By ADAM ZAGORIA & JOSH NEWMAN
N.C. State’s C.J. Leslie and Missouri’s Phil Pressey went undrafted Thursday night but both have reached agreement to play summer league ball.
The 6-foot-9 Leslie was projected as a second-round pick but went undrafted after suffering a hip injury. He will play with the Knicks summer league team.
The news was first reported by Yahoo! Sports and confirmed to SNY.tv by a source.
Leslie worked out for the Nets June 17 but told SNY.tv then he had a hip issue.
“We shut it down,” he said then.
Leslie averaged 15.1 points and 7.4 rebounds this past season as a junior with the Wolfpack.
“[I can bring] rebounding, scoring when they need it, getting to the basket, getting fouled, all that stuff,” he said during a workout with the Knicks June 11. “So just wherever I’m needed and hopefully I’ll be able to step in.”
As for the 5-11 Pressey, he will play summer ball with the rebuilding Boston Celtics, who on Thursday traded Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry to the Nets in a blockbuster deal.
Projected as a second-round pick, Pressey has long faced questions about his size, but is a natural playmaker.
“I’ve played against bigger point guards, I really don’t see them as being more athletic than me, just taller,” the Dallas native and University of Missouri product told SNY.tv last month after a Nets’ workout. “When it comes to athleticism, I match up with the best of them. If a guy is a couple inches taller than me, I don’t feel like that affects me at all. I feel like what I do is a lot better than what they do.”
As a junior he averaged 11.9 points and 7.1 assists on his way to All-SEC first team honors.
He flirted with declaring for the 2012 NBA Draft after going for 10.3 points and 6.4 assists per game for the 30-5 Tigers.
