Being both the coach and president of basketball operations for the Wolves put Flip Saunders in a unique situation regarding Ricky Rubio‘s extension, writes Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press. “Dealing with the GM, it’s always tough,” Rubio said. “But if you only see him in the office, that’s good. But then you have to see him in the practice, it’s a little tougher. But I think Flip handled the thing very well. He was not different, but when we’re out on the court, we were only talking about basketball. We didn’t talk about business in the practice facility. That helped me to feel comfortable.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Kings‘ D-League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns, who selected Brady Heslip with their first round pick, were deemed the biggest winner of the D-League draft by Keith Schlosser of SB Nation. Schlosser also notes that Marquis Teague will learn more discipline running the floor by playing for the Thunder-affiliated Oklahoma City Blue.
- Will Cherry‘s two year, minimum salary deal with the Cavaliers is partially guaranteed, notes Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. The exact amount of the guarantee is not yet known.
- Though he signed a three-year, $15MM deal with the Kings this offseason, Darren Collison‘s original goal was to return to the Clippers, and the player said that being a starter wasn’t a priority in his decision, Jovan Buha of Fox Sports reports (Twitter links). Collison also said that Sacramento was the first team that contacted him, but that he felt that the club’s priorities were finding a big man and help on the wing, Buha notes.
- Collison did admit that there was some miscommunication between him and team president Doc Rivers regarding his level of interest in re-signing with the Clippers, Buha tweets. For his part, Rivers said, “I wanted to keep him [Collison]. I thought he would have been perfect for here forever. But I know math a little bit,” tweets Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times.
- Willie Reed, who was recently waived by the Nets, has signed a guaranteed contract for the remainder of the season with Hapoel Eilat of the Israeli league, David Pick of Basketball Insiders reports. The 6’10” Reed averaged 4.0 rebounds in 16.6 minutes in two preseason games for Brooklyn.
Chris Crouse contributed to this post.