Tiago Splitter A Finalist For Blazers Coaching Job
Despite initial reports indicating that interim head coach Tiago Splitter was not likely to be retained by the Trail Blazers as they mount a comprehensive search for their head coach of the future, it appears the Brazilian incumbent has a genuine shot at the job. Marc Stein of The Stein Line reports (via Twitter) that Splitter is considered a finalist for the position.
Splitter took over unexpectedly after Chauncey Billups was arrested as part of a federal probe into illegal gambling operations just one game into the season. He led Portland to a 42-40 record, achieving both the team’s best record and first playoff berth since the 2020/21 season.
Despite missing Damian Lillard for the entire season and expected starting point guard Scoot Henderson for the first 52 games of the year, the Blazers found success as a defensive-minded group built around first-time All-Star Deni Avdija‘s consistent rim pressure and playmaking.
The Bulls have been rumored to have interest in requesting permission to interview Splitter for their head coach opening, but were expected to be denied as the Blazers continue to deliberate.
It was reported earlier that the team has also reached out to the Clippers for permission to interview Jeff Van Gundy, who is considered another finalist for the job.
Fox, Harper Listed As Questionable For Game 3
The Spurs are hoping to come into a pivotal Game 3 with a healthy roster, but it’s unclear what their backcourt depth will look like as starting point guard De’Aaron Fox is listed as questionable with a right ankle sprain while rookie Dylan Harper, who has been starting in Fox’s place, is listed as questionable with right adductor soreness, per Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link).
After averaging 17.7 points and 5.0 assists in the Spurs’ six-game series win over the Timberwolves, Fox has missed the first two games of the series due to a right high ankle sprain. He was listed as questionable coming into Game 2, but ruled out prior to tip-off.
Harper has averaged 14.4 points and 1.5 steals in 26.8 minutes per game throughout his rookie season playoffs run, and those numbers rose to 18.0 points, 4.5 assists, and 3.5 steals in the two games he started for Fox against the Thunder. However, Harper left Game 2 early with a hamstring injury after coming down awkwardly in the third quarter and was scheduled for an MRI on Thursday.
Short on guards, the Spurs turned to 30-year-old backup Jordan McLaughlin, who had played just 24 minutes in the playoffs prior to Game 2. He played seven minutes, scoring six points on a pair of threes. If neither Fox nor Harper are able to go in Game 3, McLaughlin might be tasked with more backup guard minutes.
“We have to continue to trust our depth and guys have to step up and when their names call and answer the bell,” head coach Mitch Johnson said, per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News.
Thunder star wing Jalen Williams is also listed as questionable and is considered day-to-day due to a left hamstring injury moving forward.
Game 3 will tip off at 7:30 Central on Friday.
Trail Blazers Request Permission To Interview Jeff Van Gundy
As the Trail Blazers continue the search for their next head coach, a name has emerged as one of the finalists for the position. The Blazers have requested permission from the Clippers to interview assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy, NBA insider Chris Haynes reports (via Twitter).
Van Gundy has been the lead assistant with the Clippers for the past two seasons after working as a head coach, first for the Knicks, then the Rockets, from 1995 to 2007. He holds a career 430-318 record as a head coach, including a trip to the 1999 Finals with the Knicks. Only five current coaches have more career playoff wins than Van Gundy: Erik Spoelstra, Steve Kerr, Rick Carlisle, Mike Brown, and Tyronn Lue.
Prior to joining the Clippers, Van Gundy spent 16 years as a broadcaster with ESPN, often alongside Mark Jackson, whom Van Gundy coached as an assistant with the Knicks and in Jackson’s final season with the Rockets.
While Tiago Splitter served as the team’s interim head coach following the arrest of Chauncey Billups as part of a federal investigation into illegal gambling, rumors have indicated that new owner Tom Dundon‘s preference was to go in a different, ideally cheaper, direction.
