Former Spartans Cassius Winston, Aaron Henry reunite on 76ers

Cassius Winston’s NBA career has gotten off to a slow start, but he’ll be reuniting with a familiar face with the 76ers in the Summer League.

Every college basketball program has that one player that fans root endlessly to work out in the NBA and for Michigan State, that’s Cassius Winston.

No player over the past decade in East Lansing drew the kind of fanfare that Winston did and he really exemplified what it meant to be a Spartan. He was selfless, an excellent leader, and an All-American basketball player. He was everything fans hope for when a player commits to a program.

Winston had a heck of a Michigan State career but it was cut short due to the pandemic in 2020. Spartan fans will argue until they’re blue in the face that Michigan State would have won the national title if the NCAA Tournament wasn’t canceled because Cassius just had that it factor and he came so close the year before.

But let’s not get into that because it still stings.

Cassius ended up getting drafted No. 53 overall in the 2020 NBA Draft by the Wizards and spent the last two seasons on a two-way contract with Washington. He had just 55 points and 19 assists in two seasons with the Wizards, shooting 44 percent from 3-point range in the process.

In the G-League, he averaged 13.1 points and 5.3 assists over the past two seasons, shooting 44 percent from the floor and 38 percent from deep. But he just never caught on in Washington.

On Monday, the 76ers announced that they’d be adding Winston to their Summer League roster which means he will be joining Aaron Henry for the time being.

This is a prime opportunity for Cassius to make some noise in the Summer League and potentially feed off that connection with Henry.

Henry, who went undrafted last year, averaged 13 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 44 percent from the floor and 36 percent from 3-point range in the G-League after signing with the 76ers. He played in just six games and averaged 2.8 minutes per game with Philadelphia as a rookie — he scored two points.

Now, the two will reunite in Philadelphia after spending a couple of seasons together at Michigan State, including a Final Four run during Henry’s freshman year.

Spartan fans will be tuning in to see how these two feed off each other in the Summer League.