Reactions To Hawks Situation
Throughout the day we’ve been providing the latest updates on the Hawks scandal that will spark an ownership change in Atlanta and lead to sanctions against General Manager Danny Ferry. Here are some of today’s reactions to the biggest story in the NBA this week..
- The NBA waited until Donald Sterling lost any shot, however remote, of reacquiring the Clippers before letting word of the Levenson email leak out, writes Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated.
- In a piece for Time.com, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explained that he doesn’t view Bruce Levenson as a racist but rather as a business man who was trying to better cater his product towards his targeted demo. While the Hall of Famer admits that some of what Levenson wrote was cringe-worthy, he feels that he was ultimately just trying to do what was best for his business.
- Not everyone sees things Kareem’s way. Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out the franchise’s shortcomings in recent years and says that the team’s lack of ticket sales has nothing to do with the racial makeup of the crowd. In fact, he argues that Atlanta has as many, if not more, affluent African-Americans as most cities in America and a lot of them don’t go to Hawks games either.
- The NBA has an issue and putting more African-Americans in charge of teams could help, writes J.A. Adande of ESPN.com. However, Adande doesn’t see many African-Americans out there with the kind of wealth to buy a team for somewhere between $500MM and $2 billion.
- While Levenson’s statements were harsh and stereotypical, it’s ridiculous to assume that he’s the only NBA or professional sports owner to discuss racial demographics regarding attendance, writes Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe.
Hawks Rumors: Monday
The revelation that Hawks owner Bruce Levenson has decided to sell the team because of a racially charged email that he sent is sending ripples throughout the league. We rounded up Sunday evening’s dispatches related to Levenson in this post, and we’ll track the latest developments throughout today right here, with additional updates at the top:
4:46pm update:
- NBPA acting director Ron Klempner issued a statement on the Hawks situation to reporters, including USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt (on Twitter). The statement reads: “We’ve had continuing discussions with the league office about the incidents of disturbing statements attributed to representatives of the Atlanta Hawks’ franchise. We recognize that there is an ongoing investigation regarding the circumstances, and we will continue to monitor these events and take any action we deem appropriate.”
- Meanwhile, Zillgitt hears (link) that the comments read by Ferry on the Deng background report were the extent of his comments on the player’s race.
11:55am update:
- The NBA does not plan to give Ferry additional punishment on top of what the Hawks are already doling out, Vivlamore reports (on Twitter).
11:53am update:
- Ferry made contact with Ron Shade, one of Deng’s agents, to apologize, and he’s reached out to Deng, too, Wojnarowski tweets.
11:48am update:
- Ferry met with Hawks coaches and players Sunday and apologized as he told them what he said about Deng, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. A source disclosed Ferry’s statement about Deng to Wojnarowski. “He’s still a young guy overall,” Ferry said of Deng, according to Wojnarowski’s source. “He’s a good guy overall. But he’s not perfect. He’s got some African in him. And I don’t say that in a bad way.”
- The NBA and officials from the Hawks helped convince Levenson to sell the team, Wojnarowski writes, which seems to conflict with Windhorst’s report that Levenson chose to sell the team on his own volition.
11:07am update:
- The Hawks are set to discipline Ferry, but it’s unclear if the NBA will also levy a punishment against the GM, Vivlamore reports. A person involved tells Vivlamore that they had “never heard a comment as offensive” as the one directed at Deng. The person who wrote the report that Ferry read was not with the Hawks organization, as Koonin says to Vivlamore.
9:06am update:
- The NBA isn’t interested in having the Hawks move to Seattle or elsewhere, Mannix hears (Twitter link). The team’s lease at the arena in Atlanta, which runs through 2017/18 as Windhorst pointed out in his story, would also help forestall a move, Mannix says.
8:59am update:
- Luol Deng is the player who was the subject of the background report that contained an offensive and racist remark that Hawks GM Danny Ferry read, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). That report sparked the investigation that uncovered Levenson’s email.
- Ferry faces discipline, but he will remain GM of the team, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com hears.
- Prospective buyers are already inundating Hawks CEO Steve Koonin with calls, as he tells Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I had over seven phone calls directly today from multi-billionaires,” Koonin said. “It blew my mind some of the people who wrote me today.” The league, rather than Levenson, will take the lead in conducting the sale, as Windhorst writes in his piece. It’s unclear how much of a role Koonin, who owns a share of the Hawks and who has been placed in charge of the team in Levenson’s stead, will play in finding a new controlling owner.
- Levenson made the choice to sell on his own, believing that his racially charged email would become public and that it would hurt business if he continued as owner, Windhorst writes. But an executive for another team tells Chris Mannix of SI.com that he believes Levenson is using the affair as an excuse to cash in on skyrocketing franchise values.
