Clippers Sign Cole Aldrich
3:20pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
MONDAY, 2:23pm: It’ll indeed be for the minimum, tweets Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.
11:59am: Aldrich and the Clippers are still talking, but the expectation is that he’ll indeed sign soon, tweets Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. A league source tells Dan Woike of the Orange County Register that the sides are close to agreement (Twitter link).
FRIDAY, 11:11am: The Clippers will sign Cole Aldrich to a two-year deal that includes a player option, reports Derek Wetmore of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (on Twitter; hat tip to 1500 ESPN Twin Cities colleague Darren Wolfson). Aldrich, a Minnesota native, departs the Knicks, with whom he spent 2014/15. He’ll give the Clippers the true backup center they’ve lacked. The contract, once he signs it, will almost certainly be for the minimum salary, since the Clips have no cap room and committed their taxpayer’s mid-level exception to Paul Pierce.
The team had been discussing the idea of adding the big man, as Dan Woike of the Orange County Register reported earlier this week, and apparently the return of DeAndre Jordan didn’t dissuade them from the idea. Amar’e Stoudemire has been another big man the team has eyed, but he’s reportedly close to a deal with the Heat.
New York had reportedly remained in contact with Aldrich’s reps, and the Jeff Schwartz client had expressed his affection for the triangle offense. Aldrich, who turns 27 in October, saw more playing time this past season than in any other during his five-year NBA career, making 16 starts and averaging 16.0 minutes per game.
Suns Sign Devin Booker
The Suns have signed Devin Booker, this year’s No. 13 overall pick, to his rookie scale contract, the team announced. He’ll make nearly $2.128MM this coming season and a total of more than $9.985MM over the four-year contract if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale, as almost all first-round picks do.
The two-guard from Kentucky is an elite outside shooter, and his high basketball IQ will also help him, but a lack of an ability to consistently drive to the hoop and less than impressive defense figure to hold him back, as Charlie Adams of Hoops Rumors wrote in his prospect profile. He was nonetheless the 10th-best prospect in Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider rankings and came in No. 12 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
His official signing was a question of “when,” not “if,” but it indicates that the Suns may well be finished with significant free agent spending this summer, since formally bringing Booker onto the roster ups his cap hold by more than $300K. That’s not a significant amount of flexibility to sacrifice, but it’s nonetheless a move that many teams under the cap don’t make until their other major business of the summer is done, and that’s especially true once summer league is already well underway. Booker has been playing with Phoenix’s summer league team despite the lack of a signed deal.
Spurs To Work Out John Jenkins
The Spurs have a workout set with former No. 23 overall pick John Jenkins, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). Atlanta renounced its rights to the Relativity Sports client, but the close ties between the Spurs and Hawks make it no surprise that San Antonio is apparently showing interest. The Timberwolves called on Jenkins, too, but they didn’t express any interest for the time being, Wolfson adds.
Jenkins 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. He’s nonetheless shown proficiency from behind the arc, nailing 37.5% of his 208 career attempts.
San Antonio appears to be limited to the minimum salary, with the room exception earmarked for Manu Ginobili, but the Spurs probably wouldn’t need more than the minimum to sign Jenkins. Still, several teams, including the Knicks, have reportedly expressed interest in the 24-year-old.
Central Notes: Shumpert, LeBron, Monroe
Six teams offered a first-round pick to the Cavaliers for Iman Shumpert at the trade deadline this past February, and three of them had max-level cap flexibility this summer, reports Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. That made Cleveland’s front office “incredibly nervous” as it sought to re-sign the swingman in restricted free agency, despite its ability to match competing offers for him. The Kings were one of the teams that thought about an offer before Shumpert, who’d made it a priority to remain with the Cavs, did just that and signed a new deal.
“We were thinking about it,” Kings Vice President of Basketball Operations Vlade Divac told Haynes, “but we had some other options that came up better for us.”
Haynes wonders just what those better options could have been, but the upshot is that Shumpert is staying put. Here’s more from around the Central Division:
- The Cavaliers certainly aren’t trading LeBron James, but if they did, they’d have to pay a 15% trade kicker as part of his new contract, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link). The bonus would only take effect if he were to opt in for next season.
- The precise value of Mo Williams‘ two-year deal with the Cavs is $4,294,500, with $2.1MM coming this season and the rest set aside for the player option year in 2016/17, as Pincus shows on Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
- The Bucks had been trying to trade Zaza Pachulia in the days after they struck a deal with Greg Monroe, sources told Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Milwaukee swapped Pachulia to the Mavs last week.
