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Robbie Hummel Signs To Play In Italy

July 31st, 2015 at 7:58am CST by Zachary Links

FRIDAY, 7:58am: The deal is official, the team announced (on Twitter; hat tip to Carchia).

11:48am: It’s a one-year deal and it does not include any NBA outs, a source tells David Pick of Eurobasket.com (on Twitter).

THURSDAY, 8:46am: Olimpia Milano has reached agreement on a deal with small forward Robbie Hummel, according to sources who spoke with Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Hummel spent the previous two seasons with the Timberwolves.

Back in June, Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders indicated he would like to retain Hummel for the coming season.  Saunders extended the forward the qualifying offer of more than $1.147MM later that month, but he pulled it in early July.  That move appeared to be more about roster space than finances as the Wolves would go on to ink draft-and-stash prospect Nemanja Bjelica days later.  The Trail Blazers, Nuggets, Kings, and Cavaliers all reportedly expressed interest, though the two Northwest Division teams were said to have the most interest of the bunch.

Hummel, 26, averaged 3.3 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 2013/2014 and 4.4 PPG and 3.0 RPG this past season.  The forward has experience playing overseas as the Wolves allowed him to play in Spain during his rookie season.  During his time with Spain’s Obradoiro, Hummel put up 10.1 PPG and 3.8 RPG.

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Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 7/30/15

July 30th, 2015 at 11:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

The identity of the best remaining free agent, restricted or unrestricted, is pretty clear. Tristan Thompson‘s value was on full display after Kevin Love went down with a shoulder injury in the playoffs. The 2011 No. 4 overall pick gave the Cavs size, muscle and skill that helped them topple the Bulls and a 60-win Hawks team on the way to the Finals. Thompson averaged a whopping 4.4 offensive rebounds per game in postseason play. Still, no one will mistake the ambidextrous Canadian for a true NBA superstar.

The Rich Paul client has spent the past month as a restricted free agent, much of it in a stalemate after he and the Cavs were reportedly close to a deal on July 1st. Thompson was apparently ready to settle for $80MM over five years, but he reportedly asked for $85MM after it seemed that fellow restricted free agent forward Draymond Green would get that much in his deal with the Warriors. Green wound up with $82MM instead. In any case, Cavs GM David Griffin expressed confidence two weeks ago that he and Thompson would reach a deal.

Not much progress appears to have taken place since. So, we ask: What do you think will happen with Thompson, and how much will he see on his next deal? The Cavs have leverage, since they can match any offer, and only the Sixers and Trail Blazers have the cap room necessary to tender a max offer sheet. Still, Thompson has the nuclear option of signing his qualifying offer of nearly $6.778MM to hit unrestricted free agency next summer, just when the salary cap is set to vault, giving teams loads of cash to burn. Thompson and LeBron James share Paul as an agent, and James wants Thompson to return to Cleveland, so the Cavs face pressure.

So, tell us what you think happens and how much Thompson will make next season. To comment, simply enter your name and email address, write what you want to say, and submit it; there’s no need to become a registered user. Just make sure you comply with our commenting policy.

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Trades Of Large Contracts Scarce This Summer

July 30th, 2015 at 11:02pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Hawks and Nets proved three years ago that just about any contract is liable to be traded. Brooklyn agreed in the summer of 2012 to take Joe Johnson and the remaining four years and $89,295,016 on his contract from the Hawks. The Nets paid a record amount of luxury tax in 2013/14 in large measure because of Johnson’s bloated deal, while the Hawks deftly reconstructed their roster, paying only about $57.8MM last season, less than the $63.065MM salary cap, for a 60-win team. The Nets, since the trade, have topped out at 49 wins, and last season they won only 38 times in the regular season before losing a first-round series to top-seeded Atlanta.

It’s perhaps with the wisdom of that deal in mind that teams have seemed hesitant to take on large contracts this summer. The greatest chunk of guaranteed salary changing hands was only $20MM, and that’s spread over the four years of the extension the Suns gave Marcus Morris months before trading him to the Pistons. Spencer Hawes, who possesses the contract traded this summer with the next greatest amount of guaranteed money left on it, signed for the mid-level exception last year. Teams showed willingness to take on large expiring contracts, with Roy Hibbert and David Lee on the move, but no team committed to taking on consecutive seasons of eight-figure guarantees. Ty Lawson is on this list, and he would have topped it but for the sacrifice of the guarantee on his salary of more than $13.213MM for 2016/17.

