Northwest Notes: S. Jones, Jay. Williams, Anderson, Henderson
The Nuggets would have liked to sign two-way standout Spencer Jones to a team-friendly multiyear deal when they promoted him to the standard roster from his two-way contract earlier this month, writes Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (subscription required).
However, Denver’s ability to make it worth Jones’ while was limited due to the team’s proximity to the tax line, and the second-year forward decided to bet on himself by not settling for a below-market offer. The Nuggets ended up doing a straight conversion of the 24-year-old two-way deal, which means he’ll earn the veteran’s minimum for the rest of the season but will be eligible for restricted free agency this summer.
“It was preferred (this way). I kind of wanted the optionality,” Jones said, per Durando. “And I love Denver. But I just wanted to keep the optionality open. I was happy they were able to let me do that. I’m really happy with the decision. Like I said, I love it here. Definitely want to stay here.”
While Jones’ rest-of-season minimum salary is modest by NBA standards ($623,967), it’s about the same amount he would’ve received if he had spent the entire season on his two-way contract ($636,435). And now he’ll no longer be restricted by a 50-game regular season limit and playoff ineligibility.
“It’s great to not have that little asterisk with the two-way anymore,” he said. “To fully feel like you’re part of the team. Obviously, everybody had embraced me (before), but it’s nice to get that contractually.”
Here are a few more notes from around the Northwest:
- With six regulars, including big men Chet Holmgren (low back spasms) and Isaiah Hartenstein (right soleus injury management) inactive on Wednesday, the Thunder still made the East-leading Pistons work hard to earn an eight-point win. As Rylan Stiles of SI.com notes, that was in large part due to the efforts of fill-in center Jaylin Williams, who had a career night with 30 points and 11 rebounds in the loss. Head coach Mark Daigneault described Williams’ performance as “unreal” and praised a few other role players, including Kenrich Williams and Brooks Barnhizer, adding, “It’s a game we can feel really good about despite the loss.”
- Timberwolves players are “elated” that Kyle Anderson will be rejoining the team after he clears waivers, according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic, who tweets that Anthony Edwards was FaceTiming with his former teammate on the way to the arena on Thursday. Anderson, who agreed to a buyout with Memphis and was placed on waivers, was a Timberwolf for two seasons from 2022-24.
- With leading scorer Deni Avdija in and out of the lineup due to a back issue and Shaedon Sharpe possibly done for the season, the Trail Blazers will be relying heavily on Scoot Henderson during the home stretch as they try to secure a playoff berth, writes Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report (Substack link). Henderson has shown little rust since returning from a hamstring tear on February 6, Highkin notes, scoring double-digit points in each of his first eight games back. The former No. 3 overall pick could set himself up well in rookie scale extension talks this offseason with a strong finish to the season.
Nuggets Among Teams Interested In Mavs’ Khris Middleton
Veteran small forward Khris Middleton tells Marc Stein of The Stein Line he’s still evaluating his options ahead of Sunday’s deadline to be waived by one team and remain eligible to appear in the postseason for another club (Twitter links).
According to Stein, Middleton’s is considering whether he wants to stay with the Mavericks for the rest of the season or reach a buyout agreement with Dallas in order to sign with a playoff team. The Nuggets are among the teams with interest in the 34-year-old, league sources tell Stein.
Middleton stressed to Stein that he’s “grateful for the warm welcome he’s received in Dallas.” As Stein reported on Tuesday, the Mavs have essentially left the buyout decision up to Middleton and his camp and would happily retain him for the remainder of the season if he opts to go that route.
Bennett Durando of The Denver Post confirms (via Twitter) that the Nuggets are intrigued by Middleton, adding that Denver also showed interest in Kyle Anderson, who will sign with the Timberwolves after a buyout with Memphis. The Nuggets are searching for size on the wing and ball-handling, Durando reports.
Middleton, who has dealt with injuries in recent years, is no longer the same player who earned All-Star berths three times in four years from 2019-22, but he has performed pretty well since he arrived in Dallas in the Anthony Davis trade. In 39 total games this season, Middleton has averaged 10.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 24.2 minutes per contest, with a shooting line of .441/.336/.851.