- Monroe told Scoop Jackson of ESPN.com that if the Pistons had put on the same sort of hard push that the Clippers made to convince DeAndre Jordan to renege on his deal with the Mavs, he might have stuck with Detroit. “I can’t lie, it probably would have made me think, maybe affected my decision a bit,” said Monroe, whose deal with the Bucks is official, so there’s no going back now. “I mean, I was there for five years, my whole NBA career to this point. I knew the people in the organization, I loved my teammates, so I mean, I can’t lie. I’m not saying if that had happened, I would have changed my mind, but I know that would have affected me, and I probably would have had to ponder a little bit more.”
Execs Think Kevin Durant Will Stay With Thunder
Most of the executives with whom Ken Berger of CBSSports.com has spoken at summer league think Kevin Durant will re-sign with the Thunder in free agency next summer. The Lakers, Mavericks and Wizards are among a small group of teams with any legitimate shot at the former MVP, Berger adds. The Knicks are also on the fringes, though Berger largely dismisses their candidacy.
Dallas had begun to think of itself as a contender for Durant when it had secured commitments from DeAndre Jordan and Wesley Matthews, and while Jordan’s well-publicized flip-flop might have hurt the confidence of the Mavs, it seems they’re still in the picture. An associate of Durant’s recently told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that if Durant were to leave the Thunder, he would do so to sign with the Wizards, the forward’s hometown team. Another person close to Durant told Frank Isola of the New York Daily News several months ago that Durant could envision playing with the Knicks. An NBA GM told Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv around that same time that the Knicks had about the same shot as non-Thunder contenders for his services that at that point included the Clippers and Nets as well as the Wizards and Lakers.
The latest projected maximum salary for Durant, who’ll be a nine-year veteran after next season, is $24.9MM, according to former Nets executive Bobby Marks (Twitter link). The surging salary cap means 16 teams have at least $20MM in cap flexibility for next summer as it stands, Marks points out (All Twitter links). The Thunder aren’t among them, but they have Durant’s Bird rights to exceed the cap, and even after matching Portland’s max offer sheet to Enes Kanter on Sunday, they’re not in line to pay the luxury tax beyond 2015/16, even if they re-sign Durant, notes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
Nuggets Waive Jamaal Franklin
The Nuggets have waived Jamaal Franklin, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets and as the RealGM transactions log shows. The team has yet to make any formal announcement, but it appears the move has indeed taken place. Franklin, whom Denver signed during the final week of the regular season to a three-year deal, didn’t have any guaranteed salary remaining on his contract. He’ll become a free agent, assuming he clears waivers.
Franklin’s release may well be part of an effort to clear cap room to accommodate the extension and renegotiation of Wilson Chandler‘s contract. The Nuggets also released their cap holds for Darrell Arthur, Rudy Fernandez, Ian Clark, Wesley Person and Jan Vesely, Pincus notes (Twitter link). Dropping Franklin’s $947,276 minimum salary brings Denver’s cap figure to $64,149,043, based on the data that Pincus has compiled. That leaves $5,850,957 under the $70MM cap to add to Chandler’s $7,171,662 salary, enough to bring it to $13,022,619, which would be a front-loaded figure for the first season of Chandler’s new deal, which reportedly is to give him $46MM over the next for years. That isn’t necessarily the reason for Franklin’s release, as Denver doesn’t have to front-load the Chandler deal. The Nuggets have already officially announced Chandler’s new deal, but RealGM nonetheless doesn’t show the move having taken place just yet, leaving room for Denver to make moves to clear the way for it.
Franklin, who turns 24 this month, is just two years removed from having been the 41st overall pick in 2013. The Grizzlies waived him using the stretch provision last summer, so the Brian Elfus client continue to pick up NBA paychecks through 2018/19. The shooting guard spent time playing in China and for the Lakers D-League affiliate last season before the Nuggets picked him up.
Joel Freeland To Play In Russia With CSKA Moscow
MONDAY, 8:05am: The deal is official, the team announced (hat tip to Pick).
FRIDAY, 11:05pm: Freeland has signed a two-year deal with CSKA Moscow, and the pact contains no NBA out clause, Shams Charania of RealGM reports (Twitter link).
1:33pm: A source tells Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops that Freeland hasn’t agreed to a deal just yet, and will decide within the next two days (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 8:51am: Joel Freeland has agreed to sign a guaranteed deal with Russia’s CSKA Moscow, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Freeland had reportedly set a deadline of Friday to find an NBA deal before he committed to playing overseas, but it appears he’s making the jump a day early. The British big man’s contract with the Blazers ended last month, and Portland didn’t make a qualifying offer.
