The Milwaukee Bucks will reportedly add rookie forward Bonzie Colson on a two-way contract ahead of this year’s two-way contract deadline Tuesday afternoon.
Less than 24 hours after waiving second-year forward Jaylen Morris, the Milwaukee Bucks have reportedly tabbed their next two-way player for the season.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Bucks are signing rookie forward Bonzie Colson to a two-way contract ahead of Tuesday’s two-way contract deadline.
The Milwaukee Bucks are signing forward Bonzie Colson to a two-way contract, league sources tell ESPN. He was playing with Canton Charge of G League. He missed pre-draft and summer after broken foot ended Notre Dame career.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 14, 2019
Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel confirmed the signing not long after Woj’s initial report.
Colson was an AP 1st team preseason all-American going into his senior year of 2017-'18 before breaking his left foot twice. He has a unique skill set (he's 6-foot-5 but played a bunch of center at Notre Dame) that seems like something worth checking out. https://t.co/SpO26PBbhm
— Matt Velazquez (@Matt_Velazquez) January 14, 2019
Colson comes to the Bucks by way of the Canton Charge, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ G League affiliate, where he spent his rookie season to this point. While with the Charge this season, Colson averaged 15.5 points on shooting splits of .489/.385/.667, 7.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.5 blocks in 23 appearances.
The D.C.-born Colson may be best known for his time at Notre Dame, where he spent his entire collegiate career from 2014 to 2018. The 23-year-old’s stint in South Bend overlapped with current Bucks wing Pat Connaughton’s time with the Fighting Irish.
While there, Colson developed his skill set as a skilled, undersized center, one capable of spacing out to the three-point line. In fact, former Bucks forward Jared Dudley was a pivotal figure in guiding Colson to utilize that element of his game, according to a 2016 Sports Illustrated article on Colson by Luke Winn.
Despite his accomplished career at Notre Dame, an injury-riddled senior season where he broke his foot on two separate occasions greatly diminished Colson’s NBA prospects during the lead up to the pre-draft process.
As a result, Colson went undrafted at this year’s draft and his second broken foot held him out of taking part in last year’s Summer League in either Las Vegas, Sacramento or Salt Lake City.
Despite that, the Cavaliers kept a keen eye on Colson by reaching out to him following the draft and extended an invite for him to work out within the organization’s facilities before he signed a training camp contract with the team as Colson told Tom Noie of the South Bend Tribune back in September:
"“Cleveland has stuck with their word since they picked me up,” he said. “I’m thankful for that. Now it’s time to go and do my thing.”"
Now in just over six months, Colson has turned his injury setbacks as well as going undrafted and parlayed that all into a two-way deal with one of the league’s hottest teams.
It’s also important to note that the days available to two-way players signed midway through the season are pro-rated, meaning Colson will have roughly half the days available to be up with the Bucks from this point on until the end of the Wisconsin Herd’s season.
With all that out of the way, all that’s left to do is give Bonzie a hearty welcome to Milwaukee and the Bucks organization!