Former Duke Basketball Enforcer Gets Another Shot to Impress NBA Team

Last summer, after going undrafted following his graduate season as a 6-foot-9, 240-pound bruiser off the Duke basketball bench, Theo John suffered a knee injury the day before he was to debut for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA Summer League.

It was highly doubtful that John, a Minnesota native who played his first four years in college under former Blue Devil guard and assistant Steve Wojciechowski at Marquette, would have converted a few promising outings in Summer League action into a regular-season contract.

And that's still the case this year.

Even so, the Timberwolves have given the 24-year-old John another chance to impress them on the court against young players in the league and other NBA hopefuls. On Saturday, the franchise announced its roster, including his name, for the 2023 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas (July 7-17).

see you in Vegas. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/NUlKeCSFjl
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) June 24, 2023

Theo John will reunite with one of his former Blue Devil teammates, Wendell Moore Jr., in Minnesota's four scheduled games. Moore, now a rising NBA sophomore who went No. 26 overall at the 2022 NBA Draft, played in only 29 regular-season games for the Timberwolves as a rookie, averaging 1.4 points in 5.3 minutes per outing.

John and Moore were both members of Duke basketball's primary seven-man rotation in Mike Krzyzewski's final season before retirement. That team tallied 32 wins before losing to archrival UNC at the Final Four in New Orleans — the last time Moore and John played together in an official game setting.

After recovering from last summer's knee injury, Theo John signed a G League contract with the Washington Wizards' affiliate, the Capital City Go-Go. He played 13 games, averaging only 9.4 minutes as a reserve.

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