Eastern Notes: Larkin, Stuckey, Copeland
The Nets believe that the right system can bring out the potential that made Shane Larkin a first round pick back in 2013, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com writes. “I talked to [GM] Billy [King] and Lionel [Hollins] as soon as free agency started, and they told me they wanted me to come in and just play my game,” Larkin said. “I’m more of a pick-and-roll guy, up and down. “And that’s the thing they told me they wanted me to come in and do. For them to tell me they wanted me to come in push the tempo, bring some energy to the team, that was everything I wanted to hear.”
Larkin admits to having been uncomfortable playing in the Knicks‘ triangle offense last season, Youngmisuk adds. “I mean the triangle is a good offense if you have the type of players that fit within that offense,” Larkin said. “And I don’t feel like it was the best offense for me. I’m not talking bad about it. It’s a great offense. I wish them nothing but the best.”
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- The presence of former teammate Jason Kidd as coach was a major factor for Chris Copeland‘s decision to sign with the Bucks, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports writes. “The biggest hook for me was Jason Kidd, by far,” Copeland said. “Obviously, he was a friend of mine before all this. He was a great mentor for me in New York and someone I continue to grow under. An incredible mind on and off the floor.”
- The final season of Jordan Mickey‘s four-year pact with the Celtics is a non-guaranteed team option, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets.
- Brazilian big man Cristiano Felicio‘s contract with the Bulls is a two-year deal, and he will earn $525,093 in 2015/16 and $874,636 the following season, with both years non-guaranteed, Pincus relays (Twitter link).
- Rodney Stuckey‘s three-year contract with the Pacers will see him earn $7MM each season, and includes a player option for the final year, Pincus relays (on Twitter).
2015/16 Roster Counts: Washington Wizards
During the offseason it’s OK for teams to carry as many as 20 players, but clubs must trim their rosters down to a maximum of 15 by opening night. In the meantime, some teams will hang around that 15-man line, while others will max out their roster counts. Some clubs may actually have more than 15 contracts that are at least partially guaranteed on the books. That means they’ll end up paying players who won’t be on the regular season roster, unless they can find trade partners.
With plenty more movement still to come, here’s the latest look at the Wizards’ roster size, the contract guarantee status of each player, and how each player came to be on Washington’s roster.
(Last Updated 3-9-16, 3:00pm)
Fully Guaranteed (15)
- Alan Anderson (G/F) — 6’6″/32 years old. Free agent signing.
- Bradley Beal (G) — 6’5″/22 years old. Drafted with No. 3 overall pick in 2012.
- Jared Dudley (G/F) — 6’7″/30 years old. Acquired via trade from Bucks.
- Jarell Eddie (G) — 6’7″/24 years old. Free agent signing.
- Drew Gooden (F) — 6’10″/33 years old. Free agent signing.
- Marcin Gortat (C) — 6’11″/31 years old. Acquired via trade with Suns.
- J.J. Hickson (F/C) — 6’9″/27 years old. Free agent signing.
- Markieff Morris (F) — 6’10″/25 years old. Acquired via trade with Suns.
- Nene (F/C) — 6’11″/32 years old. Acquired via trade with Nuggets.
- Kelly Oubre (G/F) — 6’7″/19 years old. Draft rights acquired via Hawks.
- Otto Porter (F) — 6’8″/22 years old. Drafted with No. 3 overall pick in 2013.
- Ramon Sessions (G) — 6’3″/29 years old. Acquired via trade with Kings.
- Garrett Temple (G/F) — 6’6″/29 years old. Free agent signing.
- Marcus Thornton (G) — 6/4″/28 years old. Free agent signing.
- John Wall (G) — 6’4″/24 years old. Drafted with No. 1 overall pick in 2010.
10-Day Contracts (0)
- None
TOTAL ROSTER COUNT (15)
Blazers Sign Cliff Alexander
6:07pm: The Blazers have officially announced the signing.
4:18pm: The Trail Blazers have signed undrafted free agent Cliff Alexander, the player announced via his Twitter account (h/t to Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com). The length and terms of the agreement are unknown, and it is likely a training camp deal, though that is merely my speculation. There has been no official announcement from the team as of yet.
The 6’8″ forward out of Kansas began the 2014/15 NCAA season as a top five recruit and a projected 2015 NBA lottery pick. But inconsistent play and effort saw Alexander’s stock rapidly fall, and his decision to leave school after a single campaign was directly tied to an NCAA investigation related to Alexander receiving improper benefits. The 19-year-old just completed a run playing Summer League ball for the Nets.
