Pacific Notes: Lakers, Young, D’Antoni, Suns
Jeanie Buss updated her memoirs and over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times published an excerpt from the newest edition of "Laker Girl." In the book, Buss says that she was devastated when Mike D'Antoni was hired over beau Phil Jackson. Here's more on the Lakers and other news from the Pacific Division..
- With Kobe Bryant sidelined, the Lakers have the opportunity to unleash the ultimate gunner in Nick Young, writes Zach Harper of CBSSports.com. Gunners like Young can fill up a stat sheet with points but they don't do it in the most efficient fashion or get others involved in the offense. Even though Young isn't exactly Pistol Pete Maravich when it comes to dishing the ball, he doesn't turn the ball over often, which bodes well for the offseason addition.
- In an interview with Jamie Maggio of Time Warner Cable Sportsnet, D'Antoni said that he's looking forward to a "normal" season on the bench with the Lakers after the difficulties of last year. The coach also touched on offseason additions Chris Kaman, Wesley Johnson, and Shawne Williams.
- Matt Petersen of Suns.com profiled Suns offseason acquisition Viacheslav Kravtsov.
Central Notes: Pacers, Watson, Rose, Bulls
Here's a quick look at the Central Division..
- The HoopsWorld staff previewed the season ahead for the Pacers. In the estimation of Joel Brigham, Indiana's best offseason addition was guard C.J. Watson. Even though George Hill has done better at point guard than most expected, it will benefit them to have a more traditional one-guard, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
- Former MVP Derrick Rose is ready to lead the Bulls once again, the Associated Press writes. The guard will step on to the court after a lengthy absence, but he says he has no doubts about being able to get back to top form. "I put so much into my craft," he said. "I'm working hard. I think I'm one of the hardest workers in the NBA, if not the hardest worker. I think you should see it in my game when I step on the court."
- Earlier today, Chuck Myron checked in on former Cavaliers guard Daniel Gibson in the latest installment of Free Agent Stock Watch.
Atlantic Notes: Kidd, Powell, Knicks, Humphries
Count three-time All-Star Mark Aguirre among those who believe Jason Kidd will do a tremendous job as head coach of the Nets, writes Dwain Price of the Star-Telegram. “I like it just from the situation and understand that as a player there’s things that you have to learn how to do to manage games,’’ said Aguirre. “There’s quite a few young guys that have an incredible understanding of the game, and J-Kidd is one of them. New blood. A new situation in the game. I like it. I really like it.’’ Here's more out of the Atlantic Division..
- Keith Schlosser of Knicks Journal isn't thrilled with the Knicks' decision to bring Josh Powell to training camp and suggests that DeSagana Diop would have made more sense. Diop, he argues, is a very physical player who can rebound the ball well and is probably an even better shot-blocker. Even though Powell is a serviceable big man, he doesn't bring as much to the table as Diop, in Schlosser's estimation.
- In an interview with Marc D'Amico of Celtics.com, Kris Humphries said that he figures to see some time at center on the small ball Celtics. Humphries came to Boston in the summer blockbuster that sent Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry to Brooklyn.
- Knicks rookie C.J. Leslie could see plenty of time in the D-League in 2013/14, writes Schlosser for Ridiculous Upside.
Hoops Links: Blazers, Cavs, Bayless, Sixers
Twenty-one years ago, USA Basketball announced the "Dream Team" for the 1992 Olympics. Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, and John Stockton were named to the greatest basketball team ever assembled. Christian Laettner and Clyde Drexler would be named to the team in May of the following year.
Got a fantastic basketball blog piece that you want featured on Hoops Rumors? Send your submissions to HoopsLinks@gmail.com. Here's this week's look around the web..
- True Sports Blog explains why the Trail Blazers will make the playoffs this season.
- Fear The Sword tries to figure out who the young Cavs can learn from.
- Grizzly Bear Blues profiles Jerryd Bayless.
- Hoop76 runs down the most polarizing 76ers of all-time.
- The Two Man Game discussed the Mavs fan experience with some input from Mark Cuban.
- Bourbon Street Shots gets weird in their breakdown of the Pelicans.
- Roundball Mining Co. is ranking the Nuggets from bottom to top.
- Daily Thunder says OKC needs Russell Westbrook.
- Queen City Hoops breaks down offseason addition Al Jefferson.
- Raptors HQ spoke with inRecruit co-founder Joseph Rocco.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Zach can be reached here.
