Northwest Notes: Jazz, Maynor, Fisher
The latest news and notes from around the Northwest Division on Tuesday evening:
- Bill Oram of the Salt Lake Tribune examines the futures of Jazz big men Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap, both of whom were rumored to be dealt at the trade deadline and will be unrestricted free agents.
- John Rohde of the Oklahoman explains how the Thunder's trade of Eric Maynor to the Trail Blazers freed up the necessary money to sign Derek Fisher.
- Anthony Slater of the Oklahoman writes that several Mavericks players are suspicious of Fisher's motivations for signing with the Thunder after asking to be waived by Dallas earlier in the season.
Bucks Will Not Buy Out Dalembert
The Milwaukee Bucks will not buy out center Samuel Dalembert, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports (via Twitter). Milwaukee tried to move the veteran center before last week's trade deadline with no success, leading to some speculation that they would buy him out to clear minutes for young big men John Henson, Larry Sanders, and Ekpe Udoh.
Dalembert, 31, is averaging 7.0 PPG and 5.8 RPG in the final year of a two-year contract he signed before the 2011/12 season. He will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Brandon Jennings Interested In Joining Mavs
Over the weekend, the New York Daily News reported mutual interest between Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Jennings and the Dallas Mavericks. Now, Jennings has acknowledged his admiration for the Mavs' roster and owner Mark Cuban, and his willingness to play in Dallas, in an interview with Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News:
“Yeah, of course,” Jennings said when asked if he could see himself fitting in Dallas. “You’ve got Dirk Nowitzki, you’ve got O.J. Mayo, Elton Brand, Chris Kaman.
“Who wouldn’t want to play in an environment like this every night? You’ve got an owner who’s so into his team and everything like that. Every time you see the Mavs, you see [Cuban] cheering or going crazy. They won a championship. They’re about winning.”
Jennings is set to become a restricted free agent this summer, meaning the Bucks will have the ability to match any offer the fourth-year guard signs. He is averaging 18.9 PPG, 3.3 RPG, and 6.1 APG this season.
Teams Just Below The Tax Line
Earlier today, I looked at the six NBA teams projected to be taxpayers at the end of this season. However, just because those are the teams currently in the tax doesn't mean that they're a 100% lock to be the league's only taxpayers this year.
In all likelihood, no club currently below the tax threshold ($70,307,000) will make a signing that takes its team salary into tax territory. The cost would simply outweigh the benefit. But there are a handful of teams whose current cap figure is close enough to the cutoff that they're worth keeping an eye on for the remainder of the season.
If, for instance, a team near the tax line suffered a number of injuries and needed to release a couple of guaranteed salaries and replace those players with free agents, suddenly that team's cap hit would be dangerously close to the tax.
With about 70% of the season in the books, minimum-salary contracts would only be worth a pro-rated amount of the usual amount, so a rest-of-season minimum deal signed today would only represent a cap hit of about $250K. Still, even if they're faced with injury or depth issues, the following teams may be reluctant to make too many moves the rest of the way, for fear of approaching that tax threshold:
- San Antonio Spurs: $69,750,910
- Golden State Warriors: $69,631,506
- Los Angeles Clippers: $69,354,409
- Detroit Pistons: $69,050,344
Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.
Odds & Ends: China, Bynum, Fisher, NBPA, Draft
In a piece for SheridanHoops.com, Jon Pastuszek of NiuBBall.com previews the Chinese Basketball Association playoffs and recaps the standings for the season. Pastuszek also makes note of the American players who had been playing in China, some of whom could be candidates to return stateside and catch on with an NBA team. So far, Terrence Williams has signed a 10-day contract with the Celtics after his stint with the Guangdong Southern Tigers, while D.J. White is set to sign with the C's as well.
Here are a few more Tuesday afternoon odds and ends:
- The Sixers know what Andrew Bynum is capable of when he's healthy, which is why John Mitchell of the Philadelphia Inquirer argues that the club should shut down the big man for the rest of this season.
- In his latest mailbag, Ian Thomsen of SI.com cites one rival executive who expects the Sixers to re-sign Bynum this summer, negotiating language into his contract that gives the team some level of protection in case his knee issues continue. "If they don't sign him, then we'd all better run the other direction," said the exec. "Because they'll know his situation better than everybody."
