Western Notes: Rautins, KJ, Lin, Suns
The three teams doling out the greatest number of $10MM+ salaries this year are all from the Eastern Conference, as I examined this evening, but of the leaguewide total of 60 salaries of $10MM or more this season, Western Conference teams are set to pay 29 of them. That's a remarkably even split considering nearly a quarter of those salaries are concentrated with just the Nets, Knicks and Bulls. It demonstrates a depth of highly compensated talent in the West, which has been widely perceived as the NBA's power conference for years. Here's the latest news from the Western Conference:
- Author R.E. Graswich contends in his book that Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson played a secondary role to David Stern in the fight to keep the Kings from moving, as Graswich explains to Cambi Brown of CBS13 in Sacramento. Graswich also claims that Johnson harbors a grudge against the Kings, who drafted Kenny Smith one spot before Johnson went off the board in 1987.
- Andy Rautins spent last October with the Thunder, but it doesn't look like he'll be in an NBA camp this time around. The Fraport Skyliners of Germany have announced on their website that they've signed the former second-round pick (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando).
- Jeremy Lin tells ESPN.com that he believes Dwight Howard's arrival in Houston will alleviate some of the pressure the Harvard grad felt to perform for the Rockets last season, when he was down on himself for not duplicating "Linsanity."
- Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic profiles new Suns coach Jeff Hornacek's assistants, two of whom were Suns teammates of Hornacek in their playing days.
Nets, Knicks, Bulls Have Most $10MM+ Salaries
The salary cap and luxury tax are in place to help curb the advantages that large-market teams would have in an open market. They haven't stopped the Nets and Knicks from having more players making at least $10MM this season than almost every team in the league. Only the Bulls, who like the Knicks have four such players, are in the same class as the New York contingent, which is led by the Nets and their fivesome of eight-figure players.
The Bulls and the Big Apple teams seem even more profligate when juxtaposed with the four NBA clubs that don't have $10MM+ contracts at all. The Suns and Sixers play in fairly large markets, but they're still without highly paid talent, just as the Kings and Bucks are. Two more teams don't have anyone who's guaranteed at least $10MM, since Hedo Turkoglu and Andrew Bynum are promised only $6MM from the Magic and Cavs, respectively.
A team top-heavy with well-compensated players doesn't always succeed on the basketball court, of course. The Heat have won back-to-back championships with no one other than their trio of stars making $10MM or more. The Rockets and Grizzlies figure to be among the Western Conference elite even though they each only have a pair of eight-figure salaries. And since the three teams with the most high-dollar contracts all play in the Eastern Conference, at least one of them isn't going to make the conference finals — and that assumes that the Heat won't make it that far.
Here's the complete list:
Teams with five $10MM+ contracts
- Nets: Joe Johnson ($21,466,718), Deron Williams ($18,466,130), Paul Pierce ($15,333,334), Brook Lopez ($14,693,906), Kevin Garnett ($12,433,735)
Teams with four $10MM+ contracts
- Bulls: Derrick Rose ($17,632,688), Carlos Boozer ($15,300,000), Luol Deng ($14,275,000), Joakim Noah ($11,100,000)
- Knicks: Amare Stoudemire ($21,679,893), Carmelo Anthony ($21,388,954), Tyson Chandler ($14,100,538), Andrea Bargnani ($11,862,500)
Teams with three $10MM+ contracts
- Celtics: Kris Humphries ($12,000,000), Rajon Rondo ($11,954,545), Gerald Wallace ($10,105,855)
- Clippers: Chris Paul ($18,668,431), Blake Griffin ($16,441,500), DeAndre Jordan ($10,986,550)
- Heat: Chris Bosh ($19,067,500), LeBron James ($19,067,500), Dwyane Wade ($18,673,000)
- Nuggets: Ty Lawson ($10,786,517), JaVale McGee ($10,750,000), Danilo Gallinari ($10,146,925)
- Pacers: Roy Hibbert ($14,283,844), Danny Granger ($14,021,788), David West ($12,000,000)
- Spurs: Tony Parker ($12,500,000), Tim Duncan ($10,361,446), Tiago Splitter ($10,000,000)
- Thunder: Kevin Durant ($17,832,627), Russell Westbrook ($14,693,906), Serge Ibaka ($12,350,000)
- Warriors: Andrew Bogut ($14,000,000), David Lee ($13,878,000), Andre Iguodala ($12,868,632)
Teams with two $10MM+ contracts
- Bobcats: Al Jefferson ($13,500,000), Ben Gordon ($13,200,000)
- Lakers: Kobe Bryant ($30,453,805), Pau Gasol ($19,285,850)
- Grizzlies: Zach Randolph ($18,238,333), Marc Gasol ($14,860,523)
- Pelicans: Eric Gordon ($14,283,844), Tyreke Evans ($11,796,247)
- Rockets: Dwight Howard ($20,513,178), James Harden ($13,701,250)
- Timberwolves: Kevin Love ($14,693,906), Nikola Pekovic ($12,100,000)
- Trail Blazers: LaMarcus Aldridge ($14,878,000), Nicolas Batum ($11,295,250)
- Wizards: Emeka Okafor ($14,487,500), Nene Hilario ($13,000,000)
Teams with one $10MM+ contract
- Hawks: Al Horford ($12,000,000)
- Jazz: Richard Jefferson ($11,046,000)
- Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki ($22,721,381)
- Pistons: Josh Smith ($13,500,000)
- Raptors: Rudy Gay ($17,888,932)
- Cavaliers: Andrew Bynum ($12,250,000 — only guaranteed for $6MM)
- Magic: Hedo Turkoglu ($12,000,000 — only guaranteed for $6MM)
Teams without a $10MM+ contract
- 76ers
- Bucks
- Kings
- Suns
ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.
