Cavs Offer First-Round Pick For Timofey Mozgov
The Cavs targeted Timofey Mozgov, offering a first-round pick to the Nuggets to entice them to part with the 7’1″ center, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports said in an appearance Thursday on WFAN Radio in New York, according to Tommy Beer of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). It’s not clear whether that offer remains on the table for Denver, but the Cavs, who are over the cap and without a trade exception, would have to send salary to the Nuggets in order for such an exchange to be feasible under the league’s salary matching rules. The Kevin Love trade agreement, in its current form, wouldn’t change that.
Cleveland has been eyeing big men to supplement Love and Anderson Varejao, as Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio reported Thursday. Mozgov would be a potential starter, having made 30 starts for the Nuggets this past season to go along with career highs in points (9.4), rebounds (6.4) and minutes (21.6) per game. The 28-year-old sealed off the rim, notching 2.0 blocks per 36 minutes, and his 16.7 PER demonstrated above-average efficiency. He’ll make $4.65MM this coming season, and his contract includes a $4.95MM team option for 2015/16.
Still, the Cavs have faith that Brendan Haywood, whom they acquired last month from the Hornets, can contribute this season, as Amico noted in the same report. Haywood’s unusually structured contract will also become an intriguing trade asset next summer, as I explained.
The Nuggets are halfway through a four-year, $44MM deal with center JaVale McGee, and Denver’s management has been anxious for him to get minutes. He’s returning from having missed most of last season because of injury, and the team also has Jusuf Nurkic, this year’s No. 16 overall pick, at center. J.J. Hickson is another option at the position, even though he’s undersized.
MarShon Brooks Signs To Play In Italy
FRIDAY, 7:54am: The deal is official, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
THURSDAY, 4:19pm: Free agent swingman MarShon Brooks has reached agreement to join Olimpia Milano of Italy, Sportando’s Enea Trapani reports. Trapani earlier reported the deal was likely after Shams Charania of RealGM first broke news of the talks. The terms aren’t immediately clear, but it figures to be a fairly lucrative arrangement, since the Pacers, Kings and a title-contending team from the NBA’s Eastern Conference were all in pursuit, according to a separate report from Charania earlier this week.
Brooks finished last season with the Lakers, but it appeared unlikely he would remain in purple-and-gold as free agency began. A report in late June indicated that he was the only one of the team’s plethora of free agents who was certain not to return, and a dispatch on the third day of free agency noted that he was the only Lakers free agent to whom the team hadn’t reached out. The Lakers renounced his rights in mid-July, and Brooks changed agents, hiring Wallace Prather, who reportedly tried to sell the Heat on his new client, though it’s unclear if Miami reciprocated the interest.
The Nets made heavy use of Brooks in his rookie season, putting the 25th overall pick from the 2011 draft on the floor for 29.4 minutes per game and watching him pile up 12.6 points per contest in spite of inefficiency that resulted in a 12.9 PER. A more veteran-laden roster pushed Brooks into the background the following season, and after the Nets shipped him to Boston in last summer’s Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett blockbuster, the Celtics declined the fourth-year option on his rookie scale contract. That set Brooks up for his unrestricted free agency this summer, even though his 15.5 PER this past season represented his second consecutive improvement in that category. Brooks was traded twice this season, spending a brief spell with the Warriors before ending up with the Lakers.
And-Ones: Durant, Shved, Warriors, Love
Kevin Durant has withdrawn from the USA Men’s National Basketball team, the Thunder announced. There’s no indication that the reigning MVP’s decision to pull his name from summer competition has anything to do with the season-ending injury Paul George sustained in a scrimmage earlier this month, but the move will certainly help Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti sleep easier at night. More from around the Association:
- Alexey Shved‘s agent wouldn’t take umbrage if the Wolves struck a deal to move his client, passes along David Pick of Eurobasket.com (on Twitter). Reports have indicated that Minnesota has been looking to trade Shved.
- Warriors coach Steve Kerr thinks the makeup of his team is by and large set for the upcoming season, as he tells Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
“All indications are that this is the group we’re going forward with, but you never say never,” Kerr said. “You never know what’s going to happen, and ultimately that’s not my job… but there’s no question that we feel very confident and comfortable with the group that we have.” - At least one Eastern Conference executive credits LeBron James as a major catalyst behind the Kevin Love deal, writes Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “They are putting all these pieces around LeBron, saying, ‘We’re trying to win it now,’” the executive said. “And I’m sure that was part of LeBron’s wish for when he went back there. LeBron has juice in Cleveland.”
- Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com explores why Love’s presence in Cleveland will only further complicate Phil Jackson‘s quest to turn the Knicks into a championship-caliber club.
Pacific Notes: Thompson, Love, Nedovic, Scott
The Warriors’ reluctance to include Klay Thompson in any trade talks with the Wolves allowed Cleveland to beat out Golden State in the Kevin Love sweepstakes. The W’s will put forth a solid group next year nonetheless, but it’s one that will look largely the same as last year’s cast that got bounced by the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. Let’s round up the latest from the west coast..
- Dealing for Love would have been a defining moment in Bob Myers‘ tenure as Warriors GM, argues Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News, who isn’t sure the decision to hang on to Klay Thompson was the right course of action. The Bay Area News scribe thinks that if Thompson and Harrison Barnes can develop into stud players, then Myers will have made the right choice.
- Nemanja Nedovic‘s foot injury likely won’t force him to miss extended time, as Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters, including Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group. Golden State signed Aaron Craft to a partially guaranteed deal yesterday, presumably as a backup plan if Nedovic isn’t ready for the start of the 2014/15 season.
- First-year Lakers coach Byron Scott wouldn’t go as far as to suggest his team would make the playoffs in the upcoming season, but he spoke on The Dan Patrick Show and said the Lakers were going to surprise LA-naysayers, writes Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times.
Reaction To Kevin Love Trade Agreement
The big news of the day was the reported agreement between the Cavaliers and the Timberwolves, which would send Kevin Love to Cleveland for Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, and a protected 2015 first-round pick. Here’s the latest commentary from around the league regarding the soon-to-be blockbuster trade:
- Potential carries no guarantees, writes Bill Livingston of the Plain Dealer, who applauds the Cavs’ decision to turn consecutive No. 1 overall draft picks into Love, a proven veteran.
- Love could bolt after one season, just like LeBron James, but odds are he won’t, and one of Cavs owner Dan Gilbert’s guiding principles in business is to pounce on an opportunity even if it’s not perfect, as fellow Plain Dealer scribe Terry Pluto points out.
- The Timberwolves’ 2014/15 season will be about their core of young talent trying to reach their potential, writes Tom Powers of the Pioneer Press.
- During his time in Minnesota, Love has been criticized for his poor defense, the perception that he wasn’t a team player, and the Wolves failure to reach the playoffs. Now that he’ll be playing alongside a much more talented cast, Love is officially out of excuses, writes Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report.
- The trade cannot become official until August 23rd at the earliest. Yannis Koutroupis of Basketball Insiders runs down five things you need to know about the deal.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Pistons Hire Quentin Richardson For Staff
5:18pm: The hiring is now official, the team announced via press release.
10:20am: Pistons president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy plans to hire Quentin Richardson for a role that would include player development and mentorship duties, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Presumably, the job would mark the end of Richardson’s 13-year NBA playing career.
The former McDonald’s All-American emerged as a valuable swingman for the Clippers in the early 2000s, setting a career high with 17.2 points per game in 2003/04. He led the NBA in three-pointers made the next season as a member of the Suns. He averaged 10.3 points and 35.5% three-point shooting during his time in the league that also included stops with the Knicks, Heat and Magic. He played in just one regular season game and five playoff contests during 2012/13, his final season in the NBA, when the Knicks signed him shortly before the postseason. They shipped him to Toronto as part of the Andrea Bargnani deal the next summer, and the Raptors released him before training camp this past fall.
That swap was the sixth trade in which Richardson had been involved during his career, the most notable of which was the one that briefly sent him back to the Clippers in 2009 and allowed the Grizzlies to acquire Zach Randolph. He made more than $63MM as an NBA player, according to Basketball-Reference.
NBA Middle Class Deals
The NBA’s middle class might not be vanishing, but it is not robust. There has been no evidence of drastic change in the willingness of teams to hand out middle class deals over the past few years, as team sources and former interim players union executive director Ron Klempner told Grantland’s Zach Lowe for a piece published in April. Lowe defined a middle class deal as one with annual salaries that fell between $5MM and $10MM. There have been 108 signings or agreements between free agents and NBA teams so far this summer, according to our Free Agent Tracker, and 20 of them fall with Lowe’s range. But the equation changes with a slight alteration to the definition of middle class.