Alexander made 28 appearances for the Jayhawks last season, averaging 7.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks to go along with a slash line of .566/.000/.671.
Trail Blazers Sign Phil Pressey
6:05pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
5:21pm: The Trail Blazers have agreed to sign unrestricted free agent Phil Pressey, Chris Mannix of SI.com reports (Twitter link). The length and terms of the deal are unknown at this time.
Pressey was waived by the Celtics last week, though the team reportedly was reluctant to do so. “Phil may be my favorite player I’ve ever been around in the NBA, as a player, a coach or as an executive,” Celtics executive Danny Ainge said. “It was a very difficult morning for me today. He’s a player I’d want on my team all the time. Unfortunately, we just have an abundance of small guards already. It’s unfortunate. He’s helped us a lot in the last two years, and he’s a classy and hardworking player.”
The 24-year-old will compete to become the primary backup to Damian Lillard in Portland. Pressey made 50 appearances for Boston during the 2014/15 campaign, averaging 3.5 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in 12.0 minutes per contest. His shooting line was .368/.246/.673.
Lucrative Deals For Former Second-Round Picks
Thursday’s Cavs-Pacers trade featured an exchange of second-round picks, with the Cavaliers receiving a 2019 second-rounder while the Pacers acquired the rights to Rakeem Christmas, this year’s 36th overall selection. It’s a swap that caused only a slight ripple in NBA waters, and indeed, most second-round picks don’t enjoy particularly memorable careers in the league, if they ever end up signing at all.
But, enough of them do such that second-rounders indeed have value. Ten free agents who were former second-round picks signed deals this month that totaled, respectively, at least $35MM. None were picked later in the second round than Marc Gasol, the 2007 48th overall pick who wound up re-signing with the Grizzlies on a max deal. DeAndre Jordan, the 35th pick from seven years ago, scored a max deal, too.
Teams like the Sixers and Celtics who’ve loaded up on second-rounders for the years to come have in essence bought up blocks of lottery tickets. The chances of success for any one particular second-round pick are slim. But, put together, picks 31-60 have some impressive credentials. Here are the top 10 deals that former second-round picks have signed this month, ranked by total value and rounded to the nearest $1K:
- Marc Gasol, Grizzlies (five years, $113.212MM) — 48th overall, 2007
- DeAndre Jordan, Clippers (four years, $87.616MM) — 35th overall, 2008
- Goran Dragic, Heat (five years, $85.002MM) — 45th overall, 2008
- Draymond Green, Warriors (five years, $82MM) — 35th overall, 2012
- Khris Middleton, Bucks (five years, $70MM) — 39th overall, 2012
- Paul Millsap, Hawks (three years, $60.216MM) — 47th overall, 2006
- Omer Asik, Pelicans (five years, $52.977MM) — 36th overall, 2008
- Monta Ellis, Pacers (four years, $43.981MM) — 40th overall, 2005
- Danny Green, Spurs (four years, $40MM) — 46th overall, 2009
- Jae Crowder, Celtics (five years, $35MM) — 34th overall, 2012
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Which second-rounder from this year’s class do you think has the best chance to end up on a list like this one someday? Leave a comment to let us know.
Mavs Sign John Jenkins
FRIDAY, 2:33pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
MONDAY, 7:03pm: Unrestricted free agent guard John Jenkins has reached agreement on a three-year deal with the Mavs, reports RealGM’s Shams Charania (on Twitter). The contract is partially guaranteed in the final two seasons and is at minimum salaries, Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com tweets.
The Hawks renounced their rights to Jenkins to clear cap space earlier this month. Jenkins was previously tied to the Spurs and Timberwolves. With Jenkins, the Mavs add a solid wing defender.
Jenkins, 24, a former first round pick, struggled for playing time in each of his three seasons in Atlanta, never averaging more than the 14.8 minutes per game he saw as a rookie in 2012/13. The Hawks declined their fourth-year option on his rookie scale contract this past fall, setting him up for unrestricted free agency this summer.
Mavs Sign Jarrid Famous
FRIDAY, 2:32pm: The signing is official, the team announced via press release.
10:17pm: It’s now a three-year deal instead of just one, Charania tweets. That means the Mavs are using cap space.
MONDAY, 9:46am: The Mavericks and center Jarrid Famous have agreed to a one-year deal that carries a partial guarantee, league sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM. Just how much money he’ll see is unclear, and while Mavs have cap flexibility, it seems likely that it’s a minimum-salary arrangement. It’ll be the first official NBA contract for the four-year pro since the fall of 2012, when he was on the Grizzlies preseason roster. He was with the Pacers in preseason the year before.
