Flip Saunders Threatened To Send Shabazz Muhammad To NBA Siberia

This is probably not how Shabazz Muhammad envisioned the beginning of his NBA career going. After the end of an immaculate high school career, things have spiraled downwards pretty quickly for the No. 1 high school prospect from the Class of 2012. The fall from grace has been steep, but he may already be on the edge of tumbling off the cliff into irrelevancy.

His freshman season at UCLA was rife with bungled NCAA investigations, more unfounded allegations of wrongdoing, the revelation that he was college basketball's Danny Almonte, his dad got popped by the feds and his development of a burgeoning reputation for being a selfish teammate. Things have gotten worse since Draft Night. He struggled to score the ball in the NBA Summer League and on Thursday, Muhammad was kicked out of the NBA rookie symposium for bringing a woman to his room, which is a blatant violation of the four-day Rookie Transition's rules. He passes the buck and the blame more than he did the rock in college where he averaged fewer than an assist per game

Muhammad nearly fell out of the lottery, which makes it was surprising to hear Team President Flip Saunders sending a public warning across the bow of Muhammad by threatening to send him to the D-League if he doesn't get his act in order soon. Muhammad may have escaped Salt Lake City on Draft night when Minnesota acquired him in a trade, but in case Muhammad doesn't know, Saunders reminded him that there are worse markets to play in than Utah or Minnesota.

Via Pro Basketball Talk:

“In our league, you have to be disciplined and being ‘disciplined’ is being able to adhere to whatever rules are given and you gotta abide by the rules,” Saunders said on the local radio host’s show. “So that’s been disappointing. But when I talk to him, he’s either gonna learn the rules and learn to abide by things with the big boys or he’s gonna really quick learn a geography class: where Des Moines is in the NBDL down in Iowa.”

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