The NBA’s non-taxpayer mid-level exception this season calls for a deal with a starting salary of up to $5.305MM. The most a player could receive through this exception is slightly more than $22.652MM over four years. That works out to an average annual value of about $5.663MM. That’s strikingly close to the league’s $5.632MM estimated average salary for 2014/15 season. The average annual value of a four-year mid-level deal would nonetheless likely end up beneath the NBA average salary over the full span of the contract, since average salaries have risen each season since the first one under the latest collective bargaining agreement. That equation isn’t different even for a player who signs a shorter mid-level contract, since the 4.5% annual raises involved in a mid-level deal boost the average annual value of longer such contracts. The average annual value of a two-year mid-level deal, for instance, is only about $5.425MM, beneath this year’s estimated average salary.
The exception is a tool that teams can use without opening cap space. If we remove the deals that would have fit within the parameters of the mid-level and instead define middle class deals as those that come in above the mid-level amount, only 12 of this year’s signings and agreements fit the middle class criteria. That means teams have been largely unwilling to commit cap space to players making more than the mid-level but less than eight-figure salaries.
There’s an even more profound dearth of pacts in the next bracket. Teams have handed out only three contracts with starting salaries of at least $10MM but less than $14.746MM, the maximum salary for a player with fewer than seven years of experience. This sort of “upper middle class” deal has been exceedingly difficult for players to find this year.
I’ve listed this year’s middle class deals here, grouped by tier and listed in descending order of average annual value. The salaries are rounded to the nearest $1K.
Upper middle class ($10MM or more but less than $14.746MM)
- Marcin Gortat, Wizards: Five years, $60MM
- Chandler Parsons, Mavericks: Three years, $46,085MM
- Kyle Lowry, Raptors: Four years, $48MM
Above mid-level deals (More than mid-level exception, less than $10MM)
- Luol Deng, Heat: Two years, $19.86MM
- Lance Stephenson, Hornets: Three years, $27.405MM
- Jordan Hill, Lakers: Two years, $18MM
- Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks: Three years, $25MM
- Trevor Ariza, Rockets: Four years, $32MM
- Channing Frye, Magic: Four years, $32MM
- Avery Bradley, Celtics: Four years, $32MM
- Boris Diaw, Spurs: Four years, $28MM
- Marvin Williams, Hornets: Two years, $14MM
- Isaiah Thomas, Suns: Four years, $27MM
- Greivis Vasquez, Raptors: Two years, $13MM
- Jodie Meeks, Pistons: Three years, $18.81MM
Mid-level and near-mid-level ($5MM to mid-level exception)
- Spencer Hawes, Clippers: Four years, $22.652MM
- Josh McRoberts, Heat: Four years, $22.652MM
- Shaun Livingston, Warriors: Three years, $16.631MM
- *P.J. Tucker, Suns: Three years, $16.5MM
- Paul Pierce, Wizards: Two years, $10.849MM
- Chris Andersen, Heat: Two years, $10.4MM
- Nick Young, Lakers: Four years, $21.326MM
- Darren Collison, Kings: Three years, $15.041MM
* — The salaries in Tucker’s deal descend over the life of the contract, so his first-year salary exceeds the amount of the mid-level, while the average annual value comes in at less than the mid-level.
ShamSports and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.
And-Ones: Kings, Felton, Knicks, Singleton, Oden
Lost in the noise surrounding the agreement between the Cavs and Wolves to send Kevin Love to Cleveland is a trade that actually became official Wednesday. The Kings can create a pair of trade exceptions from their deal with the Knicks, one worth $915,243 for Quincy Acy‘s salary, and another worth $228,660 for the difference between the salaries of Travis Outlaw and Wayne Ellington. The Knicks, limited in part because they’re a taxpaying team, can only make a tiny trade exception worth $32,920 for the difference between the three-year veteran’s minimum that Jeremy Tyler makes and the two-year veteran’s minimum that’s coming to Acy. Here’s more on the Knicks and other teams and players from around the league:
- Mavs point guard Raymond Felton will serve a four-game suspension at the start of the regular season for his guilty plea to gun-related charges stemming from a February incident, the league announced via press release.