Here are the nine players traded so far in the 2015 offseason with at least $10MM in guaranteed money left on their respective deals. Note that the figures reflect their post-trade cap hits, so any trade bonus money is included. All figures are rounded to the nearest $1K.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

Which of these contracts would you least want your team to be on the hook for? Leave a comment to let us know.

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Pacific Notes: Lieberman, Moreland, Durant

July 30th, 2015 at 10:28pm CST by Chuck Myron
10:28pm: The Kings and Lieberman have reached an agreement, Lieberman tells Voisin (Twitter link).
7:29pm: The NBA will boast multiple female assistant coaches for the first time this season, as the Kings are expected to hire Hall of Famer and women’s basketball pioneer Nancy Lieberman to head coach George Karl‘s staff, reports Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee. Kings VP of franchise and basketball ops Vlade Divac told Voisin today that he’ll make Lieberman an offer, and she said to Voisin that she’ll accept it.
“George and I talked about bringing her back after she helped us at summer league,” Divac said. “She was terrific. She brings a different dimension. I think [it’s] a nice opportunity for her.”
She’ll join Spurs assistant Becky Hammon, the head coach of the Las Vegas Summer League champs, who became just the second female NBA assistant coach ever last summer, and the first to hold such a position full-time. Lieberman has previously served as head coach of the Mavs D-League affiliate. Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:
  • The Kings decided one-year veteran Eric Moreland‘s playing style was too similar to that of No. 6 pick Willie Cauley-Stein, helping prompt Sacramento to waive Moreland on Thursday rather than guarantee his salary, as Shams Charania of RealGM writes. Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee wouldn’t be shocked to see Moreland end up with Denver, where former Sacramento GM Pete D’Alessandro, who signed him to the Kings last year, works in the Nuggets front office, but Bill Herenda of CSN California heard early word suggesting that won’t happen (Twitter links).
  • The Warriors will surely chase Kevin Durant next summer, when he’s set for free agency, but realistically, they’d have to sign-and-trade for him, and such a deal would probably have to include Harrison Barnes plus more, as Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group posits in a look at Golden State’s chances for the former MVP.
  • Golden State has promoted Luke Walton to lead assistant to replace Alvin Gentry, the team announced. Gentry became the head coach of the Pelicans earlier this summer. Walton joined the Warriors coaching staff last year.
  • The Suns have officially added Earl Watson, Nate Bjorkgren and Jason Fraser to their coaching staff, the team announced. Watson and Fraser come from the Spurs D-League team while Bjorkgren had coached Phoenix’s D-League affiliate. Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group first reported the addition of Watson, who helped with the Suns’ pitch to LaMarcus Aldridge, his former teammate with the Trail Blazers.
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Southeast Notes: Scott, Ennis, Napier

July 30th, 2015 at 9:51pm CST by Chuck Myron
Hawks power forward Mike Scott is facing felony drug charges following an arrest this morning, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Police say they found Scott and his brother in possession of marijuana and MDMA, aka ecstasy or Molly. Scott’s salary of more than $3.333MM is fully guaranteed for this season, with a similar figure non-guaranteed for 2016/17. Here’s more from around the Southeast Division:
  • James Ennis feels confident that he’ll earn his way onto the Heat‘s regular season roster, agent Scott Nichols told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, explaining why he and the Heat decided to nix the clause in Ennis’ contract that would have triggered a 50% partial guarantee on his minimum salary if he remained on the team through Saturday. The move keeps the Heat from having to decide on a $422,530 chunk of salary this weekend, a prospect that may well have spurred the team to cut him, and it also moves up the date on which Ennis’ salary becomes fully guaranteed from December 1st to opening night, Jackson notes.
  • Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel still doesn’t see Miami’s 2014 draft-night acquisition of Shabazz Napier as a mistake, even after the Heat traded Napier to the Magic following a so-so rookie year, as Winderman writes in his mailbag column. He heard from one scout that Napier nearly was one of the first 15 picks in the draft. This summer, the Heat had luxury tax concerns and better options at point guard, and that’s what led to the trade with Orlando, Winderman argues. That casts a different light on Napier than that from when an NBA GM told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that the Heat had simply concluded prior to the trade that the point guard “was not good enough”
  • Michael Kidd-Gilchrist leads a list of intriguing second-tier 2016 free agents that Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com compiles in an Insider-only piece. The elite defense of the 21-year-old Hornets small forward makes it such that he’ll be a valuable starter for years to come if he can merely become an average offensive player, Pelton argues.
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Players Who’ve Survived Salary Guarantee Dates

July 30th, 2015 at 8:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

Contract guarantee dates are often the reason why players end up on waivers. Eric Moreland, Brendan Haywood and Ricky Ledo have all met the end of their time with their respective teams in the past two days, largely because those teams didn’t want to guarantee their salaries, or at least a portion of them. More figure to join that trio soon, with Saturday the key day for a handful, as the schedule of contract guarantee dates shows.