Week In Review: 9/16/13 – 9/22/13
Indiana has until October 31st to reach an agreement on a new contract for Paul George, but it doesn't sound like Pacers fans will have to hold their breath from now until Halloween. "[A long-term contract] is going to get done," George said. "There will be a deal signed and sealed on the table before the season. We’re on the same page." Here's the rest of the week that was..
- More than ten weeks after drafting him, the Sixers finally signed rookie Nerlens Noel.
- Donte Greene was waived by the Celtics and quickly signed a deal in China.
- Rick Adelman confirmed that he'll return as Wolves coach this season.
- The Clippers may invite Gilbert Arenas to camp.
- The Wizards are bringing Josh Childress into training camp.
- Two former first-round picks are headed to China.
- Ricky Davis auditioned for the Knicks.
- The Lakers signed Marcus Landry and it sounds like he's got a pretty good chance of making the roster.
- Jared Jeffries decided to retire and join the Nuggets front office. His goal is to become the youngest ex-NBA player to become an NBA GM.
- The Knicks coaching staff wants Earl Barron. The front office? Not so much.
- The Knicks also worked out a bunch of notable names including Ike Diogu, DeSagana Diop, Cole Aldrich, and others.
- James Johnson signed a deal with the Hawks.
- James White is taking a flight to Italy.
- Troy Daniels will camp with the Bobcats along with former lottery pick Patrick O'Bryant.
- The T'Wolves might offer a deal to A.J. Price.
- The 76ers will sign Vander Blue.
- Royal Ivey will be in camp with the Hawks.
- The Heat have interest in Von Wafer and others.
- Olek Czyz turned down a deal overseas to go to camp with the Bucks.
- Andrew Bynum will be out for the preseason.
- The Pelicans expect to add more players before the start of camp.
- The Lakers signed second round choice Ryan Kelly.
- The Magic will bring Solomon Jones and four others to camp.
- Tony Gaffney is going to camp with the Grizzlies.
- Junior Cadougan will join the Bucks in camp.
- Jeff Pendergraph is now Jeff Ayres.
- The Knicks are bringing Josh Powell to camp.
- Damien Wilkins is returning to Atlanta on a training camp contract.
Hoops Rumors Originals
Here's a rundown of the original content produced by the Hoops Rumors staff this week..
- Luke Adams examined the 76ers and the salary cap.
- Chuck Myron gave us a rundown of the league's discarded trade acquisitions.
- Here's Hoops Rumors' up-to-date rundown of the 2015/16 free agent class.
- Chuck Myron found that Italy leads the world in deals for ex-NBA players.
- Most of you see Paul George signing a five-year max extension with the Pacers.
- The overwhelming majority of you also feel that George will be the first extension candidate to ink a new deal.
- Oh, and George is more deserving of an extension that John Wall, according to Friday's poll. If you all love Paul George so much, why don't you marry him?
- Lou Amundson is still seeking an NBA gig, but Chuck suggests that the best thing for him might be to find a deal with an NBA out clause or a deal in China, where the season ends early.
- Luke looked at the teams that have 15 or more guaranteed contracts.
- Daniel Gibson is still out there for a team to sign and Chuck wonders if the Hawks might be a landing spot for him.
- Using the Hoops Rumors Agency Database, Chuck listed the highest paid client of each agency.
- There's not much in the way of contract incentives for many players this season.
- The Nets, Knicks, and Bulls have the most $10MM salaries, according to Chuck.
- Here's how you can follow Hoops Rumors on Facebook, Twitter, and your RSS feed.
Free Agent Stock Watch: Daniel Gibson
The man affectionately known as "Boobie" seemed destined for a lengthy NBA career when he started a pair of NBA Finals games as a rookie for the Cavs in 2007. Daniel Gibson had enough staying power with the Cavs to remain with the team longer than nearly everyone else on that Finals roster, but the 27-year-old's NBA career stands at a crossroads now that he and Cleveland have finally parted ways. The Sixers are the only NBA team that's been reported to have interest in Gibson this month. The Rockets abandoned their pursuit from the summer, and while the Knicks, Pacers and Bucks were mentioned in connection with Gibson in July, they appear no closer to signing him more than two months later.
Gibson's role in the Cavs offense has declined precipitously the past two seasons, even though he didn't play too many fewer minutes per game last season than in 2010/11, when he poured in a career high 11.6 points per contest on nearly 10 shots a night. He averaged only 5.4 field goal attempts in 2012/13, eliminating his penetration game in favor of three-point shooting. He took only 29 shots all season from less than 10 feet away from the basket, according to Basketball-Reference. Alas, he shot just 34.4% from three-point range last season, the worst mark of a career in which he's made 40.7% of his treys. He wound up scoring fewer points per minutes played last season than in any of his seven NBA seasons.