Timberwolves‘ assistant Micah Nori is also viewed as a potential candidate for the position.
Thunder Notes: Caruso, Gilgeous-Alexander, McCain, Accountability
The Thunder boast a two-time MVP guard, an All-Star big man, and an All-NBA wing, but through two games of the Western Conference Finals, 32-year-old backup guard Alex Caruso has been the key to unlocking the team’s potential on both ends, Kelly Iko writes for Yahoo Sports.
A year after showing his versatility by defending Nikola Jokic in the playoffs, Caruso has been tasked, at times, with guarding Spurs star Victor Wembanyama. Even more importantly, he has shown no fear in attacking the first-ever unanimous Defensive Player of the Year on offense, even as some of his teammates shied away from the large barrier Wembanyama represents.
“He’s got an unbelievable focus and is a monster competitor,” said coach Mark Daigneault. “It seems like the bigger the moment, the bigger the game, the more he wants to compete in it. And he’ll fail and not blink, and he’ll be aggressive in the next possession, next game and he was huge again tonight. His minutes were massive for us.”
With Jalen Williams limited by injuries and Ajay Mitchell and Chet Holmgren working themselves into a rhythm, Caruso has stepped up offensively. Through two games, he is the series’s third-leading scorer behind the two teams’ respective MVP candidates, averaging 24.0 points while hitting 11 of his 18 threes.
His ability to guard up in the lineup also has downstream effects on the Thunder’s offense, as they are able to play more guards alongside him, thereby injecting much-needed shooting and ball-handling as the team searches for creases in San Antonio’s imposing defense.
“His leadership is over the roof, honestly, especially on the [defensive] end of the floor,” Luguentz Dort said. “He communicates a lot. He’s really smart as a player and watches a lot of basketball as well. So he knows a lot of plays and the tricks we need to get stops defensively. Able to read the game well and he’s been amazing.”
Whether he can keep up the hot shooting remains to be seen, but with Williams being listed as day-to-day after leaving Game 2 early with a hamstring injury and Mitchell also suffering an injury scare, his responsibility levels are only likely to increase as the series progresses.
We have more from the Thunder:
- After an uncharacteristically quiet performance in the Game 1 loss, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put together the kind of MVP performance fans have come to expect from him in Game 2, Joel Lorenzi writes for The Athletic. “I guess I just have sucked when I get too long of a break,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anything other than that. I don’t know. I guess I gotta do a better job with my breaks, especially during the playoffs.” Instead of playing into the Spurs’ coverages, he found ways to get to his spots and stopped letting Stephon Castle‘s rugged defense get to him. “We just had no choice but to play to our strengths,” he said, “or else.”
- If you just looked at the efficiency, it would be easy to miss Jared McCain‘s impact on Game 2, Lorenzi writes. Despite posting .286/.333/.500 shooting splits, McCain’s energy and hustle were clearly infectious as he played his way to 12 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 steals in 26 minutes. This is nothing unusual for a player who has quickly ingratiated himself with his Thunder teammates due to his outsized personality, Marc J. Spears writes for Andscape. “The first week or two that he was here felt like he had been here the whole season,” Dort said. “That is the type of guy he is. That is the type of locker room we have. Really funny and really loud, and he blended in with everyone really quick.” It’s not just about his off-court personality, though. “That translates to his game as well,” Caruso said. “He is constantly moving on offense, which is manipulating the defense. He’s starting to pick up some of our other principles. He picked up a big offensive rebound tonight.”