Players and teams are free to negotiate dates on which a salary may become fully or partially guaranteed should the player remain under contract. If a player has non-guaranteed salary and no date is specified in the contract, his salary would become guaranteed if he hasn’t cleared waivers by January 10th. Thus, January 7th is the de facto leaguewide guarantee date, since players waived that day would clear waivers January 9th.

The Nuggets and Wilson Chandler got a head start on all that this offseason, as Chandler’s $2MM partial guarantee had already become a full guarantee of nearly $7.172MM by early May. The sides later upped his salary to more than $10.449MM in a renegotiation. The rest of the players to have had their full salaries guaranteed have seen those dates come and pass over the last month. They’re listed below, with their respective salary figures rounded to the nearest $1K. Note that this doesn’t include players who’ve earned partial guarantees, since they still have a ways to go:

  • Jamal Crawford (Clippers), $5,675MM (had been partially guaranteed for $1.5MM)
  • Chris Kaman (Trail Blazers), $5.016MM (had been partially guaranteed for $1MM)
  • Trevor Booker (Jazz) $4.775MM (had been partially guaranteed for $250K)
  • Matt Barnes (Grizzlies) $3.543MM (had been partially guaranteed for $1MM)
  • Randy Foye (Nuggets) $3.135MM
  • Anthony Tolliver (Pistons), $3MM (had been partially guaranteed for $400K)
  • Beno Udrih (Grizzlies) $2.17MM (had been partially guaranteed for $923K)
  • Jon Leuer (Suns), $1.035MM
  • Isaiah Canaan (Sixers), minimum (had been partially guaranteed for $758K)
  • Ray McCallum (Spurs), minimum (had been partially guaranteed for $200K)
  • E’Twaun Moore (Bulls), minimum
  • Robert Sacre (Lakers), minimum
  • Russ Smith (Grizzlies) minimum (had been partially guaranteed for $150K)

Note: The Lakers have decided to keep Jordan Clarkson through his guarantee date on Saturday.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Thunder Sign Josh Huestis

July 30th, 2015 at 5:33pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:33pm: The signing is official, the Thunder announce via press release.

“We are excited to add Josh to our roster as he allows us to continue to increase our depth through his athleticism and versatility,” GM Sam Presti said. “Josh knows our culture and our organization as a result of his time with the Blue [Oklahoma City’s D-League affiliate] and we look forward to his continued development with the Thunder.”

JULY 30TH, 5:00pm: Huestis has signed his rookie scale contract, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link), though the Thunder have yet to make an official announcement. The addition of Huestis gives Oklahoma City 15 fully guaranteed contracts.

JULY 14TH, 2:12pm: The Thunder are expected to fill the roster spot that their agreement to trade Perry Jones III will open up with Josh Huestis, last year’s No. 29 overall pick, reports Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman (Twitter link). Huestis spent the past year in the D-League as part of unique arrangement in which he promised to play for Oklahoma City’s affiliate in exchange for having been drafted in the first round.

Huestis wasn’t a likely first-round prospect coming into the draft, but it appears he’s headed for a rookie scale contract. Such deals are given out only to first-rounders, and they include two seasons of guaranteed salary. His contract, should indeed he sign this year, would be based off the 2015 rookie scale, so he’d get a salary worth more than $1.140MM for this season, with another guaranteed year of more than $1.191MM coming his way if he signs for the standard 120% of the rookie scale. Assuming such, the full amount of his rookie scale contract would be nearly $5.818MM, as our table of first-round salaries shows.

The Toby Bailey client nonetheless seemed willing as of this spring to play another year in the D-League. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him make frequent appearances with OKC’s D-League team again this year, though if he’s on an NBA contract, he’d continue to draw his NBA salary while doing so. The small forward’s stats weren’t eye-popping this past season for the Thunder affiliate, as he averaged 10.3 points and 5.7 rebounds in 33.1 minutes per game.

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Trail Blazers Waive Brendan Haywood

July 30th, 2015 at 5:22pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Trail Blazers have waived Brendan Haywood just days after acquiring him from the Cavaliers, the team announced (Twitter link). The move is no great shock, since Haywood’s non-guaranteed salary of $10,522,500 for this coming season would have been fully guaranteed if Portland kept him through Saturday. Thus ends the odyssey of one of the most unusual contracts the league has seen in quite some time.

