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WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 21: Isaiah Todd #14 of the Washington Wizards warms up before the game against the Chicago Bulls at Capital One Arena on October 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
For two years between 2021 and 2023, Isaiah Todd was a member of the Washington Wizards.
Having been drafted 31st overall and found his way to the Wizards via two draft-night trades by the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers respectively, the G League Ignite alumnus would go on to spend two years in the nation’s capital, before being traded twice more in the summer of 2023 – first to the Phoenix Suns as an ancillary part of the hugely unsuccessful Bradley Beal trade, and then on to the Memphis Grizzlies as a part of a wider series of pick swaps.
Todd’s NBA career – or at least, his NBA career to date – was short, and yet involved a lot of moving around. Yet none of that movement was as unexpected as Todd’s most recent decision.
It was reported on Monday that Todd had signed in Cyprus, of all places. He will be spending the 2025-26 season with a team called Digenis Akritas (named for a 12th-century folk poem) in the city of Morphou, a town in the northwest of the country with a population of approximately 25,000 people. That is to say, Todd is now moving to a town whose entire population is only slightly larger than the 20,356 seating capacity of the Wizards’ home, the Capital One Arena.
Why Cyprus?
To anyone with a passing knowledge of the international transaction market, the move sounds implausible. But the announcement came from Digenis Akritas themselves. It really is happening, it appears, and with it, Todd becomes possibly the most prestigious signing in the history of Cypriot basketball.
Americans signing in Cyprus is common enough. More so than most other European leagues at comparable levels, the Cypriot league is reliant upon import players, and Americans make up the majority of them.
A former NBA player signing in Cyprus, though, is much rarer. Indeed, despite there being dozens of American players playing in Cyprus every season, Todd will be the first American player with NBA experience to sign in the country, as best as can be ascertained. And even if there have been others in the past, it can safely be assumed that they were not 23-year-olds with two years of NBA experience under their belts.
Making the move even more unlikely is the nature of the team Todd has signed with. Difenis Akritas, founded in 2019, were only promoted back to Cyprus’ top division last season, for the first time in their short history. This is not a powerhouse team – this is an upstart, a Scrappy Doo, a team with big ambitious but little pedigree. And yet seemingly they have enough belief and investment to be able to both afford and lure an NBA player in his physical prime.
Todd’s Career To Date
Todd fell out of the NBA after those two 2023 trades, and despite returning to the Ignite for their final season in 2023-24, he was not able to land another NBA contract. He instead spent last season beginning a world tour, first moving to Lithuania to play for Siauliai before finishing the season in Taiwan, where he averaged 12.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.2 fouls per game.
Much as Lithuania is a basketball powerhouse of a country, Siauliai are not Zalgiris, and are not usually the ones to be signing NBA players. And while former NBA big men do fairly regularly go to Taiwan and put up absolutely enormous numbers against defenses who just cannot handle their size – something most recently embodied by the Taiwan years of Dwight Howard – they usually do so after the age of 30.
Todd, though, has not had a good pro career thus far. He should be dominating the levels he is playing at with his superior physical profile, yet instead he is doing little but throw up jump shots and playing defence with his hands not his feet. Stagnancy would be one thing, but Todd has regressed, at the ages when he is supposed to be making his biggest leaps in his development. Todd, then, needs a reset and a bounce-back year.
At some point, most players do. But very few of them go to Cyprus to do so. At least the weather there will be much better than in Lithuania.
Mark Deeks I am continuously intrigued by the esoterica and minutiae of all the aspects of building a basketball team. I want to understand how to build the best basketball teams possible. No, I don’t know why, either. More about Mark Deeks
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