Central Notes: Gasol, Gibson, Parker, Love
The Bulls‘ Pau Gasol may have risked a serious injury Saturday in a Eurobasket game against Poland, according to Nikos Varlas of Eurohoops.net. “The doctors told me that Pau couldn’t play more than five minutes straight,” Spanish coach Sergio Scariolo said in his post-game press conference. “But after the first five minutes, when I asked him to come to bench he told me now, ‘I will take the risk,’ he answered me and he had an amazing game.” Gasol scored 30 points in Spain’s victory and expects to play against Greece in Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchup, Varlas reports.
There’s more from the Central Division:
- Bulls forward Taj Gibson said he played despite a torn ligament in his ankle at the end of last season, tweets K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune. Gibson, who had surgery on the ankle, added that everything is on track with his rehab schedule.
- Also bouncing back nicely from injury is the Bucks’ Jabari Parker, according to The Journal Times. Parker’s rookie season was cut short when he tore the ACL in his left knee in a December 15th game. The Bucks aren’t commenting on when Parker might return and allegedly ordered a TV cameraman to stop filming a recent workout. However, many in the organization are privately saying Parker is ahead of schedule and is expected to be ready for opening night.
- Cavaliers forward Kevin Love is recovering quickly after shoulder surgery, writes Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer. Love was expected to be out of action four to six months after being hurt in an April playoff game, but Pluto says he has been working with a team trainer at an Olympic facility in Utah. Love said Friday on Late Night with Seth Meyers that he thought he was about a month to a month and a half away from returning to action (video link; transcription via HoopsHype). Pluto adds that Love never gave serious consideration to leaving Cleveland before signing a new max contract in July. Love has been talking to LeBron James over the offseason about adapting his role in the offense.
Central Notes: Tellem, Thompson, Parker
Arn Tellem, who was recently hired as the new vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, is also likely to become a minority owner of the Pistons by the year’s end, writes Tom Walsh of The Detroit Free Press. This was one of the factors that motivated Tellem to leave the Wasserman Media Group, Walsh adds. “I’m coming here to make a difference,” Tellem said. “If it was just limited to basketball, it would not be enough of a motivation to come and do it, but to have an involvement from an ownership level in basketball and the business and the community and see where we can make a difference and contribute to what’s going on here in Detroit and Michigan.”
Regarding a potential ownership stake in he franchise, Tellem said, “That was part of the plan when I came in. My hope is now that by the end of the year, we’re going to hopefully have a piece of the action. [Owner] Tom’s [Gores] desire is to have this team long-term for him and his family and to really accomplish a lot here — not only winning basketball games, but to make a difference in the community here.”
Here’s more out of the Central Division:
- In move that doesn’t come as a shock, restricted free agent Tristan Thompson won’t be attending the pre-training camp workouts that LeBron James has organized for the Cavaliers in Miami, Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group notes. Thompson, who has reportedly rejected a five-year, $80MM contract offer from the Cavaliers, is adamant that he will not put pen to paper on a new pact unless it is a maximum salary deal and is contemplating signing his one-year qualifying offer worth $6,777,589 if a deal can’t be worked out between the two sides.
- Bucks forward Jabari Parker‘s rehab from a torn ACL suffered 25 games into the 2014/15 campaign is going well, though it is unclear if he will be at full strength when the regular season tips off, Jesse Blancarte of Basketball Insiders writes. But even if Parker is close to 100%, the team intends to be protective of the second-year player, Blancarte adds. “We’re going to be very conservative with him,” GM John Hammond said. “If we think he’s capable of playing 20, we’ll maybe play him 10 minutes. If we think he can play a back-to-back, we’ll wait on the back-to-back. Whatever it is, we’re going to be very cautious as he moves forward because of the magnitude of who he can be and who we hope he can be for our organization going forward.”
Eastern Notes: Pacers, Knicks, Kaun
One of the main reasons that the Pacers decided to forge ahead with the purchase of the D-League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants was the rising salaries of NBA players, Candace Buckner of The Indianapolis Star relays (Twitter links). Team owner Herb Simon said that the Pacers will need young players to go along with the higher paid players on the roster, and that those young players would need development, which purchasing the Mad Ants would help facilitate, Buckner adds.
