Pacers sign UConn's Samson Johnson, ECU's R.J. Felton, Creighton's Steven Ashworth to Exhibit 10 deals

Indianapolis Star

2 days ago

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers signed Connecticut center Samson Johnson, East Carolina guard RJ Felton and Creighton guard Steven Ashworth to undrafted free agent contracts after the second round of the NBA draft on Thursday, a league source confirmed to IndyStar.
All three of those contracts are expected to be Exhibit 10 deals, according to the league source. An Exhibit 10 contract is a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum deal and it is usually used for teams to add to their Summer League and G League rosters. A team can have six Exhibit 10 deals and if it waives a player, that player can earn a bonus of up to approximately $75,000 for spending at least 60 days with that team's G League affiliate. This most likely means Johnson, Felton and Ashworth will play for the Pacers in July's NBA Summer League in Las Vegas and then for the Noblesville Boom in the G League.
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The 6-10, 225-pound Johnson — a native of the west African nation Togo — played four years at Connecticut and won two national championships with the Huskies. His minutes were limited as a freshman and sophomore, but he appeared in 40 games with the 2023-24 championship team, averaging 16.0 minutes, 5.4 points, 2.8 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per game and making 72.5% of his field goal attempts. This year, he started for the first time and averaged 7.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game, making 76.6% of his field goals and helping the Huskies earn another trip to the NCAA tournament before they lost a second-round thriller to eventual national champion Florida.
RJ Felton, a cousin of former NBA point guard Raymond Felton, started in three of his four seasons at East Carolina averaging at least 13.8 points per game in all three of those seasons. He was named third-team All-American Athletic Conference as a junior and first team All-AAC as a senior. The 6-3, 215-pounder averaged 18.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game this season and made 86 of 229 3-point attempts (37.6%).
Ashworth spent three seasons at Utah State and then two at Creighton. The 6-foot, 175-pounder earned first-team All-Mountain West Conference honors at Utah State in 2022-23, averaging 16.2 points and 4.5 assists per game and leading the MWC in 3-point percentage (.434), free throw percentage (.878), and total 3-pointers (111). At Creighton this past season, he was named second team All-Big East. He averaged 16.4 points per game and led the Big East in assists (6.8 per game), free throw percentage (.930) total 3-pointers (110) and total minutes (1,261).