Atlantic Notes: Brown, Jackson, Thomas
Sixers coach Brett Brown won’t stop pushing his team to improve, regardless of how it affects Philly’s chances of snagging the top pick in this year’s draft, Bob Cooney of The Philadelphia Daily News writes. “I don’t know how to coach anymore if that becomes part of it all,” Brown said. “I really don’t. You can’t cheat the game. I get it and I understand it. I just don’t even know how to do my job, otherwise. We go about our business. I can’t walk into the locker room and do anything else for those guys. They want to play hard. They want to compete. Whatever ends up happening, ends up happening. I’m proud of the way we play every night. What we may lack in resumes and birth certificates and all of that, we make up for with big spirit and tremendous team camaraderie, despite what our win/loss record says. This is a spirited group and one that I love coaching.”
Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- While the Sixers still need an upgrade at the point, Ish Smith has shown enough promise that he should factor into the team’s plans for next season, Cooney adds. “He has a clear upside,” Brown said of Smith. “I think that because of his style of shooting – he’s a set-shooter – I can see how he can improve with repetition and encouragement and all those types of things in the next short period of time. Then you have the constant qualities that he’s a hell of a teammate, he’s an athlete, he’s highly competitive. Although he’s been around a lot, it’s not like he’s got a lot of miles on his legs. He really hasn’t played a lot, but he’s been around a lot. For all those reasons, I just feel like his upside is clear.”
- Phil Jackson was hired as Knicks team president to restore faith in the franchise, something he has failed to do during his tenure thus far, Justin Terranova of The New York Post writes. Jackson has fallen in ESPN Insider’s Front Office rankings from the No. 21 spot to the 29th, with only Nets GM Billy King below him.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com looks at the effect that Isaiah Thomas will have on the Celtics‘ lineup and playoff chances now that he’s set to return from his injury.
Staggered Deals For 10-Day Signees
There’s a familiar pattern that usually plays out whenever someone on a 10-day contract makes enough of an impression for his team to keep him around. The team signs him to a second 10-day contract within a few days of the expiration of the first, in most such cases. The same is true if a team decides to keep the player for the balance of the season, as a deal typically follows in quick succession. But, as we saw with the Pelicans and Toney Douglas, who wound up with a rest-of-season deal Tuesday after the team had seemingly moved on from him, that’s not always the case.
Douglas signed the first of his two 10-day contracts with the Pelicans on February 4th, and while the Pelicans took a few days after it expired to sign him to 10-day deal No. 2 on February 18th, that wasn’t really out of the ordinary. However, the Pelicans terminated that second 10-day deal the very next day as they swung a pair of trade deadline swaps. They emerged from deadline day with an open roster spot, but instead of re-signing Douglas, they picked up Elliot Williams on a 10-day contract, and signed him to another the day after the first expired. The day after that second 10-day deal for Williams expired, the Pelicans gave out a deal for the rest of the season — not to Williams, but to Douglas, who had been off the roster for more than a month.
The team has reportedly decided against signing Williams to a deal that covers the balance of 2014/15, even though the Pelicans still have an open roster spot following the Douglas deal. It’s unclear what led New Orleans to make such a move, but it’s not unprecedented. Holdups have stalled but not prevented deals involving a few other 10-day signees across the NBA this season. Hoops Rumors learned that a desire to retain flexibility for a possible trade kept the Heat from signing Tyler Johnson to a second 10-day contract for a week after his first one expired. There was no such delay when Miami re-signed him to a multiyear deal the day after his second 10-day pact was up. The specter of would-be trades appeared to hold sway when the Grizzlies waited to sign JaMychal Green for a week after his first 10-day contract with the team expired. He signed his second on February 19th, the day of the trade deadline, and inked a multiyear pact of his own shortly after the second 10-day expired. A similar dynamic was seemingly at play with James McAdoo, who signed his second 10-day contract with the Warriors on February 2nd, just a few days after his first had expired. He, like Green, signed his next contract, a multiyear deal, on the day of the deadline.
An injury concern was apparent as the Clippers hesitated to re-sign Jordan Hamilton when his second 10-day deal was up, but the team ultimately gave him a multiyear deal after he languished for five days. There was a much larger gap between the first and second 10-day contracts Jack Cooley signed with the Jazz. Utah signed Jerrelle Benimon to a 10-day contract in between the time of Cooley’s deals, much as the Pelicans turned to Williams while Douglas was away. The day after Benimon’s deal expired, Cooley was back with the Jazz. Today’s the final day of Cooley’s second 10-day deal, so we’ll soon find out whether there’ll be another gap.