Here’s more out of the Eastern Conference:
- The Knicks are unquestionably a better team than a season ago, but just about every other team at the bottom of the Eastern Conference also improved this offseason, opines Tim Bontemps of the New York Post (Facebook link). Bontemps also noted that he expects New York to struggle to compete for the final playoff spot in the East, which would result in the possibility that the team would look to deal small forward Carmelo Anthony to a contender at the trade deadline.
- The majority of the Pistons‘ roster is now comprised of players acquired by executive/coach Stan Van Gundy, and this season’s focus will be in determining which of those players will have long-term futures with the team, writes Shaun Powell of NBA.com in his 30 Teams, 30 Days series.
- Sasha Kaun‘s two-year deal with the Cavaliers will see him earn $1,276,000 in 2015/16 and $1,333,240 during the final season, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). Both seasons are fully guaranteed, Pincus adds. Reports initially conflicted on whether the contract would include a player option, and Pincus confirms that it does not.
- Kendall Marshall will earn approximately $2.1MM this season courtesy of his deal with the Sixers, and his salary is fully guaranteed, Pincus tweets.
Cavs Talk Deal With No. 31 Pick Cedi Osman?
The Cavaliers recently met with small forward Cedi Osman, international journalist David Pick reports (Twitter link). Cleveland selected Osman with the No. 31 overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft after acquiring the pick from the Timberwolves along with the No. 36 overall selection in exchange for the rights to Tyus Jones, who was taken with the No. 24 pick.
It’s unclear where Osman fits in the Cavs’ plans for 2015/16, with the team already having 13 players possessing fully guaranteed deals, and a total roster count of 16. This doesn’t include Tristan Thompson, who may end up signing a one-year qualifying offer with the team. Cleveland’s depth chart at small forward begins, of course, with LeBron James, who will also spend time at power forward throughout the course of the season. The team also has Richard Jefferson and James Jones on hand for depth at the three spot.
Osman, 20, spent the 2014/15 campaign playing for the Turkish club Anadolu Efes. The forward made 27 appearances and averaged 6.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.1 assists to accompany a slash line of .397/.303/.667.
Cavs Sign Sasha Kaun
10:05am: Windhorst pegs the total value at $2.6MM (Twitter link).
9:42am: The two-year package is worth $2.5MM total, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
SEPTEMBER 9TH, 9:35am: The deal is official, the team announced. Kaun will make $1.2MM this season, as Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote recently.
7:38pm: Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com hears that the second year is not a player option, in contrast to what sources told Windhorst (Twitter link).
6:40pm: The contract gives Kaun a player option for the second year, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com.
AUGUST 22ND, 4:44pm: Kaun and the Cavs have reached an agreement on a two-year pact, international journalist David Pick reports (via Twitter).
AUGUST 17TH, 4:09pm: Draft-and-stash center Sasha Kaun appears on his way to the Cavaliers for this season, as a source tells Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com that “it’s only a matter of time” before a deal is done. Kaun and the Cavs had reportedly engaged in talks last month, and GM David Griffin confirmed the team’s interest in bringing the big man aboard for this coming season. Griffin pointed to finances as a concern, and while every dollar the Cavs spend this season will likely entail multiple additional dollars going out in tax penalties, Kaun downplayed any financial hurdles. Still, no deal is imminent, and Kaun, who’s in Cleveland this week to house hunt, among other pursuits, is scheduled to leave town Tuesday, and the sides probably won’t have an agreement in place by then, Haynes writes.
The Cavs can offer no more than the $1.276MM sliver of the mid-level exception they have left over after signing Mo Williams to his deal earlier this summer, and that’s much less than the $2.9MM he had been making for Russia’s CSKA Moscow. Using the balance of that exception on Kaun would also make it virtually impossible for Cleveland to offer a market-rate deal to Cedi Osman, whom the Cavs drafted No. 31 overall this year.
The 30-year-old Kaun, who played collegiately at Kansas, was the 56th overall pick in 2008. The Cavs have seemingly been giving thought to bringing him aboard for the season ahead since at least this past March. Cleveland reportedly had talks with the Nets about trading Kaun’s rights to Brooklyn, but it looks like the Cavs won’t be dealing him away. Cleveland has plenty of room on its roster, as Sunday’s apparent deal with Jared Cunningham gives the team contracts or verbal agreements with only 12 players. Re-signing Tristan Thompson remains the focus for the Cavs, Haynes notes.
Do you think Kaun is the right fit for one of the final roster spots on the Cavs? Leave a comment to tell us.
