Heat Sign Shawne Williams
The Heat have signed forward Shawne Williams, the team announced. Miami is limited to shelling out only the minimum salary, but it’s not clear how long the deal is for or whether the salary for the former 17th overall pick is guaranteed.
Williams spent 36 games with the Lakers last season, most of them coming while he was on a non-guaranteed deal at the start the season. The team cut him loose just before the deal was to become fully guaranteed and re-signed him to a 10-day contract after he spent time in the D-League. He was out of the NBA during the 2012/13 season, and he’s more than three years removed from his most productive campaign, when he averaged 7.1 points in 20.7 minutes per game and shot 40.1% from behind the three-point arc for the 2010/11 Knicks. The career 33.3% three-point shooter hasn’t been able to duplicate that sort of marksmanship since.
The Heat had been carrying only 10 guaranteed contracts and 12 players total, so the signing helps them bolster their roster, and Williams appears to have a strong chance to make it to opening-night. The 28-year-old is a client of Relativity Sports agent Happy Walters, as our Agency Database shows.
Nuggets Sign Erick Green
AUGUST 1ST: The deal is official, the team announced.
JULY 26TH, 7:51pm: Green’s three-year contract is non-guaranteed, as detailed on Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus’ salary sheet for the Nuggets, coming in at $2,332,826 of total salary.
FRIDAY, 7:55am: Green signed his contract with the Nuggets on Thursday, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to announce the deal.
THURSDAY, 2:20pm: It’ll be a three-year deal for Green, the 46th pick in last year’s draft, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports tweets. That means Denver will use a portion of its mid-level exception to complete the signing.
WEDNESDAY, 8:06pm: After a strong summer league showing, Erick Green will sign a multi-year deal with the Nuggets, reports Nikos Varlas of Eurohoops (hat tip to Sportando). The Virginia Tech product played for Italy’s Mens Sana Siena last season after being selected by Utah in the second round of the 2013 NBA Draft (his rights were then traded to Denver). Green averaged 11.5 points on 51 percent shooting in 28 games for Siena last season, helping to lead the team to the seventh game of the Italian finals.
Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post confirms the deal, writing that Green will likely fill the team’s need for a third point guard behind Ty Lawson and Nate Robinson. As Dempsey notes, Green averaged 16.6 points, 3.0 boards and 2.6 assists per game for the Nuggets this summer, in turn convincing the team that he was capable of handling point guard duties in the NBA. His scoring ability was likely never in doubt, as the 23-year-old was the leading scorer among Division I players in his final season in Blacksburg.
The financial terms of the deal are not yet known, though the original report indicates that the pact will extend beyond one year. After adding Gary Harris in the draft and Arron Afflalo via trade, the signing of Green currently puts the Nuggets’ roster at 14 players. Denver also selected international prospects Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic in June, though it is unclear if either will play for the team this season.
2014/15 Roster Counts
There are two months to go until training camps opens, and we’ve already seen players invited to camps on non-guaranteed contracts. In some cases, those deals have taken their respective teams over the 15-man regular season roster limit. That’s OK this time of year, since teams can carry as many as 20 players in the offseason. Clubs must pare their rosters down to no more than 15 by opening night.
In the meantime, several teams will hang above that 15-man line. Some clubs may have more than 15 contracts that are at least partially guaranteed. That means they’ll wind up paying a player who won’t be on the regular season roster, unless they can find trade partners.
With more movement to come, here’s the latest look at each team’s roster size. Check out our schedule of guarantee dates for more information and to see the names of specific players without fully guaranteed deals.
