Nets Want To Re-Sign Paul Pierce
Nets GM Billy King told reporters recently that he would make retaining Shaun Livingston his top priority this offseason, but apparently he didn’t mean to imply that the club wouldn’t like to re-sign Paul Pierce, who’s also set for free agency this summer. King said on the “Joe and Evan” show on CBS Radio New York today that the team wants to keep Pierce, but he pointed to Pierce’s Bird rights as an advantage that will make it easier to re-sign him than to bring back Livingston, with whom the Nets have only non-Bird rights. Tim Bontemps of the New York Post passes along King’s remark via Twitter.
The Nets could go up to the maximum salary to re-sign Pierce, though it’s highly unlikely that they’d do so, even given the team’s profligate spending. Still, Pierce’s Bird rights allow the team to re-sign him without dipping into any of its other exceptions, which is just what the team will likely need to do to keep Livingston, whose non-Bird rights only provide for 120% of the minimum salary. The 28-year-old shooting guard has become a starter for Brooklyn, so it appears the team’s only recourse for keeping him will be to use all or part of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, which would allow for a three-year contract with a starting salary of $3.278MM. It’s because of these financial limitations that Livingston is the team’s No. 1 focus, King also said on radio, as Bontemps tweets.
King said last week that he hadn’t offered an extension to Pierce, though few veterans sign extensions because the terms mandated under the current collective bargaining agreement don’t make sense for many players. Pierce recently expressed a willingness to return to the Celtics, with whom he spent his entire career until the trade that brought him to Brooklyn last summer, and Boston’s second all-time leading scorer has admitted that he never wanted to leave.
Still, the Celtics are a rebuilding team, and they have Rajon Rondo‘s impending 2015 free agency to worry about. The 36-year-old Pierce remains a productive player this season, averaging 13.6 points on 9.7 shots per game with a 16.4 PER. Pierce might have to take a discount to play with Boston, while the Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov has shown a willingness to spend whatever necessary to build his team.
Mouhammadou Jaiteh To Enter Draft
French center Mouhammadou Jaiteh will declare for the draft, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM. The 19-year-old will gauge interest from teams to decide whether or not to pull out early, Charania writes, so it sounds like there’s a decent chance Jaiteh won’t be available come draft night. He’s the 76th-ranked prospect on Jonathan Givony’s list at DraftExpress, but he checks in just 150th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
The 6’11” Jaiteh entered his name in the draft pool last season, too, and he reportedly worked out for the Suns and Sixers before he withdrew from draft consideration shortly before the deadline to do so. He isn’t seeing much playing time for JSF Nanterre in France this season, averaging just 5.2 points and 3.9 rebounds in 15.2 minutes per game.
Jaiteh will have until 10 days before the draft to decide whether to withdraw, unlike college prospects, who must do so April 15th, as Givony explained earlier. The extra time will also afford him to work out for more NBA teams, another luxury college players don’t have. Jaiteh won’t become automatically eligible for the draft until 2016.
Mark Jackson Sought Clippers, Nets Openings
3:29pm: Scalabrine will work with the Santa Cruz Warriors, tweets Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
1:56pm: Mark Jackson has attempted to become a candidate for several head coaching vacancies over the past several months, including the Clippers and Nets openings, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. A dispute over assistant coach Brian Scalabrine is the latest in a series of disagreements between the Warriors and Jackson, who’s come under increased scrutiny from the front office. The coach’s contract runs through 2014/15, but there have been no extension talks, and none are expected to occur, Wojnarowski writes.
The Warriors are reassigning Scalabrine at the behest of Jackson, in spite of the assistant’s popularity with the front office and ownership, Wojnarowski reports. It’s unclear what Scalabrine’s new role will be, but Warriors management wants to keep him within the organization. The Warriors have decided that they want to let Jackson have decision-making power regarding his staff, but Jackson’s struggles to manage the staff and foster a functional working environment threaten his job security, sources tell Wojnarowski. Kings coach Michael Malone, a former Warriors assistant, went weeks without speaking to Jackson last season, Wojnarowski hears.