- Players and people around the league generally liked Levenson prior to Sunday’s revelation, according to Windhorst. However, Koonin told CNN’s Martin Savidge that he was “morified and angry” about the email, and that when he met with Hawks players Sunday night, “It was like walking into a funeral,” as CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin and Holly Yan pass along. “These are young men who wear our city’s name and our logo on their chest,” Koonin said. “They play for a team, and they are supposed to be supported by their ownership. And ownership failed in supporting them.”
Warriors Sign Justin Holiday
The Warriors have added Las Vegas standout Justin Holiday to their training camp roster, the team announced. He’ll join 17 others, including 16 who are known to have at least a partial guarantee on their deals, as our roster counts show.
The Warriors D-League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors, traded Scott Machado to the Blazers’ affiliate in exchange for the rights to Holiday back in February. Golden State then got a closer look at Holiday in summer league action where he averaged 14.8 PPG and 5.0 RPG across five games. That performance was enough to make the team want to see even more of the Tony Dutt client this offseason.
Holiday’s lone NBA experience came on a 10-day deal with the 76ers back in 2012/13 where he averaged 4.7 PPG, 1.7 APG, 1.6 RPG, and 15.8 minutes per contest across nine games. After spending time in the D-League, the Adriatic League, and playing for multiple summer league teams in recent years, Holiday will now look to carve out an NBA home for 2014/15.
Greg Monroe Signs Pistons Qualifying Offer
MONDAY, 2:09pm: The Pistons followed up with a formal announcement today, via press release.
“I have said from day one that we have great respect for Greg as a person and like what he brings to this team as a player,” Van Gundy said in the team’s statement. “We have had good dialogue with Greg throughout the offseason with the understanding that there were multiple options for both parties involved, and we respect his decision. We look forward to a great year from Greg as we continue to build our team moving forward.”
FRIDAY, 8:29pm: Monroe actually signed the qualifying offer on Wednesday, but the news simply hadn’t broken before today, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
5:25pm: Greg Monroe has signed the one-year qualifying offer Detroit extended in June, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The big man will play for close to $5.48MM in 2014/15, and become an unrestricted agent next summer. The decision is historic, as Monroe will become the biggest name to have signed a qualifying offer, one of just 18 players ever to do so.
Wojnarowski tweets that the Pistons and Monroe were unable to reach an agreement on a new long-term deal, although it’s unclear if there were any renewed negotiations since Monroe initially signaled his plans of signing the offer. Monroe denied a report that the Pistons had offered a deal worth five years and $60MM, one that was reportedly upped to a more lucrative offer by Detroit in early August. Regardless of what deal was on the table for the fifth-year big, the one-year pact will pay him well below the annual salary he would have fetched from Detroit or any other team on a long-term deal. While the contract is still a raise from what he earned on the final year of his rookie contract, he is taking it with eyes toward a much more lucrative deal next offseason. Monroe immediately becomes one of the more attractive free agents in the 2015 class.
At some point, Monroe apparently soured on the team that drafted him No. 7 in the 2010 draft. Monroe “wanted out” of Detroit, according to Wojnarowski, who adds that the Pistons were unwilling to pay him as a top NBA forward. Rather than pursuing offer sheets from other teams that the Pistons could match, he was seeking sign-and-trade agreements that would land him in a new city. However, Monroe was never dead set against remaining a Piston, and saw new coach and president Stan Van Gundy as a positive presence. Monroe’s wariness of a long-term future in Detroit may have stemmed from the team’s decision to sign Josh Smith to play alongside Monroe and Andre Drummond before the 2013/14 season. The ultra-big experiment was a disaster on the court, and Monroe was reportedly cool to Van Gundy’s optimism that the three bigs could coexist within a winning system.
When our own Chuck Myron ranked Monroe No. 5 in the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings for the year, the possibility that Monroe wouldn’t sign a long-term contract this summer seemed faint. In fact, Chuck found it likely that Monroe would agree to a max deal in his Free Agent Stock Watch piece for the 24-year-old, a much more predictable outcome for such a young and productive interior player.
The qualifying offer, which a team must extend in order to preserve the right to match other offers for a restricted free agent, is typically a placeholder until the player signs an offer sheet elsewhere or comes to a separate agreement with his incumbent team. It is rare for a player to re-sign with a team after playing out the single year on an accepted qualifying offer. Spencer Hawes did so when he inked a two-year deal with the Sixers in 2012 after taking their qualifying offer the year before, but he’s the only one, and Monroe doesn’t appear poised to follow in his footsteps. As Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News points out (on Twitter), Monroe can only be traded to a team of his choosing this season, a factor that would limit any attempt of Detroit’s to deal him away for value before losing him for nothing in unrestricted free agency next summer. The Thunder, Pelicans, Hawks, Cavs, Blazers, and Magic have all been connected to Monroe, but like Eric Bledsoe‘s situation in Phoenix, Detroit’s willingness to match offer sheets iced his prospects with clubs around the league. Wojnarowski writes that Detroit sought multiple sign-and-trade options for Monroe, most notably serious discussions with Portland.