(Updated 9-19-14)
- 76ers (17): 8 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 5 non-guaranteed
- Bucks (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Micheal Eric)
- Bulls (13): 12 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed
- Cavaliers (19): 12 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (1 unknown-Lou Amundson)
- Celtics (21*): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed (4 unknown – Evan Turner, Tim Frazier, Rodney McGruder, Christian Watford)
- Clippers (17): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (2 unknown – DeAndre Liggins, Jared Cunningham)
- Grizzlies (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Hawks (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Elton Brand)
- Heat (19): 11 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Hornets (15): 14 fully guaranteed (1 unknown – Dallas Lauderdale)
- Jazz (18): 13 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Kings (18): 11 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 5 non-guaranteed
- Knicks (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed
- Lakers (15): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Roscoe Smith)
- Magic (19): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (3 unknown – Seth Curry, Kadeem Batts, Drew Crawford)
- Mavericks (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Nets (17): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Michael Jenkins)
- Nuggets (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed
- Pacers (19): 13 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Pelicans (18): 12 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed
- Pistons (16): 16 fully guaranteed
- Raptors (17): 13 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed
- Rockets (19): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (2 unknown – Tarik Black, Francisco Garcia)
- Spurs (17): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed
- Suns (16): 13 fully guaranteed (3 unknown – Earl Barron, Casey Prather, Joe Jackson)
- Thunder (15): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Timberwolves (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
- Trail Blazers (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
- Warriors (18): 13 fully guaranteed, 5 partially guaranteed
- Wizards (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
* — The Celtics have formal contracts with 20 players, but they’ve yet to make their deal with Evan Turner official. They’ll have to get rid of at least one of their 20 players under contract before they can formalize their pact with Turner.
Several NBA Teams Eyeing Dahntay Jones
AUGUST 1ST: The Wizards were indeed present at the workout, but they don’t have interest in signing Jones, reports Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post (Twitter link).
JULY 30TH: The Kings, Cavs, Spurs, Thunder and Wizards were all in attendance at a workout that Jones held today in Las Vegas, tweets Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. Between 15 and 20 NBA clubs were set to take a look at him this week, as Kennedy reported earlier this month.
JULY 21ST: Ten-year NBA veteran Dahntay Jones is set to work out for the Knicks and Sixers this week, and in addition to a reported meeting with the Clippers earlier this month, he also worked out for that team, too, as Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports. The shooting guard and Mark Bartelstein client is close with former Nuggets teammate Carmelo Anthony, though New York’s addition of Jones would only add to a logjam at the two-guard that Knicks GM Steve Mills has already publicly acknowledged.
The Knicks are apparently discussing trades involving J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to clear up that position, as we noted Sunday. New York also worked out Jones this past February, seemingly the closest brush that the now 33-year-old had with the NBA last season after the Bulls waived him early in the preseason. Still, that was before the arrival of Knicks team president Phil Jackson, and what attracts the team to Jones now is his competitiveness and leadership, according to Isola.
The Knicks, now as they were in February, are limited to the minimum salary, and the Clippers are similarly hamstrung. The Sixers have ample cap room to use on Jones, but it’s nonetheless unlikely that he’ll warrant any better than a guaranteed minimum-salary contract. He’s averaged 5.6 points in 16.3 minutes per game over his career, and put up 3.4 PPG in 13.0 MPG in 2012/13, his last NBA season.
Eastern Notes: LeBron, Wade, Monroe, Bucks
Dwyane Wade said today that he didn’t try to recruit LeBron James back to the Heat when the two spent time together shortly before the four-time MVP announced his decision to sign with Cleveland, as Wade told reporters, including Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post. James didn’t tell Wade about his decision until after their time traveling back to Miami from Las Vegas, according to Wade, but James dropped enough hints to make his choice apparent.
“We had a long flight back from Vegas,” Wade said. “I probably knew then, without him telling me at that moment. You could tell where someone’s heart is and what they’re thinking. I kind of knew at that moment. As his friend, I’m just supportive. As crazy as that might sound, I’m supportive of my friend doing what makes them happy. Obviously same thing with him in this situation. You’ve gotta do what makes you happy — selfishly do what makes you happy. The decision to go back home was that.”
There’s more from Wade amid the latest from the Eastern Conference:
- Wade also said that he wanted to be with a winning team more than he wanted the money he sacrificed when he opted out of his contract and re-signed with the Heat on a discount deal, as Lieser notes. Wade is convinced that the total of $10.694MM over the next two seasons that the transactions cost him gives Miami a better chance at success. (Twitter links).
- Greg Monroe‘s interest in returning to the Pistons isn’t too strong, but while Detroit talked with the Hawks and perhaps the Suns about sign-and-trades involving him, those teams have moved on, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports told podcaster Aime Mukendi Jr. Buddy Grizzard of Hawks/Hoop provides the transcription.
- The Bucks gave second-round pick Johnny O’Bryant $600K in the first year of an otherwise minimum-salary contract, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). Milwaukee used part of its cap space to complete the deal with this year’s 36th overall pick.
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