Jackson has drawn mention as a possible candidate for the Knicks job, but it’s unclear if that holds true now that Phil Jackson is in charge of basketball decisions for New York. Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob recently said there was “pressure” on Mark Jackson, but it’s unclear if he meant to imply that it was related to his job security or just the common, day-to-day pressure inherent with an NBA head coaching gig. Lacob recently told Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group that he would evaluate the coach after the season.
“I do think our coach has done a good job; we have had some big wins, a lot of wins on the road, and that’s usually a sign of good coaching,” Lacob said to Kawakami. “But some things are a little disturbing; the lack of being up for some of these games at home, that’s a concern to me.”
The Warriors picked up Jackson’s team option for 2014/15 this past July, and Lacob said at the time that he envisioned Jackson remaining his coach for the long-term. That was after the Nets hired Jason Kidd and the Clippers brought in Doc Rivers, but just how much Lacob knew about Jackson’s reported desire for other jobs is not clear.
Lakers Rumors: Jeanie Buss, Jackson, Kobe
The draft is the major story for most of the teams surrouding the Lakers in our Reverse Standings, but the drama is always multifaceted in L.A. Here’s the latest:
- Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss is the team’s governor and ultimate decision-maker, and commissioner Adam Silver recently told her that she should be more assertive in exerting her authority over the team, according to Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding. That’s somewhat surprising, given that the league has also acknowledged concerns about a conflict of interest between Buss and her fiance, Knicks president Phil Jackson.
- Four of the six Buss siblings, each of whom owns a share of the Lakers, were in favor of bringing Jackson back to the organization, but Jim and Johnny Buss were not, Ding adds in the same piece. It’s unclear at what point the four siblings wanted Jackson to return.
- Privately, the Lakers, Jeanie Buss included, are relieved that Jackson is off to New York and that he no longer casts a shadow over the organization, Ding observes.
- Jackson never seemed to understand how much of an intimidating presence he is to the Buss family, helping forestall any reunion between Jackson and the Lakers, writes Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
- There was talk among the Buss family of bringing Jackson back to the Lakers in an informal role, but the team never approached Jackson with the idea, Shelburne reports in the same piece.
- Steve Nash “doesn’t disagree” that Kobe Bryant and Mike D’Antoni aren’t a good fit with each other, as the point guard told ESPN radio’s Colin Cowherd on Monday (transcription via Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News). Nash nonetheless added that he doesn’t think Bryant and D’Antoni have had enough of a chance to decide how they feel about each other.
- Amin Elhassan of ESPN.com, in an Insider-only piece, weighs the rebuilding jobs facing the Lakers and the Knicks, concluding that New York’s road is easier, given Jackson’s presence and superior existing talent.
Ryan Anderson Out For Season
MARCH 25TH: Anderson will indeed miss the rest of the season, the Pelicans announced.
JANUARY 14TH: It’s doubtful that Ryan Anderson will return this season after he suffered a herniated disk in his neck on January 3rd, according to John Reid of The Times Picayune. Anderson spoke to reporters last night and said doctors have advised him to rest for about two months before they determine whether he’ll need surgery to repair the disk, as Brett Martel of The Associated Press details.
“Obviously, I want to get back as soon as possible, but this is something that if I got hit again, it could be more than just career ending. I want to be careful about it,” Anderson said. “We’re going to find out pretty soon how it’s healing and depending on if it’s healing (on its own), then we’ll just keep going with that. But if not, we’ll do the surgery.”
Anderson is nonetheless optimistic that he’ll be able return to action at some point, if not this season. The injury occurred when he collided with Gerald Wallace during a game against the Celtics, forcing Anderson to be taken off the court in traction.
It’s a tough blow for the Pelicans and Anderson, who was having his best season, putting up a career-best 19.8 points per game and leading the NBA in free-throw percentage. Anderson’s name had come up in a few trade rumors over the past several months, though New Orleans was in no hurry to move him, as I noted when I examined his trade candidacy. His injury makes it highly unlikely he’s dealt this season. The 25-year-old is under contract through the 2015/16 season.