Southwest Notes: Williams, Gentile, Mills
Dwight Howard will start against the Pelicans tonight in his first game since January 23rd, writes Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. That’ll be a boost for Houston as it looks to climb from the third seed in the Western Conference. Here’s more from the Southwest Division:
- The Pelicans have decided against signing Elliot Williams for the remainder of the season, tweets John Reid of The Times-Picayune. New Orleans signaled that choice when it signed Toney Douglas to a deal for the balance of 2014/15 on Tuesday, the day after the team’s second 10-day contract with Williams expired.
- Rockets draft-and-stash prospect Alessandro Gentile doesn’t have an NBA escape clause for 2015 in his contract with Italy’s EA7 Milano, and the deal doesn’t include a buyout provision, either, a source tells HoopsHype. That runs counter to comments EA7 teammate Daniel Hackett made on SkySport television indicating that Gentile has decided to play for the Rockets next season, as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia notes. Gentile said recently that he’s increasingly intrigued with the NBA and that the Rockets had been in close contact. The small forward is under contract through 2017, as Mark Porcaro shows on our Draft Rights Held Players database.
- Patty Mills had a shoulder injury that would sideline him for the first two months of the season when the Spurs re-signed him this summer to a three-year, $11MM deal, but Spurs president/coach Gregg Popovich had no reservations about the move. Alexander Wolff of Sports Illustrated has the details in a story that looks at Mills’ heritage and the homage the Spurs have paid to it. “It wasn’t even a question,” Popovich said of the deal. “Obviously he can shoot the basketball and has a lot of energy. But he’s beloved on this team for his enthusiasm, his kindness, his understated gravitas. As long as I’m here, he’s going to be here. Unless we can’t afford him.”
- The Spurs top ESPN Insider’s Front Office rankings for a second straight year. The synergy between Popovich, GM R.C. Buford and owner Peter Holt, balance between the future and the present, and structuring of player contracts that include salary declines instead of raises help the Spurs stand out, as Chad Ford and Amin Elhassan opine in a separate Insider story.
- We rounded up the latest on the Mavs earlier today.
Mavs Notes: Ellis, Parsons, Powell
The Mavericks helped themselves quite a bit in Tuesday’s win over the Spurs, which pulled them into a virtual tie with San Antonio for the sixth seed in the Western Conference. It also gave Dallas a six and a half game cushion for any sort of playoff spot, further distancing the team from the nightmare scenario of missing the playoffs and forking over a lottery pick to the Celtics thanks to the Rajon Rondo trade. The Mavs’ pick is protected as long as they make the playoffs, as our Reverse Standings show. Here’s more from the Big D:
- Various ailments have been an issue for Monta Ellis this year, as he said in an interview with TNT after Tuesday’s game, a point he’d refused to acknowledge earlier, observes Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. People within the organization have been frustrated that he hasn’t taken any time off to heal, MacMahon hears. Ellis can elect free agency this summer if he declines an $8.72MM player option for next season.
- Coach Rick Carlisle clarified a comment that made it seem as though he didn’t think Chandler Parsons could create his own shot, insisting that he can, but Parsons’ low usage rate in the clutch shows the team has been going away from him, MacMahon notes in a separate piece. The Mavs erred in giving him a three-year near-max deal if they don’t feel they can use Parsons as a go-to option late in games, MacMahon opines, but it’s a role Parsons is eager to embrace.
- The Mavs have again assigned Dwight Powell to the D-League, tweets Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. It’s the 12th D-League trip for Powell this season, with the first five coming while he was a member of the Celtics prior to the Rondo trade, as our D-League Assignments/Recalls log shows.
Draft Deadlines Facing NCAA Underclassmen
The college season is winding down, and with that transition comes the annual influx of underclassmen declaring early entry for the draft. There’s a proposal with strong backing that would make it easier for those players to declare and return to college with their NCAA eligibility intact, but the soonest any such change would take effect is 2016. For now, “testing the waters” remains a practical impossibility, as Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress has explained in-depth each of the past three years after the existing rules were implemented in 2012. Here’s a look at the key dates in the process this year, as mined from NBA.com and a letter that the NCAA sent potential early entry candidates in February that’s posted on NCAA.org:
- April 12th: NCAA Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline
- April 26th: NBA Draft Early Entry Eligibility Deadline (10:59pm CT)
- April 29th: NBA teams can begin conducting and/or attending workouts with early entrants
- May 12th-17th: NBA Draft Combine (Chicago)
- May 19th: NBA Draft Lottery
- June 15th: NBA Draft Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline (4:00pm CT)
- June 25th: NBA Draft
The April 12th date is the key. That withdrawal deadline comes three days earlier than it did last year, giving prospects even less time to make a decision. The NCAA has an Undergraduate Advisory Committee, made up of executives from 20 NBA teams, that gives feedback on a player’s draft stock if he applies to receive it, but last year the committee wasn’t obligated to respond until a day before the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline. The NCAA doesn’t allow NBA workouts for early-entry prospects until April 29th, three days after the deadline for underclassmen to declare for the draft.
