Here’s the Indianapolis Star on veteran Rasual Butler enjoying himself as a member of the Indiana Pacers. Butler plays just 5.8 minutes per game, but he’s a part of a winning team with legit championship aspirations.

Butler has recaptured his NBA career just by staying ready.

During 2011-12, he was waived by the Toronto Raptors and remained without an NBA job for the entire next season. Butler had bounced around five teams in 10 years, thought of as just a spot-up shooter and possibly, one close advocate believes, considered a veteran who wasn’t worth the trouble.

Forget one foot, Butler had nine toes out of the very exclusive club that no basketball player ever wants to be escorted away from. But he remained humble, hungry and, most of all, ready. After a year spent remaking his body then accepting the lowly assignments of Development League standout and Summer League old head, Butler has returned to the NBA.

“You don’t get too many of those,” says Geo Aispuro, the basketball trainer who worked out with Butler for nearly a year so he could return to the NBA. “You get a lot of guys that drop out but you just never get those guys that drop out and get back into the league.”

Butler has this old soul about him. He speaks like a late-night DJ spinning jazz records and even breaks up the uncensored jocularity in the Pacers’ locker room whenever he feels the ribbing could go too far. Butler carries the sophistication of well-traveled diplomat and shares wisdom like the neighborhood lifer. But really, he’s just a man who’s seen his share of twists and turns and now feels grateful for this time of stability.

Brooklyn Nets forward Paul Pierce has been fined $15,000 for making excessive and unnecessary contact with George Hill of the Indiana Pacers, it was announced today by Rod Thorn, President, Basketball Operations.

The incident, which was called a Flagrant Foul 2, occurred with 4:22 remaining in the third quarter of the Nets’ 103-86 loss the Pacers on Monday Dec. 23, at Barclays Center.

The Memphis Grizzlies signed guard Seth Curry of the NBA Development League’s Santa Cruz Warriors, the team announced today.

Curry (6-1, 180) comes to Memphis after averaging 21.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, 7.8 assists and 1.58 steals on .439 shooting in 37.3 minutes in 12 games (11 starts) for Santa Cruz this season.  The 23-year-old ranks 10th in the D-League in scoring and second in assists per game.  He has scored 20-or-more points seven times, including a career-high 36 in his D-League debut on Nov. 22 vs. Austin, and has recorded three double-doubles.

Curry went undrafted in the 2013 NBA Draft following his senior season at Duke University in which he ranked second in the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring (team-high 17.5 points) and three-point field goal percentage (.438) and garnered First Team All-ACC and Second Team All-America honors.  He averaged 21.0 points in four games during the 2013 NCAA Tournament, including a 29-point performance in a Sweet 16 victory over Michigan State on March 29, 2013.  Curry played the majority of the season with a right lower leg injury, which kept him out of the majority of the Blue Devils’ practices, and had surgery to repair the injury on April 15, 2013.

The Charlotte, N.C. native averaged 13.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.0 steals in 29.1 minutes in 106 games (86 starts) in three seasons at Duke.  He left Duke ranked third on the school’s all-time list in three-point field goal percentage (.420), fifth in free throw percentage (.825) and eighth in three-point field goals made (223).  Curry began his collegiate career at Liberty University, where he was named the 2009 Big South Freshman of the Year after averaging 20.2 points.

Curry is the younger brother of Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, who set the NBA single-season record for three point field goals made (272) last season.  Seth joined Stephen in Golden State after signing as a free agent on Aug. 23, 2013 but was waived on Oct. 25, 2013 following the preseason.  The duo is the highest-scoring brother tandem in NCAA history, finishing their collegiate careers with a combined 4,736 points (Stephen – 2,635 points at Davidson; Seth – 2,101 points at Duke and Liberty).

He also is the son of prolific NBA three-point shooter Dell Curry, who shot at least 40 percent from three-point range in nine of his 16 NBA seasons and recorded a career three-point percentage of .402 in 1,083 games.

Curry will wear uniform no. 1.