Famous looked strong in summer league with the Wizards this month, putting up 10.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per game. He saw action this past season for the D-League affiliates of the Grizzlies and Mavs and overseas in the Philippines.
The now 27-year-old has played in numerous locales since going undrafted out of South Florida in 2011, but he made the pursuit of an NBA deal a priority in the past year, as he detailed recently to Zach Links of Hoops Rumors. The 6’11” Daniel Hazan client will attempt to prove in camp that he’s worthy of a regular season roster spot in which he could help the Mavs fill their vacancy at center, where the departure of DeAndre Jordan left a major hole.
How Teams Are Using The Room Exception
The NBA’s salary cap is a soft one, and that’s perhaps no better demonstrated than by the existence of the room exception. A form of the mid-level exception, it’s available for teams that have gone under the cap but spent their cap room. In other words, it’s essentially bonus cap room.
This year, the room exception is worth $2.814MM, and teams can use it to give two-year deals that include a 4.5% raise in the second season. So, the greatest total amount a player can receive using the room exception is $5,754,630. That’s not a lot, but it is significantly more than a two-year minimum-salary contract would entail, even for a veteran of 10 or more seasons.
The rising salary cap in the next few years will likely leave more teams under the cap each year, and thus, more teams with access to the room exception instead of the regular mid-level or taxpayer’s mid-level. That’s already the case for the majority of the league this summer. We noted Thursday that 13 teams stayed over the cap, so that leaves 17 teams that could use the room exception in 2015/16.
So far, only four teams have done so. Here’s a look at how they’ve used the room exception:
- Bucks: Chris Copeland — Milwaukee has reportedly agreed to pay the forward $1.1MM this coming season, slightly more than his minimum salary. Thus, the Bucks, who’ve spent their cap space, would have to use part of the room exception for Copeland, leaving $1.714MM still available.
- Pistons: Joel Anthony — The Pistons gave Anthony a two-year deal worth precisely $2.5MM each year, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That leaves a $314K sliver of the exception that the Pistons can’t use in the offseason, since it’s less than the full season rookie minimum salary.
- Raptors: Bismack Biyombo — Biyombo appears to have received the full value of the mid-level exception over two years, as Pincus indicates (Twitter links). Thus, Toronto is limited to paying no more than the minimum salary to outside free agents.
- Spurs: Manu Ginobili — Ginobili’s contract is the same as Biyombo’s, according to Pincus, but the Spurs arrived at it by an unusual fashion, since they began the offseason with Ginobili’s Bird rights. They renounced those rights to clear cap room for LaMarcus Aldridge and others, circling back to Ginobili with the room exception once they used up their cap space, with Ginobili’s loyalty surely playing a key part. The Heat made a similar move with Udonis Haslem last summer. In any case, the renouncement doesn’t carry over now that Ginobili has re-signed, meaning that if Ginobili uses the player option in his deal to become a free agent next summer, the Spurs will again have his Bird rights, making it possible for him to sign a more lucrative deal with the team a year from now.
These are the other teams that could wind up using the room exception this season. Those with cap space still remaining are noted.
- Celtics (cap space remaining)
- Hawks
- Jazz (cap space remaining)
- Kings
- Knicks
- Lakers
- Magic
- Mavericks (cap space remaining)
- Nuggets (cap space remaining)
- Pacers (cap space remaining)
- Sixers (cap space remaining)
- Suns
- Trail Blazers (cap space remaining)
Which remaining free agent do you think would be the strongest fit for a room exception deal, and which team should give it to him? Leave a comment to let us know.
Pacific Notes: Chandler, Young, Barnes
Most teams chasing top-tier centers thought it better to go after the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge, DeAndre Jordan and Greg Monroe before circling back to Tyson Chandler as something of a fallback option, but the Suns found it wise to chase Chandler before pursuing Aldridge, as Rob Mahoney of SI.com examines. Chandler quickly committed to Phoenix, and he helped them become a finalist in the Aldridge sweepstakes.
“I think when you have a guy like that that you target, you go aggressively after him. And that’s what we decided to do with Tyson,” GM Ryan McDonough said to Mahoney. “It did help us that there were so many free agent big men on the market, especially high-level players — guys who have been All-Stars, All-NBA, and all that stuff. I think a few teams wanted to kind of talk to each of the guys and get a feel for them. Some of the players wanted to do visits with multiple teams, and be wined and dined a bit. Tyson really didn’t want any of that.”
