Micah Potter and Bez Mbeng headline rare 2026-27 NBA waiver claims

Waiver claims remain one of the least used roster tools in the NBA, but the 2026-27 league year has already produced two notable examples. Big man Micah Potter has landed with the Portland Trail Blazers, while guard Bez Mbeng has been scooped up by the Miami Heat, illustrating how front offices can extract value from a process most teams routinely ignore.

Blazers take a low-risk look at Micah Potter

Portland claimed Potter after the Pacers placed him on waivers in July. Indiana was operating tight to its first-apron hard cap and opted to clear Potter’s non-guaranteed minimum-salary deal in order to bring in veteran big man Larry Nance Jr. up front.

The Blazers, meanwhile, already have a crowded frontcourt with Donovan Clingan, Robert Williams, Yang Hansen and Branden Carlson in the mix. That depth, combined with Potter’s lack of guaranteed money, means he is far from assured a spot on the regular season roster despite being claimed.

Potter is coming off a strong season that likely helped convince Portland to take a flier. He averaged 9.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 19.3 minutes per game, shooting .515 from the field, .423 from beyond the arc and .842 at the free throw line. For a team still sorting out its rotation up front, those numbers make him a reasonable gamble.

Heat claim Bez Mbeng to control Sioux Falls pipeline

The second claim involves Mbeng, who initially agreed to an Exhibit 10 deal with the Hornets. That arrangement suggested Charlotte intended to secure his G League returning rights and send him to its affiliate, the Greensboro Swarm, for the fall.

Miami intervened by claiming Mbeng off waivers before that plan could unfold. His NBAGL rights already belonged to the Sioux Falls Skyforce, the Heat’s affiliate, and the claim allows Miami to assume the $91K Exhibit 10 bonus Charlotte had lined up. The expectation is that Mbeng will be waived again and rejoin Sioux Falls, strengthening the Heat’s developmental pipeline.

Why waiver claims remain so rare

Under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams can now use tools like the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, room exception and bi-annual exception to claim players whose salaries fit under those amounts. Minimum-salary exception rules also permit claims of certain low-cost deals, as long as the contract could originally have been signed using that exception.

Even so, most waived players still clear the process unclaimed. Many teams are up against the cap or hard-cap restrictions, short on roster spots, or simply uninterested in taking on contracts that another club just decided were poor value. In 2025-26, only two waiver claims were made leaguewide, the fewest in a single season since 2010-11. One of those, Phoenix’s claim of Jordan Goodwin from the Lakers, eventually turned into a three-year, $19MM contract for a rotation guard. Portland’s bet on Potter and Miami’s move for Mbeng follow that same low-risk blueprint in hopes of uncovering the next quiet success story.