Eastern Notes: Smith, Johnson, Nets
J.R. Smith‘s two-year contract with the Cavaliers has become fully guaranteed for the 2015/16 season since he remained on Cleveland’s roster through Monday, as is shown by our schedule of salary guarantee dates, a date first reported by Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The 29-year-old’s pact had an initial partial guarantee of $2MM included at the time of signing. Smith’s unusual deal also includes a $2.15MM partial guarantee on the full $5.4MM value of next year’s salary, which will become fully guaranteed if he is still a member of the Cavs past September 7th, 2016.
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- Heat shooting guard Tyler Johnson has been cleared to return to full basketball activities, the team announced (via Twitter). The 23-year-old suffered a broken jaw back in July during Orlando Summer League play. Johnson, 23, will likely need a full training camp in to help him secure a regular season roster spot with the team since Miami has a roster count of 19, including 12 fully guaranteed pacts. The guard’s $845,059 salary for 2015/16 is partially guaranteed for $422,530.
- David West ‘s decision to jump ship and sign with the Spurs this offseason was the final push that the Pacers required to hit the reset button and begin a retool of the team, Mark Montieth of NBA.com writes in his mailbag. Indiana has added eight new players to its roster this offseason as a result, including Chase Budinger, Toney Douglas, Monta Ellis, Jordan Hill, Glenn Robinson III, and rookies Myles Turner, Joseph Young, and Rakeem Christmas.
- Former Nets majority owner Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Enterprises made a capital call today worth $26.8MM in order to preserve its 20% ownership stake in the team, Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com relays (Twitter links). Ratner’s group was facing a deadline of today to come up with the funds or have its ownership stake reduced to approximately 8%, Mazzeo notes. Mikhail Prokhorov is in the process of working toward a deal that would give him full ownership of both the team and the Barclays Center.
Three 2016 Max Offers Await Tristan Thompson?
Agent Rich Paul has heard from three teams that are willing to offer a maximum-salary contract to Tristan Thompson next summer if he hits unrestricted free agency, sources tell Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). Paul reportedly believes he can get a max deal from the Raptors for Thompson, a Toronto native, but it’s unclear if they are one of the three. The Trail Blazers and Sixers are the only teams capable of coming close to what the Cavs have offered this year, so Cleveland would appear to be largely in control of Thompson’s fate for the coming season. However, Paul has said that Thompson, who’s lingered in restricted free agency since July 1st, wouldn’t re-sign with the Cavs next summer if he were to sign his one-year qualifying offer of nearly $6.778MM, which is on the table from the Cavs until the end of this month.
The Cavs and Thompson’s camp have had little communication, if any, of late amid a separation of some $14MM in their respective proposals, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer told us last week. Thompson is looking for a five-year max deal, which would be worth $94,343,129, and the Cavs have offered $80MM over five years.
The value of Thompson’s qualifying offer is nearly $10MM less than what he would make on the starting salary of a max deal, but the power forward could nonetheless benefit financially from taking the qualifying offer if max offers from other teams are indeed waiting for him next year. Max salaries go up in accordance with the salary cap, and with the cap set to spike for 2016/17, next summer’s projected maximum for a player with Thompson’s experience is $20.4MM. With 4.5% raises over a four-year contract, the best terms he could get if he doesn’t re-sign with Cleveland, a max deal with a new team next summer would be worth a total of $87.108MM, based on that $20.4MM starting salary projection. Combined with the qualifying offer, Thompson would make almost as much going that route as he would signing a five-year max with Cleveland this year.
Of course, much can change between now and next July, and teams currently willing to pay the max have the right to change their minds based on Thompson’s performance this season as well as their own financial circumstances. Interest at the level of salaries exceeding $20MM seem tenuous at best for a player who came off the bench for most of this past season and scored only 8.5 points per game, despite his pedigree as the No. 4 overall pick in 2011. The Cavs have Kevin Love and Timofey Mozgov at the inside positions, so Thompson would seemingly be in line for a return to the bench after he started in place of an injured Love during the postseason.
Do you think teams will be willing to offer Tristan Thompson the max next summer? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Cavaliers To Sign D.J. Stephens
High-flying swingman D.J. Stephens has agreed to a training camp deal with the Cavaliers, a league source tells Hoops Rumors. Stephens appeared in three contests for the Bucks while on a 10-day contract in 2013/14 and he’ll now look to get back to NBA action with Cleveland in 2015/16.
