Kings Interested In Matt Bonner
Free agent Matt Bonner has become a subject of interest from the Kings, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The longtime Spur was reportedly thinking about retirement this spring, though he said last year that he wanted to play for several more seasons. Little chatter has surrounded the 35-year-old’s free agency this month, even though he made 19 starts this past season, the second most of his 11-year career.
Bonner made the minimum salary in 2014/15, and it would seem difficult for him to command more this time around. Sacramento is reportedly closing in on a deal with Luc Mbah a Moute that would be its sixth free agent agreement of the month, so Bonner is down the team’s list of priorities.
In spite of the Red Rocket’s appearances in the starting lineup, his play declined this past season. His 36.5% accuracy from behind the arc showed proficiency, but it was his first sub-40% three-point shooting season in five years. His 10.1 PER was a career low.
Kings Close To Deal With Luc Mbah a Moute
TUESDAY, 8:15am: The sides are close on what would be a one-year arrangement, and the Kings are committed to getting a deal done, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
MONDAY, 9:12am: The Kings are making progress as they negotiate a deal with Luc Mbah a Moute, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). The former King spent this past season as a starter for the Sixers. The talks are the latest development in an active summer for Sacramento after the team saw Andrea Bargnani slip through their hands Sunday and strike a deal with the Nets.
Mbah a Moute had wanted to return to Philadelphia, where coach Brett Brown was a fan, but with fellow Cameroonian Joel Embiid‘s career reportedly in jeopardy, the call for Mbah a Moute’s veteran mentorship of the would-be star might not be as great as it was this past season. The 2014/15 season was nonetheless a career year for Mbah a Moute, who averaged 9.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game as the Sixers clearly saw him as more than just an asset for the locker room.
Sacramento still hasn’t officially signed the five free agents with which it has reached agreements this month, so it’s unclear just how much cap flexibility is left for Mbah a Moute. Regardless, the Kings appear to at least have the power to spend their $2.814MM room exception on him. That would still be quite a bit less than the nearly $4.383MM the Darren Matsubara client made this past season. Mbah a Moute was briefly a King during 2013/14 before heading to Minnesota in the Derrick Williams trade.
Kings Sign Marco Belinelli
July 13th, 9:58pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 3rd, 4:05pm: The deal wouldn’t fit within the mid-level exception, Stein notes via Twitter. That exception would only allow for a total of $17,129,640 over three years, and while it’s not uncommon for initial reported figures on deals to be off, this appears to be confirm that the contract will exceed the exception amount. That means the Kings will likely use cap room and lose the ability to create trade exceptions for the three players they’ve agreed to trade to Philadelphia, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders points out (on Twitter).
1:36pm: The Kings and Marco Belinelli have reached agreement on a deal worth $19MM over three years, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The contract will include no option clauses, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Sacramento will likely use part of the cap space it’s set to clear in the wake of its trade agreement with the Sixers, though the deal is cheap enough to fit within the $5.464MM mid-level exception if the Kings choose to operate as an over-the-cap team.
The Hornets had reportedly planned a strong pursuit, and the Warriors had interest, too. The Heat put in a call to express their interest in the client of Sam Goldfeder and Jeff Schwartz, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link), but Miami, like the Warriors, is likely limited to no more than the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level exception. The Bulls might have gone after him if they’d have failed to sign Mike Dunleavy, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune wrote, but they, too, would likely have been limited to the taxpayer’s mid-level.
Belinelli wanted to re-sign with the Spurs, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News heard (Twitter link). They were armed with Early Bird rights to bring him back on a deal comparable to the one he’s getting from the Kings, but they’re in hot pursuit of LaMarcus Aldridge, and may well have had to renounce Belinelli’s rights to squeeze Aldridge under the cap.
Sacramento moves on from having missed out on Monta Ellis and Wesley Matthews with a proven three-point marksman who’s nailed 39.2% of his attempts from behind the arc for his career. Still, outside of two seasons in New Orleans, he’s primarily been a reserve during his eight years in the NBA.
Kings Sign Kosta Koufos
July 13th, 9:58pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 4th, 10:01pm: The Kings will sign Kosta Koufos to a four-year deal worth $33MM, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The deal will include a player option after the third season that will allow him to return to free agency during the summer of 2018, Stein adds (Twitter link).