[RELATED: Blazers Finalize Deal With Ed Davis]
The Rafa Calvo client didn’t expect the Blazers to make that offer, but he expressed a preference to stay in the NBA. He’ll instead move to one of Europe’s most prominent clubs. Chema de Lucas of Gigantes del Basket first reported CSKA Moscow’s interest.
Freeland, 28, didn’t have much of a role during his three seasons with the Blazers, though he did make eight starts this past year while averaging 3.5 points and 3.9 rebounds in 12.8 minutes per game.
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And-Ones: Cavs, Raptors, Pistons
Cavs GM David Griffin told reporters, including Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group, that he is interested in re-signing unrestricted free agent J.R. Smith and restricted free agent Matthew Dellavedova. “In Delly’s case, the restricted free agency is a totally different process,” Griffin said. “With J.R., I wouldn’t want to characterize the discussion or anything, but he’s a player I’d like to have back. We just have to find a way to make it work.”
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- The Raptors have hired Andy Greer as an assistant coach, reports Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski (on Twitter). Greer, who previously was an assistant with the Bulls under former Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau, will run the Raptors’ defense.
- The Raptors let a leftover sliver of the Steve Novak trade exception expire Friday. It was initially a $3,445,947 exception created when Toronto sent Novak to Utah on July 10th, 2014. The lion’s share of it went toward the acquisition of Luke Ridnour last month, a move that failed to be of much efficacy for the Raptors, who simply waived Ridnour this past Thursday.
- The Pistons plan to proceed with finalizing Reggie Jackson‘s five-year, $80 million contract later this week or early next week, Detroit coach/executive Stan Van Gundy told reporters including David Mayo of MLive.com. At around the same time, Gundy plans to address the topic of Andre Drummond‘s contract extension, Mayo adds. The Pistons expect to lock Drummond into a long-term extension, Mayo writes, though they would have about another $15MM in cap flexibility in 2016/17 if the 21-year-old center agrees to wait until 2016 to sign rather than inking an extension this summer.
- Free agent guard A.J. Price, who was formerly with the Suns, is mulling a move overseas and might land with Serbia’s Red Star Belgrade, a source told David Pick of Eurobasket.com (on Twitter).
- Anthony Randolph has decided to return to Russia and the former NBA forward re-signed with Kuban, Pick also tweets.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Hoops Links: Hibbert, Jordan, Mavs
On this date in 2006, Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy scored 35 points against the Suns to set what was then a new NBA Summer League scoring record.
Got a great basketball blog post that you want to see featured on Hoops Rumors? Send it to Zach at HoopsLinks@gmail.com. Here’s this week’s look around the basketball blogosphere…
- Lakers Outsiders analyzed Roy Hibbert’s fit with the Lakers.
- House Of Houston says the Rockets would have benefitted from DeAndre Jordan in Dallas.
- Six Championship Drive plays the hostage game.
- Hoop Trends discussed the rise and fall of Cliff Alexander.
Please send submissions for Hoops Links to Zach at HoopsLinks@gmail.com.
Pacific Notes: Clippers, Suns, Kings
Austin Rivers did not take a “family discount” in agreeing to return to the Clippers and play for his father, Doc Rivers, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com reports. The two-year, $6.4MM deal, according to Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link), is comparable to what Rivers would have likely seen in terms of annual salary if he signed with another team, a league executive told Blakely.
Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- By spending his summer in Phoenix instead of returning to his hometown of Birmingham, Eric Bledsoe is showing a full offseason commitment to the Suns, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic writes. Bledsoe has been working out at US Airways Center, has attended draft workouts and was part of the Suns’ recruiting group that pitched to LaMarcus Aldridge, Coro points out. Bledsoe’s name swirled in trade rumors when the team agreed to re-sign Brandon Knight, but Suns coach Jeff Hornacek later denied any talks. Bledsoe is set to make $13.5MM next season in the second year of a five-year, $70MM deal.
- Vlade Divac, Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations, acknowledged that the relationship between coach George Karl and center DeMarcus Cousins isn’t exactly great, but, while appearing on The Jim Rome Show on CBS Sports Radio, Divac said he expects both to be with Sacramento this season (story relayed by ESPN.com). “Well, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not pretty right now, but I’m focused on bringing a better team this year and I think I did a pretty good job in this free agency and now I’m going to be focused on the two of them,” Divac said.