Last fall, Stephens inked a non-guaranteed minimum-salary camp deal with the Pelicans and was among the team’s final cuts about a week before Halloween. In December, the Keith Kreiter client signed on with Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed a starting role. In 31 games (28 starts) between the VTB United League and Eurocup play, the 24-year-old averaged 7.0 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 57.7% from the floor in 22.7 minutes per game. The defensive specialist also tallied 21 steals and 26 blocks over the course of 31 appearances last year.
Stephens went undrafted out of the University of Memphis in 2013, even though his 46-inch vertical leap at the draft combine set an all-time record that still stands, as DraftExpress shows. He never averaged double figures in points during his four years at Memphis, but he used his athleticism on the other end of the floor, winning the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year award in his senior season. In 2013/14, the strong defender played in 25 combined games with Ilisiakos BC of Greece and Anadolu Efes of Turkey and averaged 8.4 PPG and 7.0 RPG in 23.8 MPG.
Cavs Expected To Bring Quinn Cook To Camp
SEPTEMBER 7TH, 4:23pm: The Cavs are expected to sign Cook for camp, but they’ve yet to finalize a deal, tweets Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders.
11:35am: Cook hasn’t agreed to any deal yet, though the idea of joining the Cavs isn’t off the table, according to Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links). Cleveland has made an offer, but he’s considering it along with offers from others, Kyler also tweets.
AUGUST 18TH, 10:03am: The Cavaliers have agreed to sign undrafted point guard Quinn Cook to a non-guaranteed deal for training camp, reports Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com. He joins Jared Cunningham among those who’ll reportedly join the Cavs for camp, and Cleveland is also apparently likely to sign draft-and-stash center Sasha Kaun. The formal addition of all three would bring the Cavs roster to 14 players, not including Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith, who linger in free agency.
Cook was a mainstay over four years at Duke and flourished as a senior, averaging 15.3 points, 2.6 assists and 1.2 turnovers in 35.8 minutes per game. He played off the ball this past season next to Tyus Jones, who was this year’s 24th overall pick even though he saw fewer minutes per contest than the undrafted Cook. The seemingly superior upside of Jones, who was a freshman in 2014/15, carries appeal, though Cook is still only 22 years old.
The Jim Tanner client split summer league between the Thunder and the Cavs, averaging 7.9 PPG, 3.3 APG and 1.8 TOPG in 18.5 MPG across nine appearances overall. Cook told Zach Links of Hoops Rumors prior to the draft that he was working to become a better finisher, defender, and shooter off the dribble.
Central Notes: Kaun, Irving, Baynes, Pistons
The first season of Sasha Kaun’s two-year deal with the Cavaliers will be valued at $1.2MM, according to Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer. That’ll come out of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, since the rookie minimum is only $525,093. The Cavs had been carrying a $1.276MM portion of the mid-level after signing Mo Williams, so it appears they’re using most of the rest on Kaun. Cleveland believes it’s important to sign the 30-year-old center for two seasons because of uncertainty among its centers and power forwards, Pluto writes. Tristan Thompson remains unsigned and is rumored to be considering a one-year deal. Timofey Mozgov will become an unrestricted free agent next summer and could get an offer in excess of $100MM. Anderson Varejao and Kevin Love are both coming off serious injuries, and the Cavaliers may want to limit their playing time early in the season, so they may need Kaun to contribute right away.
There’s more from the Central Division:
- Despite the decent chance that Kyrie Irving is out until January, the Cavs expect he’ll be ready to play before then, Pluto writes in the same story. The star guard, who is recovering from a fractured kneecap suffered during the NBA Finals, can also expect to see a minutes restriction once he returns to action. The signing of Williams allows the team to take some of the strain off Irving.
- Aron Baynes could be an important addition for the Pistons as a backup to Andre Drummond, writes David Mayo of MLive. Responding to a question in his mailbag column, Mayo said he expects Baynes, who signed with Detroit as a free agent this summer, to outperform the numbers he put up in San Antonio. Mayo mentions Spencer Dinwiddie, who will be the backup point guard to start the season with Brandon Jennings still recovering from an Achilles injury, as another player who could surprise.
- In the same piece, Mayo picks Reggie Bullock and Adonis Thomas as the most likely “on the bubble” players to earn a spot on Detroit’s roster. The Pistons currently have 17 players with fully guaranteed contracts.