Hoops Rumors Features
Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren’t the only updates you’ll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you’ll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here’s a rundown of a few of them:
- We’re looking ahead to the October 31st rookie scale extension deadline with our Rookie Scale Extension Primer, and we examine some of the more noteworthy cases in depth with our Extension Candidate Series.
- That same October 31st deadline applies to team options on rookie scale contracts, and we’ve categorized the likelihood that each option will be exercised.
- Our Free Agent Tracker provides an array of sorting tools to help you sift through all of the training camp signings throughout the league as well as look back on more notable deals from the offseason.
- There’s still one player among the top 10 in our Free Agent Power Rankings without a deal for the coming season, and other notables who remain unsigned are a part of our full list of 2014 free agents. We’ve profiled several of them with our Free Agent Stock Watch series.
- We’re also keeping track of the 2015 free agents as the ability for LeBron James, Kevin Love, Rajon Rondo, Marc Gasol and others to hit the market next year begins to affect the landscape of the league. Some teams are already looking ahead to the summer after that, when Kevin Durant is scheduled to hit free agency, so we’ve listed him and the other 2016 free agents.
- Our agency database is a handy reference point for determining the representation for virtually every NBA player.
- We’ll be keeping track of the size of each team’s roster throughout the season in our Roster Counts post, so you’ll know at a glance whether your team has the flexibility necessary to make a move.
- See the assets that changed hands in every trade that’s become official this summer with our list of offseason trades.
- Our register of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is created, used or expires.
- Several teams can pay no more than the minimum salary to any free agent signee for the coming season. Our updated list identifies these clubs.
- See how far each team has come toward accomplishing the goals we outlined in our Offseason Outlook series, which provides a detailed look at where all 30 NBA teams stood going into the summer.
- Eddie Scarito recapped and graded the draft from the perspective of every team. He broke it down into divisions (Atlantic, Central, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, Pacific).
- Eddie’s also looking back on notable trades from the past several years to see how they’ve panned out over time. His Trade Retrospective Series recently examined the deals that sent James Harden to the Rockets, LaMarcus Aldridge to the Blazers and Shaquille O’Neal to the Heat.
- Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed this year or in any season since the 2006/07. You can sort by player, team, year and other variables.
- We give you a turn in the spotlight when we showcase the best reader comments with our Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback posts.
- On Wednesdays at 3:00pm CT, I answer reader questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of our past discussions here.
- We’re tracking each team’s use of the amnesty clause. Our complete table shows which clubs have used the provision and which still have it available.
- The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. Recently, I added entries on summer contracts and Exhibit 9 contracts, the sorts of deals that teams are handing out to training camp invitees this month.
- Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere with Hoops Links on Sundays.
- If you’re looking to catch up, our Week in Review posts compile the top news and rumors from the past seven days, while our Hoops Rumors Originals posts recap the site’s original content for the week. Both roundups are published every Sunday.
- Be sure to check out the Featured Posts section on the right sidebar for more original pieces from the Hoops Rumors writing team. Recently, Zach went one-on-one with recent Bucks signee Elijah Millsap, and I examined the more frequent use of the stretch provision around the NBA and identified a leaguewide decline in lucrative one-year deals.
James Nunnally To Play In Spain
Former Hawks and Sixers small forward James Nunnally has signed with Estudiantes of Spain, the Spanish ACB league announced (on Twitter; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The terms are unclear, but that presumably takes him out of the running to join an NBA team for training camp. The 24-year-old was reportedly one of a handful of players to work out for the Lakers last week.
Nunnally signed a pair of 10-day contracts with both Atlanta and Philadelphia last year, as our 10-Day Tracker shows, but neither team followed with a contract that covered the rest of 2013/14. He averaged 3.4 points in 12.7 minutes per game in the 13 NBA contests in which he appeared last season, but he saw more extensive action in the D-League, just as he did in 2012/13, his first season as a pro after he went undrafted out of UC Santa Barbara in 2012. Still, he’s consistently remained on the NBA radar, having worked out earlier in the offseason for the Warriors and Jazz and having spent time with the Pacers, Heat and Mavs during summer league this year. He was a widely sought-after camp invitee last fall before he finally chose to spend the preseason with the Suns.
Heading to Spain will make it more difficult for NBA scouts and executives to keep tabs on his game, but he certainly won’t vanish from their sights, given the strength of the ACB league. Nunnally joins Ryan Gomes, Orlando Johnson, Tornike Shengelia and Dwight Buycks among the players who found deals in the ACB league after appearing in the NBA last season.
