Grizzlies Are Waiving Walter Clayton Jr., a No. 18 Pick With One Season on File

Memphis is cutting a first-rounder and a second-rounder before Monday's deadline, and only one of them should expect the phone to ring.

ESPN reports Memphis is waiving Walter Clayton Jr., the No. 18 pick in the 2025 draft, and second-rounder Micah Peavy ahead of Monday's roster cut-down deadline. That is the news, and the strange part is the first name on it. A team spending a mid-first-round pick and then releasing the player a little over a year later is not making a normal roster trim. It is conceding that the asset it bought is worth less to it than the spot he sits in. F1F3F9

One caution before anyone reads the stat line as an indictment. Our catalog carries conflicting figures for what can only be one season: Clayton was drafted in 2025, yet the page lists a rookie line of 7.8 points and a 2025-26 Memphis line of 9.7 points, 2.1 rebounds and 5.7 assists on .366 shooting. Treat the fuller line as the record of his one recorded year. Modest scoring, genuine distribution, poor efficiency. That shooting number is the plausible reason a front office cools on a guard. It is rarely, by itself, the reason he loses a job. F3F4F5

The money angle belongs to Peavy, not Clayton. We have no contract on file for Clayton at all, so anyone telling you what a claiming team takes on is guessing. For Peavy we do have listed rookie-tier terms — $2.2M, $2.5M and $2.7M across 2026-27 through 2028-29, $7.4M in total. What we do not have is guarantee status, and second-round deals frequently carry little or none. So read those as listed figures, not as a measured cap hit Memphis is now eating. F12F10

Be careful with the projections, including ours. The model had Clayton's minutes up 6%, usage up 3% and playmaking up 10%, built on Memphis vacating roughly half its usage with Ja Morant and Santi Aldama gone. Peavy carried a smaller bump on a similar premise. Those were estimates, not measurements, and the news overrides them. Whoever absorbs that Memphis usage, it is neither of these two — which makes the projections a useful record of a plan that got torn up fast. F6F7F13F14

So separate the two outcomes. Clayton is the asset: draft slot carries weight with rebuilding teams, and a guard who posted 5.7 assists in his recorded season is a rotation body somewhere, bad percentage included. Peavy, with 4.3 points on .385 shooting on file, is the likelier one to pass through untouched and have to find his own landing spot. Both resolve inside days, and you can check me on which name moves first. F3F5F9F11F1