Gibson has proven a valuable team defender for most of his time in the league, but last season, the Cavs gave up fewer points per 100 possessions with Gibson on the bench than they did with him in the lineup, per NBA.com. That's only been the case during one other season in his career, as Gibson generally remained attentive to the defensive end even after the Cavs replaced coach Mike Brown with the more offensively oriented Byron Scott.
Some teams may perceive last season's performance as a warning that Gibson's quickness is dissapating, even though he's still two and a half years shy of his 30th birthday. At 6'2", he's too short to guard many of the league's shooting guards, so he must display the ability to keep up with point guards. The Cavs have played him extensively at both guard positions, but he's never been the pass-first sort. Still, he showed he was capable of efficiently distributing the ball during the season after LeBron James left, averaging 3.0 assists and 1.2 turnovers per game, the only year in which he's approached a 3-to-1 ratio. If he demonstrates in workouts that he's capable of duplicating that level of efficiency, he'll significantly improve his chances of finding another NBA job.
I can't imagine there won't be another NBA team that gives him a shot, even if he isn't someone who can embrace the role of a passing point guard. Front offices probably give last season's defensive slippage more credence than his off year from behind the arc, since it would be odd for his touch to vanish long-term, even though his three-point percentage has declined in each of the last three seasons. Perhaps that has to do with where those three-point shots are coming from. In 2009/10, when he made a career-best 47.7% of his three-pointers, he clustered his attempts in the left corner. He began taking them from all around the arc under Scott, and last season he made significantly more from the right corner than he did from the left. Finding the right coach with the right system that can get Gibson to where he's most comfortable on the floor will be key.
Guys who can stick 40% of their threes are a commodity in the NBA, so Gibson and his representatives at ASM Sports shouldn't go without an offer this season. He might not receive a training camp invitation, but if he stays in shape and doesn't sign an overseas deal without an NBA out, he'll likely find himself back on an NBA roster at some point this year. He said in the spring that he'd be open to returning to the Cavs, and even though the team has no apparent interest, that doesn't rule out a reunion between Gibson and Brown, who coached him for four seasons. Hawks GM Danny Ferry, who drafted Gibson in the second round in 2006, is another who could give him a shot, though that's just my speculation.
Eastern Rumors: George, Pierce, Celtics
Paul George informed Michael Pointer of the Indianapolis Star this week that he's certain he'll sign an extension with the Pacers, and George's comments in Pointer's latest piece make the deal sound like a fait accompli.
"It’s almost like now that I have this contract, I’ve got to do more work," George said."I’ve got to go out and play at the level the guys that are making this much money are playing at."
Andrew Perna of RealGM.com cautions that there's no deal yet (on Twitter), so we'll have to wait awhile longer to see whether the player that an overwhelming majority of Hoops Rumors readers believe will be the next to sign a rookie-scale extension actually ends up signing one. Here's more from the Eastern Conference:
- Paul Pierce tells Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe that he doesn't think the Celtics will continue to have the trouble they've always had attracting free agents. "The city of Boston has changed so much since I’ve been here," Pierce said. "There are so many more things to do and the city has grown. I think it would be a great place to play."
- Pierce isn't upset with the Celtics for trading him, and he can envision himself working for the C's once his playing days are over, as he also says to Washburn.
- Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel discusses the false hope that cap space gives some teams and addresses Heat-related issues in his mailbag column, while Doug Smith of the Toronto Star gives the Raptors the mailbag treatment in his latest dispatch.
Discarded Trade Acquisitions
Knee injuries kept Andrew Bynum from ever playing a game for the Sixers after they traded for him in the Dwight Howard swap last August, and though that garners a lot of attention, it's not uncommon for players to fail to appear in a game for the team that acquired them. In fact, Bynum wasn't the only player in that trade not to play for his new team. Christian Eyenga went from the Lakers to the Magic, but Orlando wound up cutting Eyenga before the end of training camp last year.
Since then, 16 other players have either been waived, injured, bought out or traded again before checking into a game for the team that originally traded for them. Salary concerns are behind many of these instances, but in some cases, teams simply found they didn't have a use for one of the guys included as part of a larger package. In other cases, players agreed to give back part of their salaries to extract themselves from a team they didn't want to play for.
This accounting doesn't include trades involving draft rights, since those commonly change hands multiple times in short order on draft night. Sometimes, the rights to "draft-and-stash" players who are unlikely to ever appear in an NBA game are used as trade ballast, so such swaps aren't included here. The list starts with a swap that involved two players last month, neither of whom will be playing for the teams that traded for them.
