Duop Reath on New Contract With Trail Blazers: "The Process is Still the Same"
Reath signed a three-year contract last week.
📍 TUALATIN, Ore. — Most of the Trail Blazers had a quiet All-Star break. But in the NBA’s week off, Duop Reath had his life change dramatically.
Last Friday, the 27-year-old rookie center, who has had an unexpectedly large role for the Blazers as they have navigated various frontcourt injuries, signed a three-year deal to stay with the Blazers through the 2025-26 season, a significant bump up in money and security from the two-way contract he signed during training camp.
“My agent called me and told me, ‘They’re offering this,’” Reath said after practice on Wednesday afternoon. “I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’”
Reath’s new contract is the culmination of what has been one of the most unexpected feel-good stories of a Blazers season without a lot of wins. If you haven’t watched the 30-minute interview Matisse Thybulle posted last month on his YouTube channel, you should. The short version: Reath and his family fled what is now South Sudan when he was nine years old and moved to Australia, where he played soccer until a growth spurt led him to focus instead on basketball. He came to America and college basketball at LSU, and then played all over the world, getting Summer League invites with Brooklyn and Phoenix in subsequent years before finally catching on with the Blazers this year.
After training camp this fall, the Blazers signed Reath to a two-way contract. He only played one game in the G League with the Rip City Remix—since Robert Williams III suffered a season-ending knee injury in November, he’s become their primary backup center. And now, he has a job for next year and beyond.
“I just love to see people get what they deserve,” Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups said. “That was maybe the most happy thing that happened over the break, was being able to talk to him. He’s just so grateful and so thankful. That’s what this thing is really all about—to be able to bring somebody in who’s trying to make the league, bring him into Summer League and have him grow to a level where he’s getting an actual NBA contract is unbelievable.”
On Friday afternoon, the same day Reath signed his new deal with the Blazers, Scoot Henderson was in Indianapolis playing in the Rising Stars Challenge during All-Star Weekend. After that event, a reporter broke the news to Henderson that Reath had gotten a new contract. His in-the-moment reaction was one of the better viral moments of a mostly underwhelming weekend.
“That’s my dog, man,” Henderson said Wednesday. “When you see your friend, your buddy, your teammate accomplish something that you know they could and they put the work in for, that’s one of my favorite things to see. This is the team that I’m on and we’ve got Duop? It’s lit.”
Henderson’s reaction wasn’t uncommon. In addition to earning his new contract on the court, Reath is beloved in the locker room and has been since Summer League. He’s in a unique position on a rebuilding team: he’s a rookie in the sense that this is his first season in the NBA, but at 27, he has years of international experience. He and Thybulle played together on the Australian national team both at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo and at this past summer’s FIBA World Cup in the Philippines. Even though he’s in his first year in the league, that experience and his positive, upbeat personality have made him someone teammates gravitate towards.
And he’s proven very productive as a pick-and-pop big. Even when Williams and Deandre Ayton are healthy, Reath provides a different look.
“He brings us something that’s totally different from those guys,” Billups said. “The way that he can shoot, it gives you different options. Those guys will miss some games, it just is what is. So I feel totally comfortable and confident when it’s Wop there as your third center. I feel good about that. I’m happy about that stability.”
And Reath, after bouncing around the world for several years looking for a basketball home, now has stability of his own in Portland.
“The process is still the same,” Reath said. “Nothing changes. I’ve got to keep working. I’m still really grateful for what I’ve got right now, but I’ve got to keep working.”