The David Falk client has career averages of 14.0 PPG and 9.0 RPG, and has been the starting center or power forward for Detroit in 277 of 312 games in his four years with the team. The signing will leave the Pistons with approximately $13.3MM in cap space for the season, though it gives them 16 fully guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.
Eastern Notes: Hawks, Knicks, Pistons, Stiemsma
The Hawks lost an estimated $23.9MM on their basketball operations last season, a figure partially offset by $11MM in combined proceeds from luxury tax payouts and the league’s revenue-sharing plan, Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports. The Bucks, who went for $550MM this spring, lost an estimated $6.5MM, but revenue sharing lifted them to a profit, Lowe also reveals. Still, the NBA and its television partners are expected to strike a deal that would give the league an average of more than $2 billion a year, up from $930MM in the current agreement, as John Lombardo and John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal report. The NBA is a hot property, but while outgoing owner Bruce Levenson has the controlling stake in the Hawks, he doesn’t have the majority share, Lowe notes. It remains to be seen whether the Hawks sale will reap a figure close to the $2 billion Steve Ballmer paid for the Clippers, the Bucks sale price, or an entirely different number, but as we wait to see, here’s more from the East:
- Knicks owner James Dolan and team president Phil Jackson have agreed to keep the existing front office staff in place for a year, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post. The club hasn’t let go of any front office personnel since Jackson’s hiring, and the only addition has been Clarence Gaines Jr., who serves as an adviser to Jackson, Berman points out. Rick Fox said Sunday that he’d be interested in joining the organization, though there’s been no movement toward that end, as Berman chronicles.
- Otis Smith confirms that he and Pistons president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy discussed making Smith the team’s GM, a job that instead went to Jeff Bower, but Smith told Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel that the timing wasn’t right (Twitter links). “I don’t think I’m ready to go back to NBA,” said Smith, the former Magic GM who joined the Pistons as the coach of their D-League team.
- Greg Stiemsma‘s one-year deal for the minimum salary with the Raptors is indeed partially guaranteed, according to Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun (Twitter link).
Suns Interested In Zoran Dragic
The Suns are among a group of three NBA teams with keener interest than others in Spanish-league shooting guard Zoran Dragic, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Dragic would have to sign with an NBA team before the start of the Spanish season and pay a buyout greater than the equivalent of $971K to escape from his contract with Unicaja Malaga, Stein adds.
Such a buyout would exceed the NBA’s $600K Excluded International Player Payment Amount, so the overflow amount would count against the cap for any NBA team that signs Dragic. However, the Suns have plenty of cap flexibility, and it appears that they would still be able to retain cap room even if they re-sign Eric Bledsoe to a max contract, which doesn’t appear likely at this point.
The 25-year-old Dragic “badly wants” to play in the NBA, as Stein wrote last month, and joining Phoenix would mean pairing with his brother, Goran Dragic, whom teams are already eyeing as a potential 2015 free agent should he opt out of his contract next summer. Inking Zoran Dragic would ostensibly help the Suns keep his brother, as Stein points out, though the Rockets, who were reportedly at the head of the pack for Zoran Dragic as of May, are one of the teams considering a run at Goran Dragic a year from now. Orazio Cauchi of Sportando more recently identified the Pacers as another suitor for Zoran Dragic.
Charlie Villanueva Mulls Clippers, Mavs Offers
The Mavericks and the Clippers have made minimum-salary offers to free agent Charlie Villanueva, who’s close to making a decision between the two, a source tells RealGM (Twitter link). The teams are the first to have been directly connected this summer to the 30-year-old former 7th overall pick.
A report in July indicated that Villanueva had worked out for multiple teams, though it’s not clear whether the Mavs or the Clippers were among them. The Excel Sports Management client is coming off an exceedingly player-friendly five-year, $37.7MM contract with the Pistons, but it looks like he’s in line to make much less this time around. His points per game decreased in each of those five seasons in Detroit, and last year, he notched 4.6 points in 9.0 minutes per night across just 20 appearances. He shot a career-low 25.0% from behind the three-point arc in the small sample size, but the 6’11” power forward is a career 34.3% three-point shooter capable of stretching the floor.
Joining the Clippers would appear to give Villanueva a better shot at making the opening-night roster, since they only have 13 guaranteed deals while the Mavs have 15, as our roster counts show. Hedo Turkoglu is reportedly on track to sign with the Clippers, but even if he receives a fully guaranteed contract, there’d still be room enough for the team to give one to Villanueva, too.