- The Thunder have built a juggernaut based on the principles of precision, attention to detail, and accountability, writes Dan Woike of The Athletic. On a roster as loaded with NBA-level talent as Oklahoma City’s, players have had to find roles they can thrive in, even if that feels like a sacrifice. Cason Wallace is a good example of that trait: there are 20 players from the 2023 Draft that are averaging more points than the former 10th overall pick, but those guys aren’t playing critical minutes in the Western Conference Finals, as he is. Even when Wallace isn’t on the floor, though, he knows what is expected of him. “Honestly, you just go out there and be who you are,” the defensive-minded point guard said. “If it’s your night then, you know, it’s your night, and we’re all gonna be excited, and we’re all gonna put our best foot forward. But when it’s somebody else’s night, we also understand that and we cheer them on.” While that sounds good in theory, Daigneault and the players know that it’s one thing for players to talk about accountability, but quite another to buy into it. “There’s a collective understanding of where the bar is,” Holmgren said. “And it’s human nature is to be imperfect. Nobody’s gonna be perfect. I might shoot a shot where it’s ‘S–t, I ain’t shot one in a while.’ Human nature is ‘OK, let me get one up’ … But there’s an understanding that there’s human nature, that nobody’s gonna be perfect. But there’s also an understanding if somebody sees you drifting, hey, we’re gonna pull you back in.”
Jalen Williams Day-To-Day With Hamstring Injury
Jalen Williams is day-to-day with a left hamstring injury and will be reevaluated by the Thunder one game at a time, Shams Charania reports for ESPN (via Twitter).
This is the second time in the last month that Williams has dealt with a left hamstring issue, and his return will be largely dependent on how the injury responds to treatment. The previous injury caused him to miss approximately three weeks, including the entire second-round series against the Lakers.
Williams returned from that injury for a brutally taxing double-overtime Game 1 against the Spurs, in which he played over 37 minutes and scored 26 points while often taking the Victor Wembanyama defensive assignment.
Whether or not that game took a toll, the All-NBA wing left Game 2 after just seven minutes to receive treatment on the leg and was later ruled out for the rest of the night. It was subsequently reported that he would undergo an MRI, as would Spurs guard Dylan Harper, who also left the game early.
While Charania’s update doesn’t offer any sort of concrete return timeline for Williams, it may be an encouraging sign that he’s being considered day-to-day rather than week-to-week, as was the case after he sustained his previous hamstring injury.
Game 3 will take place on Friday in San Antonio, with Game 4 to follow on Sunday.
Early NBA Salary Guarantee Dates For 2026/27
An NBA player who has a non-guaranteed salary for a given season will, by default, receive his full guarantee if he remains under contract through January 7 of that league year. Because the league-wide salary guarantee date is January 10, a player must clear waivers before that date if a team wants to avoid being on the hook for his full salary.
However, a number of players who have non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts for 2026/27 have earlier trigger dates. Those players will receive either their full guarantee or a partial guarantee on certain dates before January 7, assuming they’re not waived.
These dates are fairly malleable — if a player and team reach an agreement, a salary guarantee deadline can be pushed back.
For example, if a player’s contract calls for him to receive his full guarantee on June 27, his team could ask him to move that date to the first or second week of July to get a better sense of what will happen in free agency before making a final decision. The player doesn’t have to agree, but it might be in his best interest to push back his guarantee date rather than simply being waived.
Those agreements between a player and team aren’t always reported right away, so our list of early salary guarantee dates is a tentative one. If a player’s salary guarantee date passes without him being waived, our assumption is that he received his guarantee, but it’s possible he and his team negotiated a new guarantee date that simply hasn’t been made public yet. We’ll update the info below as necessary in the coming months.
Here are the early salary guarantee dates for 2026/27:
(Note: More players, including some whose team options are exercised, will likely be added to this list as the offseason progresses.)
June 25
Buddy Hield (Hawks): Partial guarantee ($3,000,000) increases to full guarantee ($9,658,536).
June 28
- Jonathan Isaac (Magic): Partial guarantee ($8,000,000) increases to full guarantee ($14,500,000).
- Dru Smith (Heat): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,584,539) becomes fully guaranteed.
June 29
- Bronny James (Lakers): Partial guarantee ($1,258,873) increases to full guarantee ($2,296,271).
June 30
- Jamison Battle (Raptors): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,296,271) becomes fully guaranteed.