The center had previously received interest from the Mavs, Magic, Celtics and Lakers in addition to the Kings. Koufos is the second center the team has added this offseason. Sacramento drafted Willie Cauley-Stein with the No. 6 overall pick in this year’s draft. The moves seem to correspond with DeMarcus Cousins‘ insistence to play more minutes at the power forward position. The team now has the depth to accommodate such an arrangement. The signing also gives Sacramento a back-up plan if the Cousins-George Karl relationship is found to be unsalvageable and the team opts to trade the 24-year-old. Koufos previously played under coach Karl for two and a half seasons as a member of the Nuggets.
Koufos averaged 5.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game last season. The 26-year-old was the ninth best center defensively, according to ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus/Minus.
Kings Sign Rajon Rondo
July 13th, 9:38pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 3rd, 6:17pm: The Kings and Rajon Rondo have reached an agreement to bring the point guard to Sacramento for the 2015/16 campaign, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports (on Twitter). It is a one-year, $10MM pact, adds Spears. Rondo agreed to a short-term deal with the expectation to cash in on a major raise in salaries and the salary cap when the league’s new television deal kicks in next summer, Spears adds.
Sacramento forward Rudy Gay played an instrumental role in the Kings landing Rondo, who is a close friend of his, Spears notes (Twitter links). Rondo also played a part in the team’s signing of Marco Belinelli, having asked the team to land a shooter, the Yahoo! scribe adds. The team is planning on using Rondo and Darren Collison in the same backcourt at times, according to Spears’ sources.
Things turned sour quickly for Rondo last season after being acquired by the Mavs. He made 46 appearances for the team, averaging 9.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 6.5 assists in 28.7 minutes per contest, with a slash line of .436/.352/.452. His career numbers are 10.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 8.3 APG, with a shooting line of .470/.263/.609.
It should be quite interesting to watch the relationship between Rondo and new Kings coach George Karl. Karl has had run-ins with star players before, including Kings center DeMarcus Cousins. Rondo, meanwhile, has had difficulties with virtually every coach he has played for in the league, including Mavs coach Rick Carlisle during the 2014/15 season, resulting in the point guard being benched in the playoffs.
Sixers Notes: Wroten, Bogans, Embiid
The Sixers didn’t approach this summer with any more urgency to improve than in previous offseasons, as GM Sam Hinkie tells Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News.
“Not a lot,” Hinkie said when asked if he felt an immediacy to win more games this season. “We try to be opportunistic year-round, not just summer-to-summer, but year-round. We try to predict what opportunities might come our way and think ahead of time about what opportunities we might be interested in and what ones we would clearly let pass. The flow of those opportunities is uncertain. We don’t ever know when they’ll come but we try to be out in a lot of those situations to understand what might happen.”
Here’s more from Philadelphia:
- Tony Wroten is expected to return from a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee at the start of the upcoming regular season, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes. Wroten had season-ending surgery last February.
- Keith Bogans said Philadelphia never called him when he was traded to the Sixers prior to last season, Amin Elhassan of ESPN.com tweets. Two weeks later, Bogans was waived and didn’t receive a call from the franchise about that either.
- Tom Moore of the Calkins Media examines the news of Joel Embiid‘s latest setback from an optimistic point of view. Moore argues that Embiid’s missed time will allow the Sixers to see if Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor can co-exist on the floor together.
Multiple Teams Eye Carlos Boozer
July 13th, 9:15pm: The Nuggets and Knicks, in addition to the Pelicans, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs, are interested in Boozer, according to Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops (Twitter link).
1:21pm: The interest between Boozer and the Clippers is mutual, a source tells Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).
July 7th, 1:12pm: The Pelicans are also showing interest, Broussard tweets. His latest dispatch doesn’t include the Spurs, so it’s unclear if they’re still in the mix after reaching a deal with David West.
July 6th, 1:21pm: Free agent Carlos Boozer is in talks with the Clippers, Spurs, Mavericks and Raptors, sources tell Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com first reported that the Spurs had expressed interest, while Broussard identified San Antonio and Dallas on the eve of free agency as teams that were poised to pursue the Rob Pelinka client, along with the Nets, Rockets, Heat and incumbent Lakers.