Hawks Rumors: Tuesday
It’s been a tumultuous and unusual offseason, as a pair of race-related scandals have rocked the league’s front offices. The tempest surrounding the Clippers appears to be mostly in the past, with Steve Ballmer firmly in control of the franchise, but the Hawks remain in limbo, with GM Danny Ferry on indefinite leave and the primary stake in the team up for sale. The league “can’t have another summer like we’ve had this year,” as longtime executive Wayne Embry tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post, so while we wait for clarity from Atlanta, here’s the latest on the Hawks situation:
10:30pm update:
- Gearon Jr. approached Levenson about selling the franchise within the past year, writes Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today, who adds that the controlling owner wasn’t interested at that time.
- According to Zillgitt’s sources, Gearon Jr. and Ferry have long been at odds. Ferry was originally hesitant to take the job as Hawks GM before Levenson alleviated his concerns about the front office working environment by making it clear Ferry would report directly to him.
- The resulting working relationship between Levenson and Ferry bothered Gearon Jr., who called for Ferry’s dismissal via a letter to Levenson after the GM’s racist comments were discovered internally: “If Ferry’s comments are ever made public, and it’s a safe bet they will someday, it could be fatal to the franchise.”
- Only a brief snippet of the audio recorded by Gearon Jr. has been made available and there is no full transcript of the call, Zillgitt reports. The NBA has requested a full transcript but one has not been provided.
- Also in the letter from Gearon Jr. to Levenson were accusations that Ferry wasn’t mindful of maintaining racial diversity within the organization: “The racial diversity of our management team has changed for the worse since Ferry took over.” Zillgitt challenges those claims citing statistics from the 2014 Racial and Gender Report Card for the NBA and also hears from an owner, presumably from another NBA team, who expressed concern over the prospect of Gearon Jr. becoming the controlling owner in Atlanta. An agent told Zillgitt that he wonders whether he can trust Gearon Jr. not to record their conversations.
4:39pm update:
- Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed held a press conference today regarding the Hawks situation and the search for new ownership for the franchise. Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran down the important points from the event.
- Reed said that the city would play a role in finding new ownership for the franchise, and that he has already spoken with six potential buyers, all of whom have sufficient resources to acquire the team.
- The mayor declined to name the prospective buyers, though he did say that one is from China, Vivlamore tweets.
- In regards to the city’s role in finding new ownership, Reed said, “The city is going to play an important role in the buyer who purchases Mr. [Bruce] Levenson’s interest. Obviously, we have a vital interest as the owner of Philips Arena and the holder of the debt on Philips Arena in making sure that we get a terrific partner in the city of Atlanta. We also have an interest in making sure that the new buyer wants to keep the team in the city and in the city. Let me be clear what that means. In the city and in the city. That means that a prospective owner that receives my support, and I believe the support of the Atlanta City Council, will make a long-term commitment to keep the Atlanta Hawks in the city of Atlanta and will make a long-term commitment not to move the franchise. I want to publicly state from the city’s perspective that is going to be our perspective to whomever the prospective owners are.”
- According to Reed, Levenson, the team’s controlling owner, owns 24 percent of the Hawks individually. Along with his partners Ed Peskowitz and Todd Foreman of the Washington Group, the trio own 50.1 percent of the franchise. Both Peskowitz and Foreman intend to sell their portions of the team.
- The Atlanta contingent of owners, Michael Gearon Jr., Michael Gearon Sr., and Rutherford Seydel, intend to keep their stakes in the franchise.
- Reed relayed that the NBA has hired an investment banking firm to begin vetting prospective buyers, and he is scheduled to meet with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to discuss the sale on September 26th. Reed expects the sale process to move along quickly.
- Dominique Wilkins expressed interest in buying the Hawks, Vivlamore tweets, and that confirms a TMZ report from last week. Wilkins made only slightly more than $20MM during his playing career, according to Basketball-Reference, so presumably he’d be part of a group of investors.
- Reed also said that it’s highly unlikely that the Hawks would relocate, and that the city would need to lend assistance to keep the team in Atlanta, Vivlamore tweets.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
And-Ones: McGuire, Heat, Garnett
Here is what’s going on around the league on Tuesday night:
- Fresh off his debut for Israel’s Hapoel Eilat, Dominic McGuire told Eurobasket’s David Pick that he will attempt to return to the NBA after playing a full season overseas. “I’m definitely tring to get back into the NBA. I’m not done with that. I came to Israel to see how (life and basketball) is overseas, but the goal is to get back to the league,” said McGuire, who spent last season between the D-League and Venezuela after six years in the NBA.