In the event of a buyout, Middleton would be ineligible to sign with Cleveland, Golden State, or New York, since clubs operating over either tax apron aren’t permitted to sign a player waived during the season who had been earning more than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($14.1MM). Middleton’s $33.3MM expiring salary far exceeds that figure.
It’s also worth noting that Middleton would forfeit his Bird rights if he agrees to a buyout. While he’ll certainly have to take a pay cut this summer either way, retaining those Bird rights would likely put him in a better position to avoid settling for the veteran’s minimum or something close to it.
Former Nuggets GM Calvin Booth Discusses Denver Exit
Appearing on The Kevin O’Connor Show with Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports, former Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth spoke at length about his time as the head of Denver’s basketball operations department and the factors that led to him and former Nuggets head coach Michael Malone being let go on the same day last April, with just three games left in the regular season.
While friction between Booth and Malone was the the reason most frequently cited as the reason why Denver made such a significant change with the 2025 postseason around the corner, Booth downplayed that conflict to some extent, suggesting it wasn’t unique to the Nuggets and was just one of several factors why he lost his job.
In Booth’s view, another one of those factors that led to his exit is that the Nuggets’ ownership group doesn’t value its front office executives as highly as other teams do.
“Whether it’s Mark Warkentien or Tim (Connelly) or Masai (Ujiri), there’s always gonna come a point where they don’t value executives like that,” he told O’Connor. “I’ll probably disagree with their take on executives, but who am I? They’ve been so successful, so maybe it’s the right way to operate.”
Booth also suggested that he might have made the general manager job “look too easy,” as O’Connor relays.
“Anybody that’s really good at something, when they make it look easy, that was really, really hard to get to,” Booth explained. “(It took) a lifetime’s worth of playing basketball, coaching basketball, having conversations, scouting. For me to go in there right away, assemble a championship team, win a championship.”
While those remarks may open up Booth to criticism, it’s worth noting that his track record in the GM role was pretty strong. After Connelly built the core of the roster, Booth added several valuable complementary pieces in his first offseason on the job in 2022, trading for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, signing Bruce Brown, and drafting Christian Braun and Peyton Watson outside the top 20. The moves helped Denver win its first NBA championship in 2023.
The Nuggets lost several of their veteran role players in subsequent summers, with Brown and Jeff Green departing in free agency in 2023 and Caldwell-Pope doing the same in 2024. Denver’s front office took some flak for not doing more to re-sign those key contributors, but Booth argues that doing so would’ve impeded the progress of some of the team’s most promising prospects.
“The reality of the thing is if we sign Bruce Brown back, we sign KCP back, or if they leave and we sign veterans … do Christian Braun and Peyton Watson do what they’re doing right now?” Booth said. “Definitely not.”
Despite limited draft resources, Booth continued to bring in young players – including Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett, Hunter Tyson, Collin Gillespie, DaRon Holmes, and Spencer Jones – and his desire to develop those youngsters clashed with Malone’s preference to lean on win-now veterans, which was a primary source of the tension between the two men.
Still, Nuggets ownership’s aversion to operating deep in the tax meant that Booth had to try to find cheap talent to fill out the roster, and while not every one of his draft picks and UDFA signings was a success, many of those players have since developed into solid NBA rotation pieces in Denver or elsewhere.
“In most situations when somebody’s running a team, I don’t think the expectation is to bat 1.000,” Booth said. “For some reason, I started to get the feeling that that was the expectation for me from whoever was in and around the Denver Nuggets community.”
Here are a few more of Booth’s most notable comments from his appearance on O’Connor’s podcast, which is worth checking out in full for Nuggets fans:
On why his “idealism” might’ve clashed with Malone’s “realism” due to the nature of their respective roles:
“I have to take accountability whatever way that narrative grew legs and my part in it, I’ve learned from that. There’s such a weird paradox with NBA coaches. They’re in the midst of the lion’s den. They’re dealing with players, some of the most formidable size-wise and ego-wise in the world, and they’re managing them. Those guys buy in. And then these coaches have to report to a general manager who maybe doesn’t have the gravitas they do. I just think it’s a human nature thing.”
On the job that Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace have done running the Nuggets’ front office since last spring:
“They’re great. A lot of (the roster moves they made) we talked about when I was there. We thought we were gonna get (Jonas) Valanciunas at the trade deadline. Obviously, they did their own unique things, but the one thing about the new CBA, there’s only so many trades that can be done. It’s kind of like paint-by-numbers, in that sense. So anybody sitting in that seat in Denver is going to have some kind of Michael Porter Jr. for Cam Johnson concept, because that’s just one of the better deals that was out there.”