- Cam Christie (Clippers): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,296,271) becomes fully guaranteed.
- Kris Dunn (Clippers): Non-guaranteed salary ($5,684,800) becomes fully guaranteed.
- Dunn’s salary can also become fully guaranteed if he makes an All-Defensive team.
- Kyle Filipowski (Jazz): Non-guaranteed salary ($3,000,000) becomes fully guaranteed.
- Kam Jones (Pacers): Partial guarantee ($1,075,459) increases to full guarantee ($2,150,917).
- Ajay Mitchell (Thunder): Partial guarantee ($1,500,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,850,000).
- Svi Mykhailiuk (Jazz): Non-guaranteed salary ($3,850,000) becomes fully guaranteed.
July 3
- Scotty Pippen Jr. (Grizzlies): Partial guarantee ($350,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,461,462).
July 4
- Pete Nance (Bucks): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,497,812) becomes fully guaranteed.
July 7
- Adem Bona (Sixers): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,296,271) becomes fully guaranteed.
July 8
Jonas Valanciunas (Nuggets): Partial guarantee ($2,000,000) increases to full guarantee ($10,000,000).
July 15
- Sidy Cissoko (Trail Blazers): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,497,812) becomes fully guaranteed.
- Quenton Jackson (Pacers): Partial guarantee ($250,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,584,539).
August 1
- Vit Krejci (Trail Blazers): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,667,944) becomes partially guaranteed ($250,000).
First day of NBA regular season
- Oso Ighodaro (Suns): Partial guarantee ($250,000) increases to $500,000.
- Jaylen Wells (Grizzlies): Partial guarantee ($300,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,296,271).
First day of team’s regular season
- Moussa Diabate (Hornets): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,461,462) becomes partially guaranteed ($250,000).
- Vit Krejci (Trail Blazers): Partial guarantee ($250,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,667,944).
Lakers Notes: LeBron, Friedman, Zaidi, Pelinka, Senior
Discussing his future on the latest episode of the Mind the Game podcast with co-host Steve Nash (YouTube link), Lakers forward LeBron James said he’ll need to take some time before he decides whether or not to continue his career and what the 2026/27 season might hold for him.
“I haven’t even really thought about it too much,” James said, per Khobi Price of The California Post. “Obviously, I understand that I’m a free agent and I can control my own destiny — being here with (the Lakers) for a foreseeable future or if it’s going somewhere else. But like, I haven’t even really even got to that point. I haven’t even taken my family vacation yet, which is going to happen after Memorial Day. That’s kind of the thing at the forefront of my mind.
“But, I think at some point in June, late June, as July rolls around, free agency starts to get going and as July rolls around and maybe into August, we start to kind of get a feel of what my future may look like. If it’s continuing to play the game that I love, which I know I can still give so much to the game and play at a high level, or if it’s not. But I have not gotten to that point yet.”
As Dave McMenamin of ESPN writes, James also addressed Los Angeles’ second-round loss to the Thunder during his discussion with Nash, suggesting that the Lakers – going up against the defending champions without top scorer Luka Doncic – were simply facing a talent deficit.
“We were not outworked, they didn’t out-physical us, they didn’t outsmart us,” LeBron said. “I feel like we were just out-talented by OKC. … At the end of the day, we failed in talent. OKC just possessed so much more talent than us. You can tip your cap to them, obviously, in understanding that. But you can’t get caught up in that, especially when you know you were undermanned.”
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- In an interesting story for Yahoo Sports, Yaron Weitzman examines how new Lakers owner Mark Walter has tasked the same two executives – Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi – who helped turn the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office into one of MLB’s most sophisticated and successful operations to follow a similar blueprint with the Lakers. While Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis have led the search for a pair of new assistant general managers, Friedman and Zaidi have also been involved, Weitzman says, with at least one of them sitting in on most interviews.