And-Ones: Exum, Douglas-Roberts, Levenson
Scouts are still evaluating Dante Exum, one of the bigger gambles taken in the NBA Draft lottery. The Jazz selected him without having seen him play against top-level competition and the jury is still out on Exum as a player as he shows his stuff in the World Cup, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News writes. When asked what he’s learned about Exum so far, one Eastern Conference scouting director said, “Not much. He’s not ready for the NBA, that is for sure. But a lot of guys are not ready for the NBA and they have got to learn on the fly. He is no different. But he is not going to jump into the league and all of a sudden average 20 points a game. There’s just no way.” Here’s tonight’s look around the NBA..
- Chris Douglas-Roberts‘ deal with the Clippers is fully guaranteed, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (via Twitter). That doesn’t come as a huge surprise since Ekpe Udoh‘s minimum salary deal is also fully guaranteed for the 2014/15 season. CD-R averaged 6.9 points in 20.7 minutes per game and shot a career-high 38.6% from downtown last season.
- Even before the Donald Sterling situation erupted, there was some talk that Bruce Levenson would explore selling his controlling interest of the Hawks, tweets Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
- Whether Levenson’s fate is well-deserved or Orwellian is up for debate, but it’s clear this is a different world in the post-Sterling NBA, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.
- Supply and demand could keep Reggie Jackson with the Thunder, writes Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. Only four teams – the Mavs, Lakers, Knicks, and Heat – currently have a clear need and the necessary cap space to make a run at him next summer. Jackson is after a sizable payday and a starting role, but that could be hard to find in the middle of an extremely talented free agent class.
- The Jazz have several players in the World Cup, including Exum and stashed Brazilian talent Raul Neto, and Dennis Lindsey admits that he is somewhat worried about injuries and fatigue, writes Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. At the same time, he feels that his younger players are also gaining valuable experience in international play.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
Latest On Hawks, Bruce Levenson
9:30pm: In an interview with Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hawks CEO Steve Koonin said there will be other disciplinary actions taken, including actions against GM Danny Ferry. It turns out the internal review that unearthed Levenson’s email was actually prompted by an incident involving the GM.
When the Hawks held a meeting in early June to discuss free agency, a player was being discussed and Ferry cited a background report that included an “offensive and racist” remark. “Instead of editing it, he said the comment,” Koonin told Vivlamore.
“I support Steve’s leadership and greatly appreciate his support,” Ferry said. “I look to learn from this situation and help us become a better organization.”
6:35pm: Not far removed from the Donald Sterling ordeal, another NBA owner is on his way out of the league thanks to a racial scandal. Hawks owner Bruce Levenson has agreed to sell his team after an inflammatory email from 2012 came to the surface. When word of the email first broke, the identity of the owner was unknown, which left many to wonder if they were the one caught in the crosshairs, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
More than one owner wondered if they were busted for saying something off-color and team executives asked others if it was their club’s owner that was in trouble. Before Levenson’s identity was revealed, Wojnarowski writes, several people around the league were bracing for a severe punishment.
When Sterling’s scandal broke and the NBA was deliberating how to handle the situation, Mavs owner Mark Cuban expressed concern that ousting the then-Clippers owner would set a dangerous precedent going forward. While others didn’t speak out on the issue, Wojnarowski hears that Cuban was not alone in his sentiments.
“Adam [Silver] had far less support on Sterling than anyone knows,” a league source who is in frequent contact with the commissioner told Wojnarowski.
Meanwhile, that same source says that the NBA’s claim that Levenson blew the whistle on himself is simply a matter of semantics. It’s not clear when Levenson truly gave the NBA his mea culpa, but it’s clear that there could be more owners in trouble going forward.
Greg Monroe Avoided Offer Sheets
After a long summer of restricted free agency, Greg Monroe opted to sign the Pistons’ one-year qualifying offer last week. While RFAs usually shop themselves around for the most lucrative offer sheet possible, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today Sports hears that Monroe’s representatives steered other teams from presenting Monroe with an offer sheet because they didn’t want the Pistons to match and keep him for another four seasons.
Now, Monroe will have control over his future next summer, which was apparently his goal this offseason, according to Zillgitt. Zillgitt writes that even if Detroit had offered Monroe a max contract, there was a strong chance he would’ve declined. While the center has likely been frustrated by four losing seasons in Detroit, I have a hard time imagining that Monroe would have rejected a max deal from the Pistons. Still, it’s clear that the center is unhappy with the Pistons and now it seems even more unlikely that he will be with them long-term.
Monroe has career averages of 14.0 PPG and 9.0 RPG and barring a significant regression or an injury, he should be able to cash in next summer. Roughly half the league will have the cap space necessary to give Monroe significant money if things work out for him in 2014/15.