contest.<\/p>\n<p>Dia, who weighs in at 250 pounds, has good positional size and proved capable of scoring effectively from inside the arc during his four college seasons, though his three-point shot (32.7% overall) came and went and his play-making was very limited (0.8 APG).<\/p>\n<p>Dia joined the Pelicans\u2019 Summer League team last month and averaged 10.0 PPG and 5.8 RPG in 18.9 MPG on .375\/.357\/.714 shooting in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undrafted free agent forward Malik Dia has signed a two-way contract with the Pelicans, per NBA.com\u2019s transaction log.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[49109,385,99],"class_list":["post-818148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-malik-dia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818148","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=818148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}