Nets, Rockets Had Talks About Asik, Lin
Plenty of teams have been linked to Omer Asik of late, but it appears the Rockets also had discussions with a team that hadn’t been rumored to be in the mix. Houston had preliminary talks with the Nets involving Omer Asik as well as Jeremy Lin, a source tells Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com. Youngmisuk describes the conversations as due diligence on the part of the Rockets, and apparently Houston asked for Deron Williams in return. The Nets weren’t receptive to trading Williams since his presence in Brooklyn was one of the reasons Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett gave their blessing to the trade that brought them to the Nets this summer, Youngmisuk writes.
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com brought up a similar notion yesterday, and though it appeared that his mention of a Nets-Rockets deal for Asik was merely speculative, he might know more than he let on. Berger suggested the Nets could offer Paul Pierce and a first-round pick in return, though I doubt the Rockets would go for that.
The Rockets abandoned their efforts to trade Asik by a self-imposed deadline this week, and while GM Daryl Morey says Asik will probably remain in Houston “for quite a long time,” it still seems there’s a strong chance the Turkish center is on a new team by the trade deadline. He’d make more sense for the Nets now that they’ve lost Brook Lopez for the season. Asik’s nearly $15MM balloon payment for 2014/15 that dissuaded many teams from trading for him wouldn’t seem to be an issue for high-rolling Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, even though Lin is due the same amount next season. That would mean $30MM in actual salary, plus luxury tax penalties, for two players whose combined salary cap hits are about half that amount. Williams is due close to $18.5MM this year and $19.75MM in 2014/15, though his salary aligns with his cap hit.
The most popular response from Hoops Rumors readers in last night’s poll suggested the Nets should trade for someone in response to Lopez’s injury. It sounds like Nets GM Billy King was thinking of a trade even before the injury happened.
Odds & Ends: Jefferson, Jazz, Lakers
With all but six teams around the league in action today, it has been a busy day on the hardwood. Off the court news has also been in abundance. Here are a few notes:
- Prior to Al Jefferson facing his old team, the Bobcats center spoke (Twitter link) with Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune regarding his exit from the Jazz last year. Jefferson told Falk he knew the Jazz were likely going to move on from him and Hawks forward Paul Millsap. According to Jefferson he gave the Jazz “the first option” to sign him but knew with Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter coming up in the Jazz organization that it would likely be time for him and Millsap to move on.
- Jazz head coach Tyrone Corbin told Jody Genessy of the Deseret News he wishes Richard Jefferson hadn’t stated his intentions for next summer when the Jazz are still “trying to be a championship-contending team” this season. Corbin said Jefferson has been a great player for the Jazz this year but wishes the forward who will be “hunting” to play for a championship team in free agency would have discussed the championship push this year’s team is trying to make.
- While we asked you guys what the Nets should do now that Brook Lopez is out for the year, Bradford Doolittle of ESPN (Insider piece) thinks the Nets should try to get a trade together with the Lakers to trade away Lopez himself. Doolittle thinks the Lakers should trade Pau Gasol‘s expiring contract in return for two years of a healthy Lopez when they will be trying to chase two final titles for recently extended Kobe Bryant. He also argues that Gasol could help the Nets continue to try to get a championship this year.
Poll: How Should The Nets Respond To Lopez’s Injury?
Earlier today, the Nets announced they will be without center Brook Lopez for the remainder of the season with a broken foot. Losing Lopez for the season creates a big hole for the Nets to fill as the center was averaging 20.7 ppg, 6.0 rpg, and 1.8 bpg. Without a pick in next year’s draft and a league-high $102MM payroll, the 9-17 Nets options seem very limited but rumors have already begun as to what Brooklyn’s next move, if any, could entail.
Eastern Notes: Nets, Nogueira, Crawford, Karl
With the announcement earlier today that Brook Lopez will be out for the season, there have been many speculations as to how the Nets will react. The disabled player exception is one option that has been mentioned and now trade speculations are beginning to surface. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com speculates that the Nets could pursue a trade for Omer Asik. It would be surprising if the Rockets bit on Berger’s proposal of Paul Pierce and a first-rounder that couldn’t go Houston’s way until 2020.