On whether he’d like another chance to be an NBA general manager:
“Nobody’s entitled or owed an opportunity to run an NBA team. There’s 30 jobs. All those guys in their own way deserve to be in that seat. I’d be foolish to say that for the right scenario I wouldn’t be willing to work for somebody.
“My door wasn’t knocking down with people waiting to hire me. That’s where this whole thing got blown out of proportion. If you look tangibly at what I did — my win percentage, what I drafted, working with a coach like Coach Malone as a first-time GM — I just don’t know how my door isn’t knocking. … You could put 100 GMs in my position. I don’t know what, three or four of them do as good as I did.”
On whether he thinks Malone wants to find another NBA head coaching job:
“He doesn’t mind commentating games. But he would probably die to coach an NBA team tomorrow. And he deserves it. He’s a championship coach.”
Northwest Notes: Bailey, Jazz, Nuggets, Cissoko
Ace Bailey knows that not everyone is a fan of his game or his approach to the 2025 draft. However, coaches and players who know him sing a different tune, Kevin Reynolds writes for the Salt Lake City Tribune.
“If anybody calls about Ace Bailey, I f—ing call back right away,” said Steve Pikiell, Bailey’s coach at Rutgers. “I’ve been coaching 42 years, and he’s as good of a kid I’ve had.”
Pikiell adds that he believed that certain teams that had been heavily scouting Bailey and then fell in the lottery might have helped contribute to some of the negative narratives surrounding him on draft night. According to Reynolds, Bailey has rewarded Utah’s faith in him on an interpersonal level.
“He’s such a great kid, man. Off the court, he’s such a joy. On the court, he’s putting it together,” former teammate Kyle Anderson said. “I didn’t pay attention to the noise during the draft process, but I’m glad to see that really hasn’t surfaced.”
While Bailey has learned to fit into Utah’s locker room, the coaching staff has worked to make sure he plays a role that will benefit him the most long-term.
“We want to help him get through this season and be a way better player than when he started,” coach Will Hardy said. “I’m not pro Ace just bombing away to get stats and clicks.”
The strategy seems to be working, as Bailey has played some of his best basketball of late, averaging 15.0 points and 5.4 rebounds per game since mid-January.
We have more from around the Northwest Division:
- The Jazz were furious about being fined $500K by the NBA, Tony Jones reports for The Athletic, as they believe they were singled out for a widespread practice among tanking teams of resting players in key situations. Jones writes that while Utah has tanked in recent seasons, they had plans to make at least one substantial win-now trade roughly three years ago, but it fell through when the player’s agent informed them that he would rather play elsewhere.
- The Nuggets currently have a disconcerting trend going: they are falling apart in clutch situations, and it only seems to have gotten worse with Nikola Jokic back, Bennett Durando writes for the Denver Post. Denver is 26th in clutch net rating at -9.9, and the number falls to -19.3 when Jokic is playing. Coach David Adelman acknowledged the issue and said he’s looking to add wrinkles to get Jokic and Jamal Murray easier looks while Aaron Gordon is out and not occupying his usual area in the dunker spot. “We’re trying to maintain who we are, playing the two-man game without the things that matter behind it,” Adelman said. “Like, if we play a two-man game with Aaron Gordon, it’s a very different rotation (in help defense) for teams. So you don’t want to scrap something that you know you’re gonna do (in the playoffs), and you’re presupposing that those guys are gonna be out there. … We have to figure out a way to finish games when teams are full-rotating to (Jokic and Murray). Sometimes three guys, sometimes four.” Durando notes that the sample of clutch games with Jokic playing is small, but it can still impact the playoff race.
- The two-year standard contract that Sidy Cissoko recently signed with the Trail Blazers is a minimum-salary deal that’s non-guaranteed in 2026/27, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype notes (via Twitter). In order to promote Cissoko, the Blazers had to waive Rayan Rupert, his best friend on the team, making the move bittersweet, writes Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report (subscriber link). “For me, it’s tough because he’s the guy that helped me with everything when I got here. I’ve got a lot of experience with him,” Cissoko said. “We’ve played together since we were 16 or 17.” Cissoko added that the promotion to the standard roster represents a step toward his goal of playing in the NBA for over a decade. “I’ve done great by being myself,” he said. “I’m not going to change because of my contract. It’s the same Sidy. I’m going to play the same way.”