Haywood averaged only 1.6 points in 5.4 minutes per game last season across 22 appearances, but his contract made him a valuable trade chip. The Mavs signed him to a six-year deal worth more than $52MM in 2010, but two years later, they amnestied him, with Charlotte claiming him off waivers shortly thereafter. The then-Bobcats submitted a partial bid, so they were only on the hook for a fraction of the Haywood contract, with Dallas paying the rest. However, the final season of his original Mavs deal was non-guaranteed. Thus, the cap figure for that year, unlike the years in which Charlotte and Dallas split the cost, remained as it was when Haywood signed the contract.

The center, who’s now 35, has seen his game decline over the past few seasons, but the final year of his contract was motivation for his team to keep him on an NBA roster, since this summer, the deal served as a de facto trade exception. A team could use his contract to acquire a player who makes as much as $15,522,500 without giving up any guaranteed salary in return.

Curiously, the Cavs acquired him cheaply last summer, giving up only Scotty Hopson and cash to Charlotte in a trade. Cleveland’s payroll has ventured into tax territory this summer, so the maximum amount of salary the Cavs could have brought back in a Haywood trade was $13,253,125. Still, Cleveland never found a deal to its liking, and simply rolled over the benefit into an actual trade exception in the deal with Portland. That exception is slightly less valuable, since the Cavs could only use it to bring in $10,622,500.

The utility of Haywood’s contract for Portland wasn’t that great, since the Blazers already possess cap space. They had this week to see if they could flip Haywood to an over-the-cap team that might then trade the contract again to reap its benefit, but no such series of deals materialized. Haywood faces a challenge to hook on with another team at this point, though he apparently doesn’t intend to retire.

Are you surprised that more a market didn’t develop for the Haywood contract when the Cavs had it? Leave a comment to let us know.

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Knicks Talk With Sasha Vujacic

July 30th, 2015 at 5:09pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Knicks have spoken with eight-year NBA veteran and former Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic, as David Pick of Eurobasket.com hears (Twitter link). The 31-year-old has played chiefly overseas since the 2011 lockout, save for a brief time with the Clippers in 2013/14. New York waived guard Ricky Ledo just this afternoon, ostensibly creating a vacancy in the backcourt.

Vujacic split this past season between Turkey and Spain, finding much greater playing time with Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyesi than he did with Spanish powerhouse Laboral Kuxta. He averaged 15.7 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 33.4 minutes per game for Istanbul, but he put up just 5.2 PPG in 14.1 MPG for his Spanish team.

The Clippers brought aboard the two-time NBA champion on a 10-day contract in February 2014, but after 10 total minutes across two appearances, the sides didn’t end up doing another deal. Vujacic spent most of his last full season in the NBA with the Nets, in 2010/11, a career year in which he averaged 9.8 PPG in 24.6 MPG.

The native of Slovenia otherwise spent his time in the Association as a Laker, much of it with Phil Jackson, now team president of the Knicks, as his coach. The Knicks have deals with 14 players, so for now, room is available. Still, Jackson is reportedly targeting big men, including Kevin Seraphin and, perhaps to a lesser degree, Carlos Boozer.

Teams can carry up to 20 players through the preseason but only 15 during the regular season. New York has its $2.814MM room exception available to pay above the minimum.

Do you think the Knicks should sign Vujacic? Leave a comment to have your say.

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Mavs Sign Salah Mejri

July 30th, 2015 at 4:14pm CST by Zachary Links

4:14pm: It’s a partially guaranteed three-year deal, tweets Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com, so the Mavs are using cap space.

3:51pm: The Mavericks announced that they have signed center Salah Mejri.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed in the press release, though Marc Stein of ESPN.com recently reported that the Mavs made a three-year offer to the big man.

Mejri played in 34 games with Real Madrid last season and averaged 4.3 points and 2.1 rebounds in 8.6 minutes on the way to helping his team win the Spanish League title.  In championship play, he increased those averages to 5.0 points, 2.6 rebounds and 10.3 minutes across eight games.  While Mejri didn’t play much last year, Dallas is intrigued by his energy, mobility, and length, as David Pick of Eurobasket.com noted recently (Twitter link).

A native of Tunisia, Mejri was a member of the Tunisian National Team that competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The team secured its bid to the London Olympics by winning the 2011 FIBA African Championships where Mejri was named MVP.

Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi first reported the interest from Dallas. The Cavs were reportedly interested earlier this year.

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