Some other notes around the Eastern Conference:
- Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports the Hawks first-round draft pick, Lucas Nogueira will be working with the Hawks team doctors now that he has returned to the United States to focus solely on his rehab. Nogueira will split his rehab time between Atlanta and LA but will be giving the team a better chance to monitor his progress.
- Former NBA guard Coby Karl has signed with the German team MHP Ludwigsburg Emiliano Carchia of Sportando reports. The son of NBA coach George Karl began the season in Italy.
- Today Celtics guard Jordan Crawford reunited against his former team, the Washington Wizards. Prior to the meeting, Crawford discussed his departure from the Wizards with Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy. In the discussion, Crawford expressed his desire that he would have handled his departure with the Wizards differently. Crawford also shared that he plans to handle the return of Rondo differently than the ascension of John Wall and Bradley Beal.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Jeff Taylor To Miss Rest Of Season
5:03pm: Bobcats coach Steve Clifford says that he’s OK with the players the team has until Kidd-Gilchrist returns, Bonnell tweets, so it doesn’t sound like he’s pushing for a roster move.
3:04pm: Another Bobcats small forward is hitting the shelf, as Jeff Taylor will miss the rest of the season after rupturing his right Achilles tendon last night against the Pistons, reports Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. Taylor had taken over as the starter at that position when Michael Kidd-Gilchrist went down earlier this month with a broken hand. Kidd-Gilchrist likely won’t be back until sometime next month.
Taylor, the first pick of the second round in 2012, wasn’t having much of a positive impact offensively, averaging just 8.0 points on 37.6% shooting in 24.2 minutes per contest. The Bobcats are also statistically a better team defensively when Taylor isn’t playing, giving up 5.7 fewer points per 100 possessions when Taylor sits, per NBA.com. Anthony Tolliver, Gerald Henderson and the newly signed Chris Douglas-Roberts are other options for the team at small forward, as Bonnell points out.
The Bobcats, in the mix for a playoff spot with a 13-14 record, wouldn’t gain much flexibility if they applied for a disabled player exception, since Taylor is making only the minimum salary for a one-year veteran. Charlotte is carrying a full 15-man roster, so the team would have to release someone to make room for a replacement.
Pacers Open To Trade Offers For Danny Granger
Pacers team president Larry Bird isn’t putting Danny Granger on the trade block, but he’s willing to listen to offers from other teams, as Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star observes. Bird doesn’t want to add salary for next season in any such deal, since Granger is on an expiring contract and Lance Stephenson is also hitting free agency in the summer.
“I’ve talked to Danny, talked to his agent; I’m not looking to trade him,” Bird said. “But you never know. If the right thing came along that would help the franchise, I would have to look at it, but I’m not out there looking at deals.”
Granger made his regular season debut Friday after recovering from a strained calf, and he missed all but five games last year with knee trouble. When healthy, he’s given to slow starts, something Bird believes is a product of Granger not preparing hard enough in the offseason. The soon-to-be free agent says he wants to stay in Indiana, where he’s played ever since becoming the 17th overall pick in the 2005 draft.
“It’s really important for me to remain a Pacer,” Granger said. “I feel like I’ve been a big part of the building, gone through a lot of the bad years and now the good. I’d love to stay, but I understand the business of basketball and I understand that I might be a trade commodity.”
The Pacers are less than $2MM shy of the luxury tax threshold, limiting their flexibility for any trade. They have more than $60MM in commitments for next season already on the books, which explains Bird’s reluctance to take on any long-term salary. Bird acknowledged that owner Herb Simon doesn’t want to pay the tax, though the Hall-of-Famer suggested that he’d welcome a dialogue on the issue if Simon were to approach him.
D-League Moves: Jazz, Spurs, Nets
Today marks the end of the first month of the D-League season, and so far 13 NBA teams have sent players on assignment, as our tracker shows. Four of those 13 made moves involving seven players today, as we detail:
- Ian Clark and Rudy Gobert are back from their D-League assignments, the Jazz announced. Utah sent both to the Bakersfield Jam a week ago, and Gobert had the more impressive performance, averaging 14.0 points, 13.0 rebounds and 4.3 blocks over three games.
- The Spurs have sent Nando De Colo and Malcolm Thomas to the D-League, according to the team. De Colo is making his third trek to the Austin Toros this season, while Thomas, whom the Spurs signed less than three weeks ago, heads to Austin for the second time.