Nuggets Notes: Gordon, Watson, Johnson, Simpson
The Nuggets have had to deal with a barrage of injuries impacting starters and rotation players this season, but head coach David Adelman is optimistic it won’t be much longer until the roster is healthy again. Adelman told reporters today that he’s hoping the team will be fully healthy with about 20 games to go in the season, as Ryan Blackburn of Mile High Sports tweets.
The Nuggets will be playing their 62nd game of the season on Monday in Utah, so if we take Adelman literally, he’s suggesting that players like Aaron Gordon (hamstring) and Peyton Watson (hamstring) might be able to return in a week or so. For what it’s worth, Blackburn says he’s heard it could be more like two or three weeks before Gordon and Watson are back.
Adelman provided a positive update on Gordon’s progress today, indicating that the veteran forward did “basically everything but the contact stuff” in Tuesday’s practice, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (Twitter link).
“He got up and down (the court). We did some situational defensive drills. He was a part of that,” Adelman said. “But it’s just gonna be a day-by-day thing. … Aaron’s been great. He’s understood the process.”
Gordon, who last played on January 23, was ruled out for at least four-to-six weeks due to a right hamstring strain, while Watson has been out since February 4 with a left hamstring strain and is expected to be reevaluated in early March.
We have more on the Nuggets:
- The odds are high that Denver will have to part ways with a key player this offseason, Durando writes in a mailbag for The Denver Post (subscription required). As Durando explains, the Nuggets have essentially treated the second tax apron like a hard cap in recent years, but re-signing restricted free agent Watson – who has had a breakout 2025/26 season – would require them to either surpass that threshold or move off another one of their highest-paid players. According to Durando, sources he has spoken to view Cameron Johnson as the most likely trade candidate if the team makes a move to create more financial flexibility to re-sign Watson.
- The Nuggets still have an open spot on their 15-man roster, and Durando thinks the team will most likely use that opening to add more size on the wing. However, he cautions that the front office is expected to wait to see who else shakes free on the buyout market in the coming days before making any decisions on that 15th roster spot.
- The two-way contract that guard KJ Simpson signed with the Nuggets last week covers two years, tweets Keith Smith of Spotrac. Denver will have the ability to hang onto Simpson through the 2026/27 season on that deal.
And-Ones: MVP Race, No. 1 Pick, Peterson, P. Gasol
Reigning Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains the favorite to claim the award again in 2025/26, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, who recently conducted his second MVP straw poll. The Thunder guard was the only player to appear on all 100 ballots and accumulated 930 points.
Injuries to top players have significantly impacted the MVP race this season, Bontemps writes, as multiple contenders for the award may not qualify due to the 65-game rule. Despite being sidelined with an abdominal strain, Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t in imminent danger of not meeting that threshold — he’ll likely have 10 total missed games when he’s reevaluated later this week.
Nuggets center Nikola Jokic remains in second place (700 points), but the gap between the two players has grown since Bontemps’ initial poll in December. That’s largely because the three-time MVP missed 15 games because of a knee injury and can’t have more than two additional absences without becoming ineligible for major postseason awards.
Pistons guard Cade Cunningham (382 points) and Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama (242 points) were the only other players to receive first-place votes. Lakers guard Luka Doncic (177 points) rounds out the top five of Bontemps’ poll.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- How much would the No. 1 overall pick in the loaded 2026 NBA draft be worth if it were available in an auction? Brian Windhorst of ESPN briefly discussed that topic on the Hoop Collective podcast (hat tip to RealGM). “I was talking to a league executive today and he said to me, this is after Darryn Peterson had 23 points in 18 minutes and after we’ve seen some other top guys have big time games over the last four or five days,” Windhorst said. “… I had an executive tell me that the No. 1 pick this year is worth $100 million. If you gave the opportunity to buy that pick, teams would pay $100 million for it. Keep that in mind when the Jazz were fined $500,000.”