Poll: Which Extension Candidate Will Sign Next?
Earlier today we asked your thoughts on whether Paul George or John Wall was more deserving of a max contract. Now we're asking which extension candidate you believe will re-sign with his respective team first:
Which Extension Candidate Will Be Next To Sign?
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Paul George 75% (293)
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Gordon Hayward 9% (34)
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Greg Monroe 8% (30)
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DeMarcus Cousins 7% (27)
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Other 2% (8)
Total votes: 392
Odds & Ends: Nets, Johnson, Nedovic
- Serbian rookie Nemanja Nedovic, the 30th overall pick by the Warriors in last summer's draft, is excited for his first NBA training camp, and says he's committed to entering Golden State's rotation right away, according to EuroHoops.net's Niki Bakouli.
- According to the New York Post's Tim Bontemps, Nets point guard Deron Williams says the addition of Andrei Kirilenko was just as important as the trade that brought in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
- James Johnson's contract with the Hawks is a non-guaranteed training camp invite, and not a guaranteed deal, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Chris Vivlamore.
Knicks Invite Powell To Training Camp
The Knicks will sign Josh Powell to a non-guaranteed training camp deal, according to a tweet from Bleacher Report's Jared Zwerling, who reports that the six-year NBA veteran has agreed to a deal with the team.
Powell worked out with the team last week, and has also recently auditioned for the Pelicans. The 30-year-old Powell has been out of the NBA for the past two seasons, and in 2011 he played for the Hawks.
Holding a career scoring average of 3.9PPG, Powell is best known for being a member of two championship winning Lakers teams in 2009 and 2010. He was waived by the Spurs last October, but didn't play a game for the team.
Each Agency’s Highest-Paid Client
An NBA agency is only as valuable as the players it represents, and every agency has one client who's more valuable than the rest. In some cases, value isn't derived directly from money. Amare Stoudemire may be the highest-paid client on the Relativity Sports roster, but that doesn't mean he's more important to the agency than Dwight Howard is. Still, even an overpaid player can be a jewel for an agency as an example of the power of negotiation.
Using the Hoops Rumors Agency Database and ShamSports, I've found the player with the highest 2013/14 salary for each agency with at least three NBA clients. I've listed the current agency for each player, so, as with LeBron James and the Klutch Sports Group, the agency that negotiated the deal might not be represented. LeBron is nonetheless Klutch's marquee client.
This list goes by this season's base salary, not the total value of the deal, and it's organized alphabetically by agency:
- 24/7 Sports Management: Kyrie Irving, Cavaliers ($5,607,240)
- ASM Sports: Kevin Garnett, Nets ($12,433,735)
- BDA Sports Management: Rajon Rondo, Celtics ($11,954,545)
- Bell Management International: John Salmons, Kings ($7,583,000)
- CGL Sports: Wilson Chandler, Nuggets ($6,344,164)
- Comsport: Nicolas Batum, Trail Blazers ($11,295,250)
- Creative Artists Agency: Carmelo Anthony, Knicks ($21,388,954)
- Dutt Sport Services, Inc.: Jrue Holiday, Pelicans ($9,713,484)
- Edge Sports International: Joel Freeland, Trail Blazers ($2,897,976)
- Excel Sports Management: Deron Williams, Nets ($18,466,130)
- Falk Associates Management Enterprises: Roy Hibbert, Pacers ($14,283,844)
- Goodwin Sports Management: DeMar DeRozan, Raptors ($9,500,000)
- IAM Sports & Entertainment: Zach Randolph, Grizzlies ($18,238,333)
- Impact Sports Basketball: Kawhi Leonard, Spurs ($1,887,840)
- Interperformances: Luol Deng, Bulls ($14,275,000)
- Klutch Sports Group: LeBron James, Heat ($19,067,500)
- Lagardere Unlimited: Andrew Bogut, Warriors ($14,000,000)
- Landmark Sports Agency, Inc.: Kobe Bryant, Lakers ($30,453,805)
- Lee Basketball Services: John Lucas III, Jazz ($1,600,000)
- Octagon Sports: Rudy Gay, Raptors ($17,888,932)
- Perennial Sports & Entertainment: Josh Smith, Pistons ($13,500,000)
- Pinnacle Management Corp.: Samuel Dalembert, Mavericks ($3,700,748)
- Priority Sports & Entertainment: David Lee, Warriors ($13,878,000)
- Relativity Sports: Amare Stoudemire, Knicks ($21,679,893)
- The Neustadt Group: Boris Diaw, Spurs ($4,702,500)
- Wasserman Media Group: Joe Johnson, Nets ($21,466,718)
- Williams & Connolly: Hedo Turkoglu, Magic ($12,000,000)
- Zucker International: Marcin Gortat, Suns ($7,727,280)
Jazz Rumors: Offseason, Corbin, Burke, Leslie
The Jazz took a step back competitively this summer to open up playing time for their younger guys, and GM Dennis Lindsey promises Steve Luhm of The Salt Lake Tribune that the team won't reverse course.
