Hyunjung Lee's Portland Trail Blazers contract: an Exhibit 10 deal with the team that drafted Korea's only NBA player

On September 20 in Aichi-Nagoya, South Korea beat Japan 67-57 in the Asian Games men's basketball final. Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that Hyunjung Lee had 27 points and 18 rebounds, and that the gold, after titles in 2002 and 2014, was Korea's fifth overall and its first in 12 years. Six days after the final, on September 26, Lee flies to the United States, because the Portland Trail Blazers open training camp on the 29th (Sports Kyunghyang, September 21). That is also the date the NBA's key dates list gives for camps across the league.

His agency, Epic Sports, announced the contract on September 7, just before the Asian Games. It is an Exhibit 10 deal, which MBC and Sports Kyunghyang describe as a one-year, non-guaranteed contract at around the league minimum. With nothing guaranteed, camp is the audition. Three outcomes come up most often with this kind of deal: making the opening-night roster, having the contract converted to a two-way deal, or being waived and then joining the Rip City Remix, Portland's G League affiliate. A Roundtable Sports story carried on Yahoo Sports says that last route comes with a possible bonus. None of the three happens automatically.

According to the agency's account in MBC's report, Lee also had offers from Boston and from Nagasaki in Japan's B.League, among others, and chose Portland for the role and plan it laid out. Nagasaki is the club he played for last season. The Roundtable Sports story lists him as a 6-foot-7 wing.

He spent this year's Summer League with San Antonio, averaging 8.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.1 assists over eight games, according to Asia Today. Portland is not a new jersey for him: he also played Summer League for the Blazers in 2024, finishing with 8 points and 9 rebounds against Houston in the last game (Jumpball and Newsis, July 22, 2024).

Portland is also where Korea's NBA history begins. The Blazers took Ha Seung-jin in the 2004 draft with the 17th pick of the second round, 46th overall. Basketball-Reference has his debut on January 7, 2005, followed by 19 games in 2004-05 and 27 in 2005-06, for 46 games in all at 1.5 points per game. He was drafted 46th and played 46 games, every one of them for Portland. Jumpball also notes that Lee and Ha went to the same high school, Samil Commercial High School.

Put as a count: one South Korean national has appeared in an NBA regular-season game, and his last season was 2005-06. A single regular-season appearance by Lee would make that list two names long (Newspim; Asia Today). Until camp is over that is only a condition, and this piece does not guess at the roster decision.

The dates are fixed: departure on September 26, camp from September 29, preseason games across the league from October 3, and the regular season from October 20 ET, October 21 in Korea. Portland's regular-season schedule is on the team page.

Update, October 1: Lee's name was not on the 18-man training camp roster Portland announced before camp opened (Sports Illustrated, September 28). JoongAng Ilbo reported on September 30 that he had come back to Korea less than a week after leaving on the 26th, to complete the administrative process for the alternative military service that his Asian Games gold earns him. That process takes at least three weeks, and he has to stay in Korea while it runs. The paper said rumours that the contract had been torn up were not true. According to Kim Byung-wook, head of his agency Epic Sports, Lee took a medical in the United States on September 28 at the club's request, signed the Exhibit 10 contract himself the next day, and was told by the club to come back once the process in Korea is finished. When Lee returns to the United States, and what Portland decides after that, has not been confirmed, and this piece does not guess.