Still, a player can retain flexibility if he doesn’t officially declare for the draft until April 26th, the last day the NBA permits early entry, so there’s incentive to wait, as Givony has pointed out. That’s nonetheless a stark contrast to the NBA’s June 15th deadline for early entrants to pull out of the draft, a date that applies mostly to international prospects, since a college player couldn’t return to NCAA ball if he were to withdraw at that point. Only one college player withdrew from the draft after declaring last year, and that was because he’d signed with an overseas team.
The system makes it difficult for college prospects to receive first-hand information on how highly they’re likely to be drafted or whether they can expect to be drafted at all, as Givony has detailed. That’s not an issue for top underclassmen, like Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell, who’ll clearly be taken near the top. Second-tier early-entry prospects are those who feel the effect, and it’s a large group. There are only 18 college seniors among Givony’s top 100 prospects.
Atlantic Notes: Calipari, Sullinger, Sims
John Calipari “desperately” wants back into the NBA, an NBA front-office executive tells Steve Popper of The Record, and that executive sees a way for that to happen with the Nets, the team Calipari ran in a coach/executive role from 1996 to 1999. Popper hears from sources who cite Calipari’s ties to Nets CEO Brett Yormark, though sources close to Calipari tell Popper that it would take a dual coach/executive role for the Kentucky coach to return to the pro game. Calipari and the Cavs reportedly had discussions about such a role and a would-be lucrative contract last offseason, but Calipari instead signed a new deal with Kentucky. Here’s more on the Nets and the rest of the Atlantic Division:
- Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has “great interest” in a new deal with Jared Sullinger, but it would likely come with a weight clause, writes Jackie MacMullan of ESPNBoston.com. Sullinger, who’ll be eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer, would be on board with a weight-based stipulation, as he tells MacMullan, though he’s reluctant to admit that he ballooned to 300 pounds at one point this season, as the Celts believe he did.
- Sixers coach Brett Brown hates having to cut the minutes of Henry Sims to find time to evaluate Thomas Robinson and Furkan Aldemir, but that’s what’s happened as the end of the final season on Sims’ contract approaches, as Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News examines. Perhaps not coincidentally, the downturn in playing time comes with Sims needing 10 more starts to trigger a higher qualifying offer this summer, as I noted. He hasn’t started since March 2nd. “I try not to think for them,” Sims said of the Sixers. “For me, I feel that I’ve done enough out here to let them know what I can do. I feel like I’ve done my job and that’s all I can do.”
- The Knicks have been so impressed with midseason signee Langston Galloway‘s video preparation that they’ve told him to watch less, as Newsday’s Al Iannazzone notes as he looks at the rookie’s heavy workload. Galloway, who’s averaged 31.6 minutes in 34 games this season, has non-guaranteed salary with partial guarantee dates for next season, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reported.
Hawks Sign Austin Daye To Second 10-Day
WEDNESDAY, 9:01am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
12:27pm: The team will indeed sign Daye to another 10-day contract, Vivlamore reports (Twitter link).
TUESDAY, 10:19am: The Hawks haven’t made a final decision about whether to sign Austin Daye to a second 10-day contract, but “indications are” that the former 15th overall pick will be back for at least another short-term stint, tweets Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That’s in spite of a better-than-expected prognosis for Mike Scott, whose toe injury prompted the team to sign Daye to his first 10-day deal, which expires overnight tonight.
Daye has played just nine minutes across two games for Atlanta, draining a three-pointer for his only make in four shot attempts. Still, he spent nearly a calendar year in a similar system with San Antonio, and he averaged 4.0 points in 10.3 minutes per game during 26 appearances for the Spurs this season before the team waived him in January to sign JaMychal Green instead. It was nonetheless inefficient play, at least as his 7.3 PER with the Spurs this season would indicate, and he and San Antonio didn’t circle back to each other after the Spurs failed to re-sign Green upon the expiration of his 10-day deal. Daye instead spent a brief time with the Magic’s D-League team.
Atlanta has 14 players signed through at least the end of the season, so Daye occupies the team’s lone flexible roster spot. Jarell Eddie was in that spot on a 10-day contract that expired just before Daye joined the team.
