**BATON ROUGE –** Six former members of the LSU men’s basketball team are on rosters as the 2025-26 National Basketball Association begins play on Tuesday night.
Veteran Garrett Temple (2006-09 at LSU) returns to the Toronto Raptors, with fan favorite Naz Reid (2019) set to go for another year with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
First round draft picks Cam Thomas (2021) and Tari Eason (2022) are both back with their teams as Thomas will be putting up points for the Brooklyn Nets and Eason continuing his career with the Houston Rockets.
Rounding out the six-pack of LSU players are Trendon Watford (2020-21), who will be a part of a new team in Philadelphia, and Australian Duop Reath (2017-19), who looks for continued success with Portland.
Eason and the Rockets will be part of the opening night schedule of games on the new television partner for the NBA, NBC/Peacock with a 6:30 p.m. game at Oklahoma City.
Toronto travels to Atlanta, Brooklyn is at Charlotte, Philadelphia is at Boston and Minnesota travels to Portland in games involving LSU players on Wednesday.
Temple continues his long NBA career which will be his 16th year in the NBA and his third with Toronto. He has played 771 games in the Association and needs just 21 more appearances to move past Bob Pettit into second on LSU’s games played list. He has scored 4,582 points overall. At LSU he was part of two SEC Championship teams and helped LSU to the NCAA Final Four as a freshman in 2006.
Naz Reid has made his mark in Minnesota after signing with the club as an undrafted free agent. Reid, a part of LSU’s Sweet 16 team in 2019, is entering his seventh season with the Timberwolves after averaging a career best 14.2 points and 6.0 rebounds a season ago. He has played 406 games to date with a scoring average of 11.6 points per contest.
Thomas, the No. 27 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, enters his fifth season with the Nets, after averaging a career best 24.0 points a game a year ago in an injury shortened season due to a left hamstring strain. The restricted free agent signed a new one-year deal with the Nets for this season.
Eason was selected by the Rockets with the 17th pick in the 2022 Draft and he had his best season a year ago averaging 12.1 points in 56 games. Media reports on Sunday said that the Rockets hoped to complete a contract extension past the 2025-26 season for Eason by Monday night’s deadline.
Watford will play for his third NBA team in his fifth season in the league, but his first in Philadelphia after two years in Portland and Brooklyn. In 44 games a season ago, Watford averaged a personal best 10.2 points. His early play may be limited based on reports of a hamstring injury.
Reath, who played overseas for five years, now enters his third year with Portland. He played in 114 games over two seasons.