Cavs To Sign Jared Cunningham For Camp
MONDAY, 10:02am: The deal is non-guaranteed, according to Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com.
SUNDAY, 3:14pm: The Cavaliers have reached a deal with free agent Jared Cunningham, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. The 6’4″ guard recently committed to join the team in camp, according to Charania. Cunningham would appear to stand a decent chance to remain on the roster come opening night, as the Cavs have deals with only 11 other players so far.
Cunningham appeared in 19 games with the Clippers last season, averaging 1.8 points and 0.5 assists in 4.7 minutes. He was traded to the Sixers on January 7th, but was waived the same day. Cunningham has also been with the Mavericks, Hawks and Kings in his three-year NBA career.
Cunningham was drafted by Cleveland with the 24th pick in 2012, but was shipped to Dallas in a draft-day deal. He was part of the Utah Jazz team during this year’s summer league.
Column: Do Bucks Stop Here? Doesn’t Seem Like It
Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 8/17/15
The DeMarcus Cousins saga has been a constant source of news, rumors and innuendo throughout the offseason. The mercurial Kings center is certainly one of the most talented players in the league and, at 25, is just entering the prime years of his career. He’s also locked up contractually through the 2017/18 season.
That hasn’t slowed down the rumor mill that the Kings will deal Cousins well before his contract expires. Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck fueled the fire today by saying that most of the people within the organization want the franchise to trade him away (video link), prompting Cousins, president of basketball operations Vlade Divac and owner Vivek Ranadive to suggest on Twitter Monday that the report was nonsense. Beck added in his video report that coach George Karl would still like to see the team deal Cousins, even though Karl has said otherwise.
Cousins recently met with Karl and later said that they were on the same page. That meeting came after a brief encounter between Cousins and the coach at summer league that was reportedly their first interaction for a period of months. Cousins had tweeted snake and grass emojis shortly after a report surfaced indicating that Karl had actively attempted to have him traded.
Karl’s reported desire to get rid of Cousins upset Ranadive to the point that he considered firing the coach, and a conflicting narrative exists about whether the Kings reached out to John Calipari as a potential replacement.
The Lakers were reportedly in talks to acquire Cousins around draft time. And while Cousins’ personality may rub some people the wrong way, there would undoubtedly be strong interest around the league in his services if the Kings decided to shop him.
Therefore, our question of the day is this: Do you believe DeMarcus Cousins will remain with the Kings throughout the upcoming season? If not, when do you think he will be traded?
Take to the comments section below to sound off with your thoughts and opinions. We look forward to what you have to say.
Note: Since these Shootarounds are meant to be guided by you the reader, we certainly welcome your input on the topics we present. If there is something you’d like to see pop up here for a discussion, shoot us a message at hoopsrumorsmailbag@gmail.com.
Western Rumors: Lawson, Davis, Jazz
New Nuggets coach Michael Malone said the club made a “good move” by dealing troubled point guard Ty Lawson to the Rockets last month, Nicki Jhabvala of the Denver Post reports. The Nuggets received a protected 2016 first-round pick, four players and cash for Lawson in the trade. “We wish Ty well. I mean that sincerely. That’s not just coach talk,” Malone said to Jhabvala. “We all wish him well. But it was a move that we felt was a good move for us. I hope he’s able to get his life in order, and when he does, we all know he’s a special player.” Malone added to Jhabvala that he had input on the deal. Lawson has completed his court-ordered 30-day stint in an alcohol rehabilitation program, according to Mark Berman of FOX26 Sports in Houston. Happy Walters, Lawson’s agent, told Berman via text message that Lawson was released on Monday afternoon. Lawson entered the program after being charged with two DUIs in seven months.
In other news around the Western Conference:
- Glen Davis expects to sign a contract by the end of the month, he told SI.com’s Maggie Gray (video link). Davis, one of the remaining unrestricted free agents on the market, said in the interview that he doesn’t want to play for a rebuilding club. “I want to go on a team that’s competing for a championship,” he said. The Clippers have shown interest in re-signing Davis.