"… We are not running away from the decisions we made," Lindsey said. "We are looking to embrace this and we will embrace it — all the challenges of being so young. I believe we have the talent and character to move forward — incrementally. We are very much looking forward to the start of the journey with this young core group."
Lindsey passed along a couple of other noteworthy tidbits in his conversation with Luhm, and we'll round them up here along with an update on a member of last year's Jazz team:
- The GM explained why the team abandoned its hunt for an annual playoff berth. "We were O.K. with being playoff-competitive as long as we had [salary cap] flexibility, too," he said. "But if we had invested in our veteran players, we were going to lose that flexibility, especially with some other [contract] extensions coming up."
- Lindsey emphasizes a collaborative approach in the front office, which also includes VP of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor and newly hired assistant GM Justin Zanik. Coach Tyrone Corbin has a say, too, and his input was critical in swaying the team to trade for Trey Burke on draft night, Lindsey says.
- Travis Leslie was briefly a member of the Jazz last season, though he didn't appear in a game. He signed with JSF Nanterre in France last month, but comments the team's head coach recently made suggest that Leslie could once more make a quick exit, notes Gabriel Pantel-Jouve of Catch & Shoot (translation via HoopsHype).
Poll: Which Player Deserves Max Extension More?
We presented Hoops Rumors readers yesterday with a variety of values for a contract extension between the Pacers and Paul George, and asked which was the most likely result. More voters chose the five-year maximum-salary option than any other scenario. Such a deal would put him on par with John Wall, who maxed out with the Wizards in July.
George had a breakout season last year and led the Pacers to within a game of the NBA Finals. Wall has never made the playoffs and only played 49 games last season after injury delayed his start, but he finished strong and clearly won over Wizards ownership. Their basic statistics are rather similar. George averaged 17.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists last season, while Wall put up 18.5 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 7.6 APG. George had the greater defensive impact for his team in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions, while Wall's 20.8 PER displays significantly more efficiency than George 16.8 PER.
Wall's already got his five-year max deal, and George is perhaps soon to follow. Regardless of how much George winds up with, do you think he's more deserving of the max than Wall is? Let us know with a vote, and share more on the subject in the comments.
Poll: Which Player Deserves Max Extension More?
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Paul George 64% (317)
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They're both equally deserving or undeserving 24% (116)
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John Wall 12% (60)
Total votes: 493
Josh Childress To Join Wizards For Training Camp
The Wizards have landed 30-year-old swingman Josh Childress, who'll be with the team in camp, tweets Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. Presumably it'll be a standard non-guaranteed camp deal for the Chris Emens client who appeared in just 14 NBA games last season before the Nets waived him in December.
This summer the former sixth overall pick turned down a lucrative offer from Olympiacos of Greece, the team that lured him away from a sixth-man role with the Hawks in 2008. The Cavs, Spurs and Pelicans all auditioned Childress over the past couple of months, and the Knicks were among several teams with which he had talks.
Childress is the first player the Wizards have invited to this year's camp outside of their exisiting 15 guaranteed contracts. He could push for playing time at small forward with Chris Singleton sidelined six to eight weeks with foot surgery. Still, Washington already has Martell Webster and rookies Otto Porter and Glen Rice Jr. at the position, so Childress figures to have an uphill battle to make the opening-night roster.
Odds & Ends: LeBron, Mavs, Lopez, Hamilton
The Cavs made a bit of a boo boo this week when they put together their list of all-time Cavs players by number. One would think that No. 23 would be a slam dunk choice for a guy by the name of LeBron James, but the nod instead went to Tyrone Corbin, as noted by Sean Highkin of USA Today. Meanwhile, the Cavs reached out to the Plain Dealer (on Twitter) to explain that the list was not meant to reflect the best player to wear each number. Here's more from around the Association..
- The Mavs bench production was the best in the NBA last season but it could be even more formidable in 2013/14, writes Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News. This summer, Dallas added Wayne Ellington, Devin Harris and DeJuan Blair to support their starting five.
- Nets center Brook Lopez, who had a screw replaced in his surgically-repaired right foot over the summer, says he's totally healthy and ready for camp, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com.
- HoopsHype runs down the best remaining free agents available. Richard Hamilton has the top spot followed by Stephen Jackson, Lamar Odom, and Sebastian Telfair.
- Commissioner-in-training Adam Silver doesn't see the value in tanking, but Joel Brigham of HoopsWorld says that it's not going away anytime soon.