- While the Mavericks' front office was reportedly "agitated" to see Derek Fisher sign with the Thunder, Mavs players didn't seem too shocked by the move, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com details. "It wasn't a big surprise," one Mavs veteran said. "We expected him to end up with the Lakers or OKC."
- Fisher told Oklahoma City reporters today that he's not necessarily planning to retire at season's end, according to Royce Young of Daily Thunder (via Twitter).
- Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld runs through all 30 NBA head coaches in an attempt to determine which ones are safe and which ones might be on the hot seat.
- The NBPA moved quickly to remove Billy Hunter from his exectutive director position, but finding a replacement figures to be a longer process, tweets Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal.
- 21 NBA scouts and one general manager, the Thunder's Sam Presti, were in France today to watch Rudy Gobert match up against Mouhammadou Jaiteh, according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com (Twitter link). Gobert ranks 12th on Givony's list of top 100 prospects, while Jaiteh is 32nd.
Celtics Discussed Several “Significant” Shakeups
The Celtics didn't end up participating in many trades at last week's deadline, completing one minor move, sending Leandro Barbosa and Jason Collins to Washington in exchange for Jordan Crawford. Despite the team's apparent inactivity though, owner Wyc Grousbeck told WEEI today that the team was very active in trade discussions leading up to the deadline (link via Gary Dzen of the Boston Globe).
According to Grousbeck, the Celtics discussed several deals that would have been "significant" shakeups for the club, including one four-way trade that ultimately fell through because two other teams backed out.
"Most of the other guys in this league are not as confident as we are in making trades," Grousbeck said. "We are aggressive in exploring things through. I'm not saying we're always right. But we are more likely to make a trade and stick to it than anybody else in the league. The rest of them are afraid to do anything. They'll say they'll do it and then they won't…. It takes two teams to trade, and it's very incorrect to accuse us of not looking for things."
Had one of those "significant shakeups" occurred, it likely would have involved Kevin Garnett and/or Paul Pierce heading to another team. According to Grousbeck, those two veterans were the players that drew the most interest in trade discussions. Earlier today, we heard from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that a deal sending Garnett to Los Angeles for Eric Bledsoe and DeAndre Jordan was "closer to happening than people think." KG would have had to waive his no-trade clause to approve any move.
Western Notes: Rockets, Clippers, Garnett, Mavs
Here's the latest from around the Western Conference, where the Lakers are three games back of the Rockets for the eighth seed and three and a half back of the seventh-place Jazz:
- Although his plan was being openly questioned in NBA circles eight months ago, GM Daryl Morey continues to build the Rockets into a team with strong long-term potential, observes Grantland's Zach Lowe. Within his piece, Lowe writes that Morey and assistant coach Kelvin Sampson were both fixated on acquiring James Harden, and that the team would like to add a defense-first wing to the roster.
- The Clippers were "closer than people think" to acquiring Kevin Garnett for Eric Bledsoe and DeAndre Jordan last week, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
- Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News questions whether the Mavericks ought to try to build a team around Dwight Howard, even if the All-Star center is willing to sign in Dallas this summer.
- Although Dirk Nowitzki indicated recently that he hopes to play for a few more years, his focus for now is more on the short term, as he tells Jeff Caplan of NBA.com. "[Mark Cuban]’s obviously said his bank’s open, so we’ll see what happens this summer," Nowitzki said. "It’s going to be a big summer for us. We want to get back to winning ways. We always competed and were part of the playoffs, so we’ll see what happens this summer. It’s going to be a big summer for this franchise."
- The Thunder decided to bring back Derek Fisher for the stretch run because they know exactly what they're getting in the veteran point guard, writes Susan Bible of HoopsWorld.
Celtics Notes: White, Williams, Melo
The Celtics completed their five-game western road trip last night with a big win in Utah, finally finishing off the Jazz in overtime with the help of a great performance from Paul Pierce. The C's head back home now, and will get a few days off before hosting the Warriors in Boston on Friday. In the meantime, here's the latest on potential roster moves for the team, courtesy of Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald:
- D.J. White continues to wait on his letter of clearance from China before he can officially sign with the Celtics. GM Danny Ainge expects the paperwork to be complete very soon, but we'll see if the team waits until later in the week to formally add White — Ainge himself notes that 10-day contracts are often stragetically timed to maximize a player's time with the club.