- Surya Fernandez of Fox Sports Florida lists Andray Blatche, Jordan Crawford, Emeka Okafor and Rashard Lewis as free agents the Heat could secure to bolster their bench. Miami has 11 fully guaranteed and four partially guaranteed contracts on their books thus far.
- It appears that Kevin Garnett will return for a second season with the Nets, according to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN New York, confirming a report from Sunday that the 19-year veteran had already been working at the team’s practice facility. Brooklyn head coach Lionel Hollins also indicated that Garnett would start and play upwards of 15 minutes per game if healthy.
- Sean Deveney of Sporting News takes a statistical approach in identifying the most overpaid players in the NBA. The top five, according to Deveney’s criteria, are Kendrick Perkins ($9.6MM), Joe Johnson ($23.2MM), Amar’e Stoudemire ($23.4MM), Gerald Wallace ($10.1MM) and Josh Smith ($13.5MM).
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
Grizzlies Sign Earl Clark To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 25TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
SEPTEMBER 16TH: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make an official announcement.
SEPTEMBER 14TH: Earl Clark has agreed to a training camp deal with the Grizzlies, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link). This brings Memphis’ roster count up to 17, with 14 of those deals being guaranteed. The combo forward will compete for a roster spot with Jon Leuer, Jarnell Stokes, and Quincy Pondexter. The Spurs had also shown interest in the 6’10”, 26 year-old forward out of Louisville, and had him in for a workout almost two weeks ago.
Clark appeared in 45 games for the Cavs last season, averaging 5.2 PPG and 2.8 RPG. He was traded back in February to the Sixers in the the Spencer Hawes deal, and was promptly waived by Philadelphia. Clark was then picked up by the Knicks, but wasn’t re-signed after his back-to-back 10-day deals expired. In nine games for New York, Clark averaged 2.6 PPG and 1.8 RPG.
In his free agent stock watch entry for Clark, our own Chuck Myron noted that Clark performs best in an up-tempo attack, and that the player has struggled on the defensive end, as well as when paired with a strong inside presence like Dwight Howard. How he fits into a Memphis team that features Marc Gasol and a slower-paced, half-court brand of basketball that emphasizes defense remains to be seen.
Western Notes: Terry, Papanikolaou, Lakers
With a few weeks until training camps begin, here is the latest news coming out of the Western Conference on Tuesday evening:
- Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Rockets‘ deal for Jason Terry will be completed tomorrow (via Twitter). The trade, which will send Terry to Houston and Alonzo Gee and Scotty Hopson to Sacramento, was originally agreed to on August 31st. There was a report yesterday that it would be finalized today, so we should expect an official announcement shortly.
- Feigen also expects the signing of Kostas Papanikolaou to become official this week, though he cautions that his buyout ($1.5MM) and the necessary FIBA approval make it a little unpredictable (Twitter link). Papanikolaou’s first-year salary of just under $4.8MM is the most ever given to a second-round pick in his first NBA season.
- The Lakers announced today that Paul Pressey, Jim Eyen and Mark Madsen will join Byron Scott on the Los Angeles bench as assistant coaches this season. Beyond that trio, the team also announced Clay Moser, Larry Lewis, Tom Bialaszewski and J.J. Outlaw as members of the staff. Rondre Jackson has been promoted to director of player development and Jordan Wilkes has been hired as an operations assistant, according to the team release.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
And-Ones: Thompson, Moore, Oden
Klay Thompson was one of many Warriors players who expressed support for Mark Jackson in the days leading up to Golden State’s firing of its former coach, but the extension-eligible Thompson tells USA Today’s Sam Amick that he’s optimistic about working with Steve Kerr. “It was tough seeing Coach [Jackson] go, but at the end of the day the front office did what they felt would be best for us to win,” Thompson said. “They’ve made great moves in the past, so no reason not to trust them on this move. I’ve talked to Steve and he seems really good, like a guy who is really going to open it up for us. I’m excited to work with him.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- The salary in the second season of E’Twaun Moore‘s deal with the Bulls will become guaranteed if he remains on the roster beyond a certain date in July 2015, writes Shams Charania of RealGM.
- Executives with two NBA teams were optimistic that Greg Oden could still prove a useful NBA player after seeing him with the Heat last year, as they told Michael Wallace of ESPN.com. Still, his chances of finding work in the NBA anytime soon are in serious doubt as he faces a felony domestic violence charge stemming from an incident last month, as another exec tells Wallace.