There’s more from Phoenix amid our latest look around the Pacific Division:
- The Suns seemingly made their three-player trade with the Pistons in an effort to clear cap room for Aldridge, but McDonough told Mahoney that the deal that sent out Marcus Morris, Reggie Bullock and Danny Granger is one the team would have done regardless, citing a desire for more roster balance and future flexibility.
- Nick Young feels more confident that he’ll begin the coming season with the Lakers after a recent meeting with GM Mitch Kupchak, reports Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. That jibes with a dispatch last week from Bill Oram of the Orange County Register, who heard that the Lakers had stopped looking for trade partners who’d take Young.
- Harrison Barnes confirmed Thursday that he wants a long-term future with the Warriors, as Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group details. He and the team reportedly share a mutual interest in a rookie scale extension. “I mean, we just won a championship,” Barnes said. “Of course I’d love to keep this group together for many years to come, you know what I’m saying? So that’s obvious.”
Player Movement Between Conferences
The group of veterans moving from the Western Conference to the Eastern Conference this summer outnumber those heading the opposite way, but it would be a stretch to say that the East made any noticeable progress toward correcting the imbalance between the two sides of the NBA. No superstars have changed conferences this summer, though both East and West benefited from several key contributors who made jumps. David West went from the Pacers to the Spurs, but Indiana replaced him with Monta Ellis. The Hornets sent Lance Stephenson to the Clippers, but they brought in Nicolas Batum from the Trail Blazers. The Blazers lost Arron Afflalo and Robin Lopez to the Knicks, but Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams and Roy Hibbert went from the Raptors and Pacers, respectively, to the Lakers.
Lists of each player shifting from conference to conference are below, categorized by conference:
PLAYERS MOVING EAST TO WEST
Signings
- Quincy Acy, Knicks to Kings
- Cole Aldrich, Knicks to Clippers
- Brandon Bass, Celtics to Lakers
- Caron Butler, Pistons1 to Kings
- John Jenkins, Hawks to Mavericks
- Kendrick Perkins, Cavaliers to Pelicans
- Paul Pierce, Wizards to Clippers
- Mirza Teletovic, Nets to Suns
- David West, Pacers to Spurs
- Deron Williams, Nets to Mavericks
- Lou Williams, Raptors to Lakers
Trades
- Gerald Henderson, Hornets to Trail Blazers
- Maurice Harkless, Magic to Trail Blazers
- Roy Hibbert, Pacers to Lakers
- Zaza Pachulia, Bucks to Mavericks
- Mason Plumlee, Nets to Trail Blazers
- Damjan Rudez, Pacers to Timberwolves
- Lance Stephenson, Hornets to Clippers
- Noah Vonleh, Hornets to Trail Blazers
- Gerald Wallace, Celtics to Warriors2
PLAYERS MOVING WEST TO EAST
Signings
- Arron Afflalo, Trail Blazers to Knicks
- Aron Baynes, Spurs to Pistons
- Wayne Ellington, Lakers to Nets
- Monta Ellis, Mavericks to Pacers
- Gerald Green, Suns to Heat
- Justin Holiday, Warriors to Hawks
- Richard Jefferson, Mavericks to Cavaliers
- Cory Joseph, Spurs to Raptors
- Jeremy Lin, Lakers to Hornets
- Robin Lopez, Trail Blazers to Knicks
- Gary Neal, Timberwolves to Wizards
- Amar’e Stoudemire, Mavericks to Heat
- Derrick Williams, Kings to Knicks
Trades
- Nicolas Batum, Trail Blazers to Hornets
- Steve Blake, Trail Blazers to Pistons (via Nets)
- Chase Budinger, Timberwolves to Pacers
- Reggie Bullock, Suns to Pistons
- Danny Granger, Suns to Pistons
- Spencer Hawes, Clippers to Hornets
- Perry Jones III, Thunder to Celtics
- Jeremy Lamb, Thunder to Hornets
- Carl Landry, Kings to Sixers
- David Lee, Warriors to Celtics2
- Marcus Morris, Suns to Pistons
- Tiago Splitter, Spurs to Hawks
- Nik Stauskas, Kings to Sixers
- Jason Thompson, Kings to Sixers
Notes:
1 — The Pistons traded Butler to the Bucks last month, and Milwaukee waived him not long thereafter.
2 — The David Lee/Gerald Wallace trade has still yet to become official, though it remains on track for completion.
Which conference do you think has received the better end of the movement so far? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.