The Mavs and Spurs would appear to have the most to spend among the four teams that Broussard reports in connection with Boozer today, as they have the $2.814MM room exception at their disposal. However, it seems Dallas is nearing a deal for that exception amount, and San Antonio reportedly has interest in David West, perhaps at that same price point. It looks like Toronto has its room exception earmarked for Bismack Biyombo, while the Clippers have $2.088MM left on their mid-level in the wake of Paul Pierce‘s deal and the departure of DeAndre Jordan.
Boozer, who’ll turn 34 in November, expressed a willingness to take a bench role as he expressed his desire to re-sign with the Lakers. Someone close to the power forward told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that he wouldn’t be surprised if Boozer signed with the Heat this summer, though it’s unclear if either the Lakers or the Heat still have interest.
Southeast Notes: Anderson, Millsap, Tavares
Alan Anderson, who the Wizards signed to a one-year, $4MM pact using part of the their mid-level exception, said the Nets, Hornets and Hawks were also interested in him, Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post tweets. Anderson also said there was one other team that had shown interest during his free agency, but he forgot which team it was.
Here’s more from the Southeast Division:
- Paul Millsap‘s salary for next season will be just over $18.67MM, which is below the maximum, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. The total value of the forward’s three year deal will be slightly under $60.22MM and it contains a player option in the last season.
- Walter Tavares, also known as Edy Tavares, chose Atlanta over several European teams that offered lucrative contracts, Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. “For me, it’s a dream come true to sign with Hawks,” Tavares said. “It was difficult because I had good offers in Turkey, in Madrid, in Barcelona. It was difficult decision for me but I think I worked every week to be here with the Hawks. The Hawks came to Gran Canaria to talk to me, to speak with me, to motivate me to work. That was part of the decision to come because of the way they support and motivate me.”
- Tavares will make slightly over $3.01MM over three years with his new deal, as Basketball Insiders’ Hawks Salary page shows. The last year of his deal is non-guaranteed.
Wizards Re-Sign Drew Gooden
July 13th, 7:03pm: The signing is official, according to a team press release. “Drew has been an important part of our success the last two years and we are pleased to welcome him back,“ said team president Ernie Grunfeld. “His skills, leadership and outside shooting will continue to add value to our front court rotation.“
JULY 11TH, 6:01pm: The deal is for two years and $6MM, with a $3MM non-guaranteed salary in year two, according to former Nets executive Bobby Marks (on Twitter).
JULY 9TH, 5:56pm: The Wizards have reached an agreement to re-sign unrestricted free agent Drew Gooden, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link). The deal is for one year, $3.3MM, David Aldridge of TNT tweets.
Gooden appeared in 51 contests for the Wizards last season, averaging 5.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.0 assist in 16.9 minutes of action per game, His slash line was .399/.390/.773. His career numbers through 13 NBA seasons are 11.3 PPG, 7.3 RPG, and 1.2 APG, with a shooting line of .464/.269/.760.
The 33-year-old will likely see an uptick in his minutes next season with Kevin Seraphin expected to depart via free agency. Gooden had expressed his desire to return to Washington back in early June. “I would love for it to be here but if it is not, this is a business and I can swallow that pill too,” Gooden said of his future. “So we will see what happens.” The big man made more than $1.4MM this past season.
Gooden will be able to veto any trade this year, since he-resigned with the team on a one-year deal. He’d lose his Bird rights if he approved any swap.
Pistons Acquire Steve Blake
7:01pm: The trade is official, according to a Brooklyn press release.
6:37pm: The Pistons have acquired Steve Blake from the Nets in exchange for forward Quincy Miller, Shams Charania of RealGM tweets. Charania adds that Brooklyn is likely to release Miller, whose salary is non-guaranteed if waived before Wednesday.
The Nets acquired Blake during last month’s draft in the Mason Plumlee trade. It was reported last week that the Nets were contemplating whether or not to try to negotiate a buyout with the point guard. Blake salary is slightly more than $2.17MM this season. Detroit will absorb Blake’s salary into its cap space, since the team’s signing of Reggie Jackson has yet to become official, former Nets Executive Bobby Marks tweets.
The trade is another cost saving move for Brooklyn this offseason. The team waived forward Cory Jefferson earlier today and used the stretch provision to waive Deron Williams over the weekend.