- Ainge wouldn't says whether the Celtics plan to sign Terrence Williams to a second 10-day conract when his current deal expires after Friday's game.
- Ainge on roster additions and the possibility of committing to Williams or anyone else: "We’re still looking. Things change week by week and we’re still looking. We don’t really have to decide until the day before the playoffs start. There’s a lot of guys who can contribute, but there’s not enough of a difference between them to be able to say, 'He’s the guy.'"
- There's a decent chance Fab Melo will be re-assigned to the D-League's Maine Red Claws when the Celtics return home this week. "If he hasn’t fit into the rotation, we’ll get him some minutes in Portland," said Ainge. "He was playing great until his concussion, then he got a thigh bruise, and then he came on this trip. It’s been good for him to be on this trip. He’s putting in a lot of time. It’s just experience."
Following Specific Players On Hoops Rumors
As we've outlined before, there are a number of different ways to follow Hoops Rumors via Facebook, Twitter, and RSS. If you don't want to follow all the site's updates, you can follow team-specific or transaction-only Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds. Although we don't have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds for specific players, you can also easily follow all our updates on your favorite player.
If, for instance, you want to keep track of all the latest news and rumors on Josh Smith as his free agency approaches, you can visit this page. If you're interested in whether the Raptors may revisit trade talks involving Andrea Bargnani this summer, all Bargnani-related updates are located here.
Every player we've written about has his own rumors page. You can find your player of choice by using our search box (located in the right sidebar); by clicking his tag at the bottom of a post where he's discussed; or, by simply typing his name in your address bar after hoopsrumors.com, substituting dashes for spaces. For example, Smith's page is located at hoopsrumors.com/josh-smith.
In addition to players and teams, there are a number of other subjects you can track by clicking on the tags we use at the bottom of posts. Items related to the 2013 NBA draft, for instance, can be found on its rumors page. If you want to check out the latest updates on the sale of the Kings to Chris Hansen's Seattle investment group, those are all available here.
Teams Projected To Be In The Tax
On deadline day, the Warriors traded a pair of minimum-salary players, Jeremy Tyler and Charles Jenkins, for essentially nothing. Sixers GM Tony DiLeo confirmed that his team not only acquired Jenkins and put heavy protection on the second-round pick sent to the Warriors, but received an amount of cash from Golden State that more than covered the youngster's salary for the rest of the season. The specific details of the Hawks trade for Tyler aren't clear, but we can probably assume Golden State included a similar amount of cash there, and that Atlanta's second-rounder included similar protection.
For the Warriors, paying a little extra money now made more sense than paying the price later, as trading Jenkins and Tyler allowed the team to get below the tax threshold ($70,307,000) and avoid becoming a taxpayer. The moves will not only save the team from making a tax payment itself at year's end, but will allow the Warriors to receive a portion of the tax payments from the clubs above the threshold.
While the Warriors chose to avoid the tax, the Bulls resigned themselves to becoming a taxpayer for the first time rather than give up a future first-round pick to get below the line. A club like the Celtics also chose to remain marginally over the threshold, while others like the Heat, Nets, and Lakers remained significantly in the tax. Here are the clubs projected to be taxpayers this year, along with their current team salaries, which could rise if they make additional signings before season's end:
- Los Angeles Lakers: $100,166,250
- Miami Heat: $83,204,612
- Brooklyn Nets: $83,147,981
- New York Knicks: $80,165,743
- Chicago Bulls: $74,061,031
- Boston Celtics: $71,371,552
Of the six teams on this list, three of them – the Lakers, Heat, and Celtics – were also taxpayers last season, putting themselves in line for the repeater tax down the road. Teams that are in the tax for four of five seasons are subject to the repeater tax, so after being taxpayers for two consecutive years, the Lakers, Heat, and Celtics will have to stay out of the tax for two of the next three seasons to avoid paying the more punitive repeater penalty in 2016.
Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.