- There has been some speculation about the involvement of Friedman and Zaidi leading to the Lakers replacing Pelinka as their head of basketball operations, but that’s not currently the plan, according to Weitzman, who notes that Pelinka is the one leading discussions with player agents in contract discussions and has told people he’s working “in collaboration” with the Dodgers execs.
- The Lakers offered Timberwolves assistant GM Steve Senior an executive VP of basketball operations role, but Senior opted to remain in Minnesota, multiple league sources tell Weitzman.
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) takes a closer look at the Lakers’ upcoming offseason, explaining what the team could do with its projected cap room and exploring what sort of contracts their free agents might get. Gozlan projects a deal in the neighborhood of $35-40MM per year for Austin Reaves and believes Rui Hachimura could receive a salary in the range of the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($15MM+).
Florida’s Rueben Chinyelu Withdrawing From Draft
After testing the NBA draft waters this spring, big man Rueben Chinyelu is returning to Florida for his senior season, the Gators announced today (Twitter link).
Chinyelu, who won a national championship as a sophomore in 2024/25, averaged a double-double as a junior, scoring 10.9 points and grabbing 11.2 rebounds in just 24.5 minutes per game. The Nigerian 6’10” center won the Naismith and NABC Defensive Player of the Year awards and earned a spot on the All-SEC second team.
As ESPN’s Jeff Borzello wrote last week, Chinyelu performed well at the draft combine in Chicago, racking up 14 points and 15 rebounds in his second scrimmage on Thursday and registering impressive wingspan measurements. However, he still wasn’t viewed as a probable first-round pick, coming in at No. 50 on ESPN’s big board at No. 48 in Jeremy Woo’s most recent mock draft.
Chinyelu is the latest notable prospect to announce that he’ll be returning to the Gators for the 2026/27 season, joining frontcourt teammates Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon. Florida will likely enter the fall as the top-ranked team in the nation, Borzello notes (via Twitter).
NCAA early entrants who are testing the draft waters have until the end of the day on May 27 (next Wednesday) to withdraw their names if they want to retain their college eligibility. The NBA’s own withdrawal deadline, which is the key date for international prospects, is June 13. The full list of early entrants can be found right here.
Hoops Rumors Glossary: Qualifying Offer
Players eligible for restricted free agency don’t become restricted free agents by default. In order to make a player a restricted free agent, a team must extend a qualifying offer to him — a player who doesn’t receive one becomes an unrestricted free agent instead.
The qualifying offer, which is essentially just a one-year contract offer, varies in amount depending on a player’s service time and previous contract status.
If a player reaches free agency with three or fewer years of NBA service time under his belt, his qualifying offer is worth whichever of the following amounts is greater:
- 135% of his prior salary (or 125% of his prior salary, if he signed his contract before the 2023/24 league year).
- His minimum salary, plus $200K.
For instance, after earning $1,955,377 this season, Knicks big man Ariel Hukporti will be eligible for a qualifying offer this season if New York wants to make him a restricted free agent. What would that qualifying offer be worth?
Well, 135% of Hukporti’s prior salary would be $2,639,759. Hukporti projects to have a minimum salary worth $2,450,000 in 2026/27. Adding $200K to that figure gets us to $2,650,000. His qualifying offer would be worth the greater of those two amounts: $2,650,000.
Hukporti’s minimum-salary projection is based on an estimated $165MM cap. If the cap were to only increase to $163MM next season, his projected minimum salary would dip to $2,420,018. Adding $200K to that figure would work out to $2,620,018, so in that scenario, 135% of his prior salary would be the larger amount of the two and would be his qualifying offer.
Conversely, Hukporti’s teammate Mohamed Diawara earned just $1,272,870 last season and his minimum salary for 2026/27 is projected at $2,185,633. Adding $200K to that projected minimum gets us $2,385,633, whereas 135% of his previous salary is just $1,718,375. While the exact amount of Diawara’s qualifying offer will depend on precisely where the salary cap lands, we know it’ll be based on his minimum salary plus $200K, since there’s zero chance that figure will come in lower than 135% of his prior salary.