- Tyshawn Taylor and Tornike Shengelia are back on D-League assignment, the Nets announced. Both second-year players are familiar with the Springfield Armor, having spent time there last season and during training camp this year.
- The Warriors recalled Nemanja Nedovic from the D-League today, as we noted earlier.
Sixers Considering Move To New Jersey?
Sixers owner Josh Harris bought the New Jersey Devils of the NHL this summer, leading to speculation that he would look to move his basketball team to the same Newark, N.J., arena where the Devils play The idea seemed far-fetched before the season, when Sixers GM Sam Hinkie and Harris himself denied any interest in such a move, but Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News hears that the idea is still alive among Sixers executives.
It’s unclear just how serious the talk of taking the Sixers to Newark is, and any relocation would require league approval, which isn’t a given, as we saw this year with the Kings’ aborted plan to move to Seattle. Harris owns the six-year-old Prudential Center, where the Devils play, but the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia is owned by the Comcast-Spectator company, which sold the Sixers to Harris in 2011. The Philadelphia arena is only 17 years old, but there’s precedent for NBA teams moving out of even newer buildings; the Spurs were only in the Alamodome for nine seasons.
Newark is about 85 miles from Philadelphia, but it’s only 17 miles from Manhattan, and a team in Newark would give the New York metropolitan area three NBA clubs. Anaheim has made a play for an NBA team on multiple occasions despite the presence of the Lakers and Clippers in Los Angeles, so the notion of a third team in a single market isn’t a new one.
Pacific Links: Young, Marshall, Nedovic
All five Pacific Division teams are in action tonight, and the slate includes a matchup between the Lakers and the disappointing Warriors. Golden State could fall to .500 with a loss, despite preseason thoughts of challenging for the Western Conference title. Here’s the latest from the Pacific:
- The injury-hit Lakers haven’t had much to celebrate, but Nick Young is nonetheless having fun in purple-and-gold, and he tells Tracy Weissenberg of SLAM Online that the experience is better than the half-season he spent with the Clippers in 2011/12. “The Clippers got a lot of hype with all the highlights they do. Obviously, they got a better record than us right now, but Lakers is tradition,” Young said. “I grew up being a Laker fan. The city always being Lakers fans. I remember going to the Laker parades after winning championships. It’s nothing like being a Laker. It changed my view of the NBA right now, being a Laker.”
- Kendall Marshall has longstanding connections to a few Lakers, and that had him keeping a close eye on the team before he signed with L.A. this week, observes Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. “They look like they really enjoy playing together,” the former Suns lottery pick said of his new team. “Any team that plays together, you want to be a part of.”
- The Warriors have recalled Nemanja Nedovic from the D-League today, just one day after sending him down, the team announced. The rookie scored 29 points for the Santa Cruz Warriors last night, and he’ll be back with Golden State in time for tonight’s tilt with the Lakers. The Warriors are keen on one-day assignments, as I noted earlier this month.
Atlantic Notes: Lee, Celtics, Lopez, Nets
Last night in Philadelphia, the Sixers stopped a seven-game losing streak with a 121-120 overtime win over the Nets. “We needed to get that win for the sanity of the group, keeping our group together, holding hope,” coach Brett Brown said after Evan Turner‘s game winner, “and for those reasons as that ball is hanging on a rim and then decides to fall in, for us, given where we are, that is an important win.” Here’s more out of Atlantic..
- A rumored deal would had the Celtics sending Courtney Lee and Brandon Bass along with a first-round pick to Houston for Omer Asik, but Lee says the rumors were never serious enough to warrant a call from his agent, writes the Boston Globe’s Julian Benbow. “I haven’t even had a conversation with my agent,” Lee said. “He called me before and said he hasn’t heard anything and neither [general manager] called him, so don’t worry about it, and that’s what I did.”
- Brook Lopez fractures the fifth metatarsal in his right foot, according to Roderick Boone of Newsday (on Twitter). Earlier today, we learned that the Stanford product will be out for the year with the injury.
- Looking back on things, Jordan Crawford says that the trade sending him to the Celtics “had to happen” but admits that he could have been more professional during his tenure in Washington, writes Michael Lee of the Washington Post.