Draft Deadlines Facing NCAA Underclassmen
College players, college coaches, NBA personnel and members of the media continue to be confused about the parameters of NCAA eligibility and the NBA draft, according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress. Rule changes instituted for 2012 severely limited the amount of time underclassmen have to decide about entering the draft and the amount of contact they can have with NBA teams if they wish to retain the ability to pull out and return to college. Givony authored a definitive piece on the altered landscape in 2012, and he did the same last year. Since the process still remains unclear to many, Givony has followed up once more. Givony lays out the key dates involved, which are as follows:
April 9: NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee Application Deadline
April 14: NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee Response Deadline
April 15: NCAA Early Entry “Withdrawal” Deadline
April 27: NBA Draft Early Entry Eligibility Deadline (10:59 pm CT)
May 2: NBA Draft early entry candidates released — Contact with underclassmen permitted
May 14-18: NBA Draft Combine (Chicago)
May 20: NBA Draft Lottery
June 16: NBA Draft Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline (4:00 pm CT)
June 26: 2014 NBA Draft
It’s the April 15th date that’s at the heart of the recent changes. That deadline typically came in early May until 2012, and the extra time gave prospects a chance to work out with a couple of NBA teams and allowed for a week of direct access to NBA executives. Under the new rules, an underclassman can’t work out or speak with NBA teams at all if he wishes to retain the ability to return to college. Only the player’s college head coach may have any contact with NBA front offices, and that contact may only be with the primary executive in charge of basketball operations, typically the general manager. That means there’s no such thing as “testing the waters” anymore, as Givony puts it.
The change incentivizes players to wait to officially declare their intent to enter the draft until the NBA’s April 27th deadline to do so, which is almost two weeks after the April 15th date to withdraw and head back to college. That way, if a player were to suffer an injury or have a change of heart in that 12-day period, he could still go back to school, Givony explains. There’s little or no advantage to declaring early, given the limited amount of information-gathering allowed.
Underclassmen may seek advice from the NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee, which consists of executives from 20 NBA clubs. Still, their projections tend to be conservative about a player’s draft stock, and executives admit they don’t have a clear picture of how the draft will go until long after the committee makes its recommendations. Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge recently told Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe that most mock drafts aren’t accurate until June. The committee response deadline of April 14th leaves underclassmen with as little as one day to consider the advice before the deadline for withdrawing and retaining college eligibility. Still, a player can receive feedback from the committee without ever declaring for the draft, as Givony points out.
The NCAA says it instituted these changes to give college teams greater certainty about their rosters for the coming season and to keep prospects focused on academics, but not all coaches are in favor of the measure, Givony notes. The NCAA’s motivation instead appears to be aimed at protecting its business interests and keeping prospects in school, as Givony argues. Still, a long list of underclassmen wound up declaring for the draft last year and not returning to college. Of course, many of the players on that register of early entrants didn’t come from the NCAA. Prospects who are playing overseas or in the D-League aren’t bound by the NCAA, so they can withdraw as late as 10 days before the draft.
College players receive back-channel communication from teams throughout the year in spite of the rules, but this dialogue can be unreliable, as Givony explains. He suggests, for instance, that a team with multiple second-round picks would have motivation to convince as many prospects as possible to come out.
R.J. Hunter Won’t Enter 2014 Draft
Georgia State shooting guard R.J. Hunter will stay out of the draft and remain in school for the 2014/15 season, as his father Ron Hunter, who doubles as Georgia State’s coach, tells Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The 20-year-old is No. 59 on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings, while Chad Ford of ESPN.com doesn’t list him on his big board, perhaps because Hunter has been expected to remain in school. Givony has him in his 2015 mock draft, rather than his 2014 version.
Hunter averaged 18.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and 39.5% three-point shooting this season for the Panthers, who compete in the Sun Belt Conference. He popped for 41 points, including a 12 for 19 performance from beyond the arc, against Texas-San Antonio, but he went just 4 for 16 from the field in his final game, a loss to Clemson in the NIT.