It’s not a certainty yet that the cap will increase to $165MM, so Hukporti’s and Diawara’s qualifying offer projections are tentative for now.
The qualifying offer for a former first-round pick coming off his rookie scale contract is determined by his draft position. Under the previous CBA, the qualifying offer for a first overall pick was 130% of his fourth-year salary, while for a 30th overall pick it was 150% of his previous salary — QOs for the rest of the first-rounders fall somewhere in between. Those numbers will increase to 140% and 160%, respectively, under the new CBA, beginning when the 2023 draft class reaches restricted free agency in 2027.
The full first-round scale for the draft class of 2022, whose first-rounders will be hitting free agency this summer, can be found here, courtesy of RealGM.
A wrinkle in the Collective Bargaining Agreement complicates matters for some RFAs-to-be, since a player’s previous usage can impact the amount of his qualifying offer. Certain players who meet – or fail to meet – the “starter criteria,” which we break down in a separate glossary entry, become eligible for higher or lower qualifying offers. Here’s how the starter criteria affects QOs:
- A top-14 pick who does not meet the starter criteria will receive a same qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the 15th overall pick.
- Note: In 2026, the value of this QO will be $8,774,590.
- A player picked between 10th and 30th who meets the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the ninth overall pick.
- Note: In 2026, the value of this QO will be $9,615,393.
- A second-round pick or undrafted player who meets the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 100% of the amount applicable to the 21st overall pick.
- Note: In 2026, the value of this QO will be $5,910,257.
Clippers guard Bennedict Mathurin is one example of a player who falls into the first group, since he didn’t meet the starter criteria this year. The No. 6 overall pick in 2021, Mathurin will be eligible this offseason for a QO worth $8,774,590 instead of $12,256,222, the amount for his draft slot.
Conversely, Suns center Mark Williams (a former No. 15 overall pick) met the starter criteria and will now be eligible for a QO worth $9,615,393 instead of $8,774,590.
A qualifying offer is designed to give a player’s team the right of first refusal. Because the qualifying offer acts as the first formal contract offer a free agent receives, his team then has the option to match any offer sheet the player signs with another club.
A player can also accept his qualifying offer, if he so chooses. He then plays the following season on a one-year contract worth the amount of the QO, and becomes an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, assuming he has at least four years of NBA experience. A player can go this route if he wants to hit unrestricted free agency as early as possible, or if he feels like the QO is the best offer he’ll receive. Accepting the qualifying offer also gives a player the right to veto trades for the season.
Here are a few more details related to qualifying offers:
- A team that issues a qualifying offer can unilaterally withdraw that offer anytime up until July 13.
- A player who receives a qualifying offer has a deadline of October 1 to accept it. He and the team can agree to extend that deadline, but if the deadline passes with no resolution, the player remains a restricted free agent without having the QO as a fallback option.
- A different set of rules applies to players coming off two-way contracts. For most of those players, the qualifying offer would be equivalent to a one-year, two-way salary, with a small portion (known as the “maximum two-way protection amount”) guaranteed. For 2026/27, that partial guarantee projects to be worth $91,000.
- A player who is coming off a two-year, two-way deal; has already been on two-way deals with his current team for at least two seasons; has spent parts of three seasons with his current team on two-way deals; or has accumulated four years of NBA service would be eligible for a qualifying offer equivalent to a standard, minimum-salary NBA contract, with a small portion (known as the “two-way QO protection amount”) guaranteed. For 2026/27, that partial guarantee projects to be worth $109,200.
Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.
Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years.
Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript: 5/21/2026
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Magic or Mavericks offer a better coaching opportunity, the Pistons' offseason roster needs, the Cavaliers' commitment to James Harden, potential pre-draft trades involving Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard and more!