Jarell Martin To Enter Draft
LSU sophomore power forward Jarell Martin will enter the NBA draft, two sources tell Randy Rosetta of The Times-Picayune. The 6’9″ 20-year-old, who’ll turn 21 in May, is the 29th-best prospect on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and the 35th-best with Chad Ford of ESPN.com, making him a fringe first-round candidate. Martin has until April 26th to officially enter the draft, though he can withdraw and retain his college eligibility no later than April 12th.
Martin played a face-up game last season with current Bucks big man Johnny O’Bryant and fellow top prospect Jordan Mickey on the interior, but with O’Bryant gone this year, LSU moved Martin inside midway through the season, as Rosetta details. That sparked an upturn that helped him to averages of 16.9 points and 9.2 rebounds in 35.1 minutes per game, making him the team’s leading scorer. He put up 16 points and 11 rebounds in LSU’s loss to N.C. State last week in the opening game of the NCAA tournament for both teams.
Martin was the 12th-ranked prospect coming out of high school in 2013, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, a few spots ahead of late-bloomer Joel Embiid, last year’s No. 3 overall NBA draft pick. Mickey, Martin’s LSU teammate, was No. 38 on that recruiting list, and he’s reportedly leaning toward declaring for the draft, too.
And-Ones: Draft, McRoberts, Beverley
Josh McRoberts is traveling with the Heat for the first time since tearing the meniscus in his right knee in early December, Jason Lieser of The Palm Beach Post writes. “He’s progressing very well, but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves right now and I wouldn’t look too much into this road trip,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s really to help him with his spirits being around the team, and we’re enjoying that, but the larger picture is he’s going to be able to do more work with our training staff. The last couple road trips we left him back there to work with our trainers, but we’ve had so many injuries that we need our full staff here right now. That means Josh has to come with us. But he will not be working with the basketball coaches, not yet.”
When asked about the possibility of McRoberts returning to action this season, Spoelstra said, “He’s still not working with coaches. Everything is with trainers right now. I check in with him every single day. Most of the work is in the training room and the weight room. I’m not thinking about him playing this year.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Rockets will learn on Wednesday if Patrick Beverley will need season-ending surgery on his injured wrist, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter links). The guard is waiting for doctors to inform him if continued play will risk further ligament damage before making his final decision, Spears adds.
- The Wizards and the Nets are both interested in one-to-one affiliations with D-League teams, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today tweets. Both franchises currently share the Fort Wayne Mad Ants with the 11 other NBA teams also without one-to-one affiliations.
- LSU sophomore forward Jordan Mickey is leaning toward entering the 2015 NBA draft, Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). Mickey averaged 15.4 points and 9.9 rebounds per game for the Tigers this season. The 6’8″ big man is currently ranked as the No. 81 prospect by DraftExpress.
- Sean Deveney of The Sporting News looked at 10 players whose performances in the NCAA Tournament improved their NBA draft stock. Deveney’s list includes Justise Winslow (Duke), Terry Rozier (Louisville), Jerian Grant (Notre Dame), and Jakob Poeltl (Utah).
Northwest Notes: Gallinari, Barton, Wolves
Nuggets interim coach Melvin Hunt is encouraged by the recent strong play of Danilo Gallinari as the player continues to make his way back from injury, Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post writes. “He could become better, he could become a smarter player,” Hunt said. “Athleticism can be honed. I’m just thankful for him to have time. He may not be the same, but a lot of the great players, when they come back from injury, they add something, they’ll subtract something, they’ll emphasize something. He’s no different. He knows what his weapon is, his ability to shoot the ball. But he’s putting together a nice little package of drives, finding other guys — and he’s an underrated passer. Gallo is going to figure out ways to reinvent himself. I’m not worried about Gallo at all.”
Here’s more out of the Northwest Division:
- Will Barton is set to become a restricted free agent at the end of the season, but the swingman has no desire to leave the Nuggets, Dempey writes in a separate article. “No doubt,” Barton said. “I think we can build something here. We have a lot of good talent, a good organization, coaching staff is good. I can see us building and having a strong future here. We can grow together.” Barton was acquired by Denver in a deadline trade, and he has averaged 12.2 points and 4.4 rebounds since joining the Nuggets.
- Hunt believes that Barton possesses the skills to be a productive player in the NBA for years, Dempsey adds. “For sure,” Hunt said. “He has an NBA skill: play hard. As long as he has that, the other things are gravy. In his short time with us, we’ve seen him make threes, we’ve seen him have spectacular dunks, we’ve seen him have big blocked shots, we’ve seen him get a technical because he was just angry. He’s shown that he has a lot of things in his toolkit.”
- The Timberwolves, despite their 16-54 record, aren’t considering tanking for a better draft spot, Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press tweets. Team owner Glen Taylor was at the forefront this preseason in the push for new plans to discourage tanking, Krawczynski notes.