- Although Peterson’s sporadic for Kansas this season has undoubtedly been frustrating for him, the school, and its fans, his health issues are unlikely to have much of an effect on the 19-year-old guard’s standing as a top prospect in the 2026 draft class, per Brendan Marks and Justin Williams of The Athletic. “He’s elite, elite, elite,” one NBA scout told The Athletic. “When he’s fully healthy, the shot-making is on another level. … When it comes down to it, man, if you’ve seen this guy play in high school, and you saw those matchups, like, Darryn is the guy. For sure.”
- Hall of Famer Pau Gasol has been selected by Olympic athletes to represent them on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) board through the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles, according to The Associated Press.
Nuggets Notes: Simpson, Jokic, Murray, Gordon
KJ Simpson attended the championship parade in 2023 as the Nuggets celebrated their first NBA title, and now he’s on the roster with a chance to help them win another one, writes Bennett Durando of The Denver Post. Simpson was playing at the University of Colorado at the time and had a high school rivalry with Denver swingman Peyton Watson. As he watched Watson go by in the parade, Simpson was hoping to be able to have the same experience.
“That was the closest I had been to seeing or being there to experience a championship team, I guess,” Simpson said. “Seeing them just go by. The job is finished. That was mad inspiring to me. Like, man, I want to feel that one day.”
Simpson’s NBA career began last season when he was selected by Charlotte with the 42nd pick in the draft. He was waived on February 6 and signed a two-way deal with the Nuggets on Thursday. His debut came Friday at Portland, as he contributed three points and four assists in seven minutes.
“I’m just excited to play in front of that fan base,” Simpson said. “It’s bigger than just CU Boulder. Colorado in general. … I was there for three years. First place I lived other than home. So to me, that was considered like home. I loved my time there. I loved everything about it. The people. And we would go to Denver a lot just to go see games. … So I’ve always felt that connection to Colorado. It’s just crazy how full-circle it is.”
There’s more on the Nuggets:
- Nikola Jokic didn’t wear tape on his right wrist Friday night, but the pain is still affecting him, Durando states in a separate story. Jokic estimates he has been dealing with wrist discomfort for six years, and it started flaring up again before the All-Star break. He still provided 32 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, scoring 19 points in the first quarter as Denver pulled away early. “When I tape it, I don’t feel it, and I don’t feel the ball. So that didn’t work really well for me,” Jokic said. “It’s pretty much the same.”
- Jamal Murray was listed as questionable for Friday with right hamstring tightness, Durando adds, and after playing 25 minutes he may be held out of Sunday afternoon’s game at Golden State. “If he feels anything, he’s not gonna play,” coach David Adelman said on Friday. “We played a 7:30 (Pacific time) game last night. We play 7:00 tonight. We play 12:30 on Sunday. It makes absolutely no sense for me to put him in a torture chamber and then be surprised if he gets hurt.”
- Aaron Gordon is making progress toward returning from a strained right hamstring, Tim MacMahon said on the latest edition of The Hoop Collective podcast (hat tip to Jordanna Clark of NuggLove). MacMahon reports that the Nuggets sent a trainer to Orlando with Gordon during the All-Star break, and he was able to participate in portions of practices this week. Gordon has been dunking and playing one-on-one games, and the team hopes to slowly expand those to five-on-five. MacMahon adds that the Nuggets are being careful with the injury and projects it will be a couple more weeks before Gordon resumes playing.
Projected NBA Taxpayers For 2025/26
While seven NBA teams are still operating in luxury tax territory following the All-Star break, that total has been cut in half since the start of the month.
Prior to an eventful trade deadline week, a total of 14 teams projected to be taxpayers, per Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link) observes, with the 16 non-taxpayers on track to receive about $13.8MM apiece in tax distribution money at that point.
However, the Celtics, Nuggets, Suns, Mavericks, Sixers, Magic, and Raptors all ducked below the tax line with their pre-deadline transactions, while a few other teams remained in the tax but took steps to significantly reduce their end-of-season bills.
Cleveland, for instance, had been projected to pay nearly $164MM in tax penalties, according to Marks. The Cavaliers will likely still have the NBA’s highest tax bill, but their deadline deals reduced their projected payment by more than $95MM, according to Eric Pincus of Sports Business Classroom.