- The Celtics have hired Scott Morrison, the longtime coach at Lakeland University in Canada, to coach their D-League affiliate, the team announced.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Spurs Work Out Jamaal Franklin
Former Grizzlies shooting guard Jamaal Franklin has spent the last few days working out for the Spurs in San Antonio, reports Jabari Young of the San Antonio Express-News (Twitter link). The 41st overall pick from last year’s draft is tight with fellow former San Diego State standout Kawhi Leonard, who’s up for an extension to his rookie scale contract this fall, as Young points out in a second tweet.
Franklin became a free agent earlier this month after Memphis waived him and spread out his salary using the stretch provision. The 6’5″ shooting guard made nearly as many appearances in the D-League as a rookie as he did in the NBA, where he averaged 1.9 points in 7.7 minutes per game across 21 contests with Memphis. Still, he remains an intriguing prospect just one year removed from having been selected near the top of the second round.
San Antonio has reportedly been setting up workouts with several veterans of late, including Hakim Warrick and Julyan Stone, and they’ve also shown interest in Ray Allen, Gustavo Ayon and Ryan Hollins. They’re apparently open to sign-and-trade possibilities for restricted free agent Aron Baynes, though they seemed to maintain a level of interest throughout the summer in re-signing him. The Spurs have fully guaranteed deals with 14 players, as our roster counts show, leaving one open spot for the regular season roster.
Myck Kabongo To Join Wolves For Camp?
SEPTEMBER 16TH: Kabongo failed to impress in his tryout with Södertälje, and the Swedish team has released him, reports Jacob Sjölen of LT.se (hat tip to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia and translation via SwedishBasketball.com. That presumably clears the path for Kabongo to join the Wolves, though an underwhelming performance at that level of professional basketball doesn’t bode well for Kabongo’s chances in the NBA.
SEPTEMBER 5TH: Point guard Myck Kabongo had been in line to join the Timberwolves for training camp, a source told Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun (Twitter link), but he has a tryout slated with the Sweden’s Södertälje Kings, according to Peter Hegethorn of Hegethorns Basketblogg, as Wolstat translates. It’s not uncommon for players to continue to pursue overseas opportunities even after they secure camp deals with NBA teams as insurance in case they don’t make it to opening night, so perhaps Kabongo is indeed headed to Minnesota, though that remains unclear.
Kabongo, a native of Toronto, was once a highly touted prospect, coming in 10th in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index ratings as he entered college in 2011. An NCAA suspension cost him the second half of his sophomore season at the University of Texas, and he went undrafted after turning pro in 2013. The Spurs signed the Rich Paul client for training camp last year, but he spent the season with their D-League affiliate after San Antonio waived him midway through preseason. The 6’3″ Kabongo averaged 9.2 points, 4.7 assists and 3.9 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per game for the D-League Austin Toros.
The Wolves have agreements with 17 players, 15 of whom have guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show. The team is reportedly shopping J.J. Barea, whose contract is guaranteed, but if Minnesota can’t find a way to unload him without taking back guaranteed salary in return, it would be difficult for camp invitees Brady Heslip and Kyrylo Fesenko to make the opening-night roster. The same would be true for Kabongo if he were to indeed sign with the team for camp, which lends further credence to the idea that he’d turn to the international market for a backup plan.
Pistons Try Out Ben Hansbrough, Andrew Warren
The Pistons have arranged for free agents Ben Hansbrough and Andrew Warren to work out for the team today and Wednesday, a source tells Emiliano Carchia of Sportando (Twitter link). Both spent the past season playing overseas, though Hansbrough was with the Pacers in 2012/13, when he played alongside brother Tyler Hansbrough.
Hansbrough put up 2.0 points in 7.4 minutes per game in 28 appearances with the Pacers in his lone NBA season, and the 26-year-old is coming off a season with Gran Canaria in Spain in which he put up 10.9 PPG in 23.1 MPG. The 27-year-old Warren’s stops have included Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus and Argentina since he went undrafted out of Bradley in 2011. Warren, a 6’5″ two-guard, shot the three-pointer consistently well throughout his travels, nailing 39.5% of his treys last season in Argentina.
Detroit reportedly worked out former James Madison center Denzel Bowles on Monday, and it appears the team is focused on filling out its camp roster with 16 fully guaranteed deals already in tow, as seen on our roster counts. The Pistons have no shortage of cap space to go after more noteworthy figures, but with the roster already over the regular season limit, it looks like they’ll largely preserve that room for now.