Givony lists Hunter at No. 42 in his 2015 mock, suggesting he’s not far off from first-round consideration for next year. Goodman calls him an underrated prospect, so perhaps he’ll be a player to watch in 2014/15.
Atlantic Rumors: World Peace, Fisher, Ainge
The Atlantic Division title race is shaping up to be fairly compelling, with the Raptors just two games up on the Nets as both teams battle the Bulls and Wizards for home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Yet most of the off-court chatter around the division involves the three clubs playing out the string or, in the case of the Knicks, trying to pull off a miracle run to the playoffs. Here’s the latest:
- Metta World Peace wouldn’t have agreed to a buyout deal to free himself from the Knicks last month if he knew Phil Jackson would join the franchise, as the former Ron Artest said during his appearance Monday on the “Max & Marcellus Show” on ESPNLA 710 Radio (transcription via Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com).
- Sam Amick of USA Today wouldn’t be surprised if the Knicks pursue Derek Fisher to coach the team next season, given the mutual respect between Jackson and the 39-year-old guard, who plans to retire at season’s end (video link).
- The Celtics are in line for a top-five pick this year, as our Reverse Standings show, but president of basketball operations Danny Ainge doesn’t think that he’ll draft a franchise player with the selection, as he tells Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe. “I think it’s maybe a little bit better [than last year’s draft] by comparison, but it’s not even close to one of the best draft classes in the last 10 years,” Ainge said.
- Sixers 10-day signee Casper Ware has a reputation for tough defense, but coach Brett Brown is also high on his scoring ability and calls him a “true point guard,” notes Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Artem Klimenko To Declare For Draft
Russian center Artem Klimenko will enter the 2014 NBA draft, his agent tells Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. The 20-year-old is the fifth-rated International prospect born in 1994 on Jonathan Givony’s list at DraftExpress, and though he’s not listed in Givony’s top 100 overall prospects, he’s ahead of No. 76 overall prospect Mouhammadou Jaiteh in the International rankings. No. 4 on the same list of international prospects is Vasilije Micic, who checks in 41st overall, so it appears as though there’s a decent chance Klimenko is drafted in June.
Chad Ford of ESPN.com nonetheless has Klimenko way down at No. 236 in his Insider-only rankings, so it appears as though NBA scouts don’t have a solid read on the 7’1″ prospect who’s playing for BC Avtodor Saratov this season. He’s averaging 15.1 points and 7.1 rebounds in 24.0 minutes per game.
Klimenko, like all overseas prospects, has extra time to decide whether to back out of the draft. He can withdraw on June 16, just 10 days before the draft, while American college players only have until next month to withdraw without losing their NCAA eligibility.
Montrezl Harrell, Rodney Hood To Enter Draft
Duke small forward Rodney Hood and Louisville power forward Montrezl Harrell will declare their intent to enter this year’s draft, reports Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv (Twitter link). Zagoria also confirms a weekend report from Chad Ford of ESPN.com that West Virginia point guard Juwan Staten is headed for the draft. The SNY.tv scribe also suggests Ohio State small forward LaQuinton Ross is draft-bound as well, although Ross said yesterday that he remains undecided.
Hood’s sophomore season ended in stunning fashion with Duke’s upset loss to Mercer in the NCAA tournament last week, but he spent most of the year rocketing up draft boards. He went from No. 67 in the preseason on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospects lists to No. 16, the same position he occupies on Chad Ford’s big board at ESPN.com. The 6’8″ 21-year-old averaged 16.1 points per game and made 42% of his three-point attempts this season.
There’s some divergence on just how hot Harrell’s stock is, with Ford pegging him 11th and Givony listing him as the 20th best prospect. He’s the same height as Hood but bulkier, enabling him to play inside. Harrell is nonetheless small for his position, though he grabbed 8.4 rebounds per game to go with 14.0 points per contest. His Cardinals are still alive in the NCAA tournament.