- Donte Greene, Celtics: Boston waived Greene this week, a month after sending Fab Melo and cash to the Grizzlies for him.
- Fab Melo, Grizzlies: It took only 15 days for the Grizzlies to waive the player from their end of the Melo-Greene trade.
- Kris Joseph, Celtics: The Celtics waived Joseph three days after acquiring him as part of the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett blockbuster with the Nets.
- D.J. White, Nets: Brooklyn also quickly dispatched of one of the players in that deal, waiving White six days after the trade.
- Caron Butler, Suns: The Bucks were one of the participants in the three-team trade that sent Butler to Phoenix in July, and they hooked up on another swap with the Suns in August to acquire the Wisconsin native.
- Marcus Camby, Raptors: The veteran center almost immediately expressed his displeasure with winding up in Toronto as part of the Andrea Bargnani trade, and Camby and agent Rick Kaplan engineered a buyout a week after the trade became official.
- Quentin Richardson, Raptors: The veteran swingman wound up with a three-year contract in a sign-and-trade as a component of the Bargnani deal, but only the first season was guaranteed. The Raptors will pay him that salary even though he won't be on the roster, since they waived him earlier this month.
- Kevin Murphy, Warriors: Golden State waived Murphy two weeks after acquiring him to avoid triggering a partial guarantee on his contract.
- Malcolm Lee, Warriors: The two-year veteran was one of the tools the Warriors used to spend a net of only $600K to acquire a first-round draft pick and secure the rights to Nemanja Nedovic. Golden State acquired Lee from the Warriors on draft night and, minutes later, sent him to the Suns.
- Leandro Barbosa, Wizards: Barbosa was already out for the season with an injured knee when the Celtics and Wizards made him a part of their deadline-day trade for salary purposes. His contract expired at the end of the 2012/13 season.
- Tyler Honeycutt, Rockets: The Kings sent their former second-round pick to Houston in the Thomas Robinson trade, and before the Rockets used Honeycutt in a game, they waived him to accomodate the signing of Aaron Brooks.
- Hakim Warrick, Magic: Orlando acquired Warrick at the deadline with the apparent intention of waiving him. The Magic did just that two days later.
- Hamed Haddadi, Raptors: The 7'2" center was traded twice last season, and though he spent nearly a month on the Raptors roster after they acquired him in the Rudy Gay trade, Toronto never put him in a game before shipping him to the Suns at the deadline.
- Josh Selby, Cavaliers: The former Kansas Jayhawk was one of three players who went to Cleveland in a salary-clearing move for the Grizzlies, but the Cavs wound up stashing Selby with their D-League affiliate in Canton before waiving him in March.
- Matt Carroll, Pelicans: An early-season swap sent Carroll to New Orleans, but the Pelicans bought him out a week later.
- Lazar Hayward, Rockets: The James Harden swap left the Rockets with an excess of players as opening night approached, and Hayward was one of the casualties as Houston trimmed its roster to meet the 15-man limit.
Jeanie Buss On Jim Buss, Jackson, D’Antoni
Jeanie Buss is the Lakers representative on the NBA's Board of Governors, making her as much the primary owner of the team as any member of the Buss family is following the passing of patriarch Jerry Buss in February. She hints at tension between her and brother Jim Buss, writing in the latest edition of her memoir that she wants Jim "to realize that I'm not the enemy." The Los Angeles Times published an excerpt of the updated portion of "Laker Girl" online today that centers around the team's abortive pursuit of Jeanie's fiancee, Phil Jackson, for their coaching vacancy last season. It's plenty revelatory, not just about the Jackson situation but the ongoing dynamics of the Lakers front office, so we'll recap the highlights here:
- Jeanie was moved to tears when the team decided to hire Mike D'Antoni instead. "The sequence of events — Phil almost coming back and then being told someone else was better for the job — practically destroyed me," she writes. "It almost took away my passion for this job and this game. It felt like I had been stabbed in the back. It was a betrayal. I was devastated."
- Jeanie, who oversees the franchise's business operations, says she and Jim had never spoken about basketball before Jim sought her input prior to asking Jackson about his interest in the job.
- Jackson never demanded part-ownership, a "ridiculous" salary, or an arrangement that would have allowed him to miss some of the team's road games, according to Jeanie, but he did ask for input on personnel decisions.
- The Lakers were aware of the negative publicity that choosing D'Antoni over Jackson would bring. When GM Mitch Kupchak called Jackson to tell him that they were going with D'Antoni, Kupchak told him he thought the media firestorm would "blow over in a month," Jeanie writes.