- Knicks GM Steve Mills didn’t rule out further moves, but he said Wednesday that the team is satisfied with its backcourt situation after alleviating a logjam with the trade, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com chronicles.
- The Wizards no longer have free agent Chris Singleton in their plans, a source tells J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Singleton nonetheless turned down an overseas offer in hopes of landing an NBA job, and has dropped agent Bill Duffy of BDA Sports in favor of Todd Ramasar from Stealth Sports, Michael also reports.
- The Heat were unlikely to re-sign Greg Oden before his arrest this morning on misdemeanor battery charges, and the incident probably ends any chance he had of returning to the team, as Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel writes in a pair of tweets.
- Mark Deeks of ShamSports clarifies an earlier report indicating that Jusuf Nurkic received less than the standard 120% of the rookie scale from the Nuggets. Denver is doling out the full 120%, but the team is using a portion of it to pay Nurkic’s buyout from his Croatian club, so while Nurkic is receiving less than 120% of the scale in actual salary, his cap figure will reflect that the Nuggets are paying 120%. The move is not unprecedented for a player picked as highly as Nurkic, who went 16th overall.
Fallout From Kevin Love Trade Agreement
The time between now and August 23rd, when the Kevin Love trade agreement can become an official transaction, makes it possible that the deal could fall apart, but the Cavs and Wolves are under “enormous pressure” to honor the pact, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. A source tells Berger that Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders would listen if the Warriors decided to offer Klay Thompson, but Golden State has been steadfastly against doing so. The Warriors haven’t spoken with Minnesota for weeks, according to Berger, and Sam Amick of USA Today hears that Golden State doesn’t intend to jump back into the fray (Twitter link). Here are more aftershocks from the Love deal:
- Even if the Warriors did offer up Thompson to Minnesota, it wouldn’t cause the Cavs deal to come apart, as the Wolves prefer what Cleveland is set to send them, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press.
Earlier updates:
- The Wolves gave the Cavs permission more than two weeks ago to negotiate with Love about a long-term future with the Cavs, reports Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune. There are conflicting reports about whether Love has committed to signing a max deal with Cleveland next summer.
- Minnesota maintains interest in Thaddeus Young, but the Wolves wouldn’t end up sending Anthony Bennett to Philadelphia if such a deal materializes, Zgoda writes in the same piece. Minnesota hopes instead to ship the 2015 first-rounder it’s acquiring from Cleveland in the Love trade to the Sixers for Young, Zgoda writes. The Wolves would also like to shed J.J. Barea and Luc Mbah a Moute in a deal for Young, according to Zgoda, who speculates that Minnesota might include Shabazz Muhammad, too.
- Kevin Martin was in plenty of Love rumors, but there’s no indication that the Wolves are looking to trade him or Corey Brewer, Zgoda tweets.
- Most around the league believe that the addition of Love will convince Ray Allen to sign with Cleveland at some point before camp, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, and Chris Broussard of ESPN.com tweets that he heard weeks ago that Allen would come aboard if the Cavs traded for Love. Still, Allen has dismissed similar rumors and his criteria for signing with a team appear to exclude the Cavs, as I explained Wednesday.
- The Cavs aren’t looking to trade Dion Waiters, who was one of the first within the Cavs organization to whom LeBron James spoke after he made his decision to return from the Heat, Amico writes in his piece.
- Cleveland is targeting big men, but the team has faith that Brendan Haywood can contribute, as Amico also notes.
Heat Sign Tyler Johnson
THURSDAY, 11:37am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
WEDNESDAY, 2:48pm: It will be a two-year contract, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (on Twitter).
9:13am: The Heat and former Fresno State guard Tyler Johnson have struck a deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Hoops Rumors reported last week that Johnson had been drawing interest from multiple NBA teams who were impressed with his showing on Miami’s summer league roster. The terms of the deal aren’t immediately clear, though the Heat can hand out no more than a two-year contract for the minimum salary.
Johnson averaged 12.5 points in 22.7 minutes per game across 10 summer league appearances after going undrafted this past June. He notched 15.9 PPG in 33.6 MPG with 43.2% shooting from behind the three-point line this past season as a senior with the Bulldogs.
The Heat will surely make more additions between now and the start of camp, but as it stands, the client of agent Pedro Power seems to have a decent chance of making the opening-night roster, since Miami only has contracts or agreements with 13 other players. Only 11 of them have fully guaranteed deals.