Here are the current projected tax penalties, per Pincus’ data:
- Cleveland Cavaliers: $68.67MM
- Golden State Warriors: $65.67MM *
- New York Knicks: $44.44MM
- Los Angeles Lakers: $22.65MM *
- Houston Rockets: $7.07MM
- Los Angeles Clippers: $6.67MM *
- Minnesota Timberwolves: $5.48MM
Total: $220.65MM
Note: Teams marked with an asterisk are paying repeater tax rates.
These numbers may fluctuate a little before the end of the season. For instance, the Clippers recently increased their projected bill when they promoted Jordan Miller to their standard roster, while the Knicks did the same when they signed Jeremy Sochan. The Warriors, Rockets, and Timberwolves all have open roster spots that they could fill before the end of the season, which would increase their respective tax bills. Various contract incentives that go earned or unearned could also impact the end-of-season tax totals.
Based on the current figures from Pincus, each non-taxpayer is projected to receive a payout of about $4.8MM. That figure is determined by cutting the total league-wide tax penalties in half, then dividing them evenly among the non-taxpaying teams (in this case, 23 clubs).
While it’s no real surprise that that figure is far below the $13.8MM projection from a few weeks ago, it’s worth noting that it’s significantly less than what non-taxpayers received last year. In 2024/25, 10 taxpayers paid a total of $461.21MM in penalties and the 20 non-taxpayers received $11.53MM apiece, according to Pincus.
Assuming these are the seven teams that finish the season in tax territory, the Warriors, Lakers, and Clippers would all be subject to repeater penalties in 2026/27 if they’re taxpayers again next season. Additionally, the Bucks, Celtics, Suns, and Nuggets would pay repeater rates if they’re in the tax in ’26/27, since all four clubs were in the tax for three straight years from 2023-25. They’ll each need to spend one more season as a non-taxpayer in order to reset the repeater clock.
KJ Simpson Joins Nuggets On Two-Way Deal
February 19: Simpson’s two-way deal is official, the Nuggets announced (via Twitter).
February 18: KJ Simpson will sign a two-way contract with the Nuggets, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).
The 23-year-old point guard was selected by Charlotte with the 42nd pick in the 2024 draft and inked a two-year, two-way deal. He remained on the roster until he was waived earlier this month to open up a spot for the Hornets to sign Tosan Evbuomwan.
Simpson appeared in 50 games and made 17 starts during his time in Charlotte. He averaged 7.3 points, 2.9 assists and 2.8 rebounds in 21.3 minutes per night with .346/.266/.773 shooting numbers. He hasn’t appeared in a game since December 18.
Denver will have a two-way opening after promoting Spencer Jones to a standard contract.
If Simpson’s new deal becomes official today, he will be eligible to appear in up to 16 regular season games. That number goes down to 15 if he doesn’t sign until Thursday.
Contract Details: Gardner, Highsmith, Houstan, Jones, Two-Ways
Heat swingman Myron Gardner will receive a minimum salary ($395,029) for the rest of the 2025/26 season after being promoted from his two-way contract. However, Miami had to use a portion of its non-taxpayer mid-level exception in order to complete his deal, since it includes two additional years beyond this season.
Gardner’s second year features a partial guarantee of $500K, and he’ll receive his full minimum salary of $2,150,917 for 2026/27 if he remains under contract through January 7 next year, Hoops Rumors has learned. The third year of the deal is fully non-guaranteed, but the Miami wing would receive his full $2,525,901 salary if he isn’t waived on or before July 15, 2027.
Here are a few more details on the contracts recently completed around the NBA:
- Haywood Highsmith‘s two-year, minimum-salary contract with the Suns includes a $1MM partial guarantee for 2026/27, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). It also features language protecting the team in the event that the veteran wing re-injures his surgically repaired right knee, Hoops Rumors has learned.
- As expected, both Caleb Houstan of the Hawks and Spencer Jones of the Nuggets were unilaterally converted from their two-way contracts to rest-of-season, minimum-salary contracts rather than negotiating new deals. Houstan will be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, while Jones will be eligible for restricted free agency.
- The two-way contracts recently signed by Tyrese Martin (Sixers), Trevor Keels (Heat), and Jeenathan Williams (Warriors) are each for one year, while Riley Minix‘s new two-way deal with the Cavaliers will cover two seasons, Hoops Rumors has learned.