- Treveon Graham’s three-year, minimum-salary contract with the Jazz has a $75K guarantee, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. The former VCU shooting guard signed with Utah on Monday.
Atlantic Notes: Porzingis, Celtics, McCullough
Knicks president Phil Jackson expects lottery pick Kristaps Porzingis to play approximately 20 minutes a game in his rookie season, he told Charley Rosen in Part 8 of a nine-part series posted on ESPN.com. “It’s entirely up to [coach Derek Fisher], but it would be great if KP could get as much as 20 minutes a game early in the season, plus maybe a few more later when he’s acclimated to the NBA game,” Jackson said to Rosen. “It also has to be determined whether he’ll be more comfortable at power forward or center.” Jackson is concerned that Porzingis may have trouble putting on enough muscle to play in the low post. “His core strength might never be good enough, and he might not be able to get low enough to get himself into prime defensive position to body power rebounders or drivers,” Jackson told Rosen. Jackson added that Jerian Grant, who was acquired in a draft-day trade with the Hawks for Tim Hardaway Jr., will compete with Langston Galloway for playing time at either guard spot.
In other news around the Atlantic Division:
- Tyler Zeller has a better chance than Celtics teammates Jared Sullinger and Perry Jones III to receive a contract extension before the start of the regular season, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com reports. Out of the trio from the 2012 draft, Zeller was the most effective player last season, averaging 10.2 points and 5.7 rebounds with an above-average 19.01 player efficiency rating, Blakely continues. Sullinger has battled weight and conditioning issues during his career while Jones, who was traded by the Thunder to Boston in July, has to establish his value after receiving limited playing time in his three seasons with Oklahoma City, Blakely adds.
- Nets draft pick Chris McCullough may return as early as November from the torn right ACL he suffered while playing for Syracuse last season, according to Brandon Bennett of NetsDaily.com. While there is no timetable for McCullough’s return, a November target appears to be right on track, Bennett adds. McCullough was expected to miss the upcoming season when he was selected with the No. 29 overall pick.
- Cory Joseph, who left the Spurs and signed a four-year, $30MM deal with the Raptors, wants to display his two-way game while playing for Team Canada in next month’s Olympic qualifying tournament, Josh Lewenberg of TSN.com reports. “Obviously everybody knows I’m a defensive player,” Joseph said to Lewenberg. “I take pride in my defense. Last year, I was able to show a little bit of my two-way game when [Patty Mills] and [Tony Parker] were out early in the season. So I’m looking to continue to show that I’m a two-way player.”
Free Agent Stock Watch: Norris Cole
The New Orleans Pelicans have been one of the busiest teams this offseason, with their focus on retaining their core group of players. They made national headlines at the start of free agency when franchise player Anthony Davis agreed to a long-term extension. They filled out their roster mostly by re-signing their own free agents. They agreed to terms with Omer Asik, Alexis Ajinca, Luke Babbitt and Dante Cunningham on multi-year deals and brought in a couple of low-profile free agents — Kendrick Perkins and Alonzo Gee.
There’s one order of business that remains unresolved. Norris Cole is still contemplating his options, leaving the Pelicans’ backcourt in a state of flux. The Pelicans tendered a qualifying offer of $3,036,927 to Cole, making him a restricted free agent.
With injury-prone Jrue Holiday as the starter, Cole would seemingly have a rotation spot if he re-signed with New Orleans, since the only other point guard possibilities on the current roster are wing starters Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans. The Pelicans’ backcourt was thinned out even further when they opted to waive Toney Douglas.
Early in the free agency process, Cole was reportedly the team’s top remaining priority. Yet the situation has dragged on deep into the summer with no resolution. They haven’t been able to come to terms on a multi-year contract, nor has Cole received an offer sheet from another club. He could accept the qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next summer, when the salary cap shoots upward, but the Rich Paul client has held off on that option.
There have been reports of other teams making a run at Cole. The Sixers showed some interest and certainly have the cap room to make him an offer, though they currently have four point guards on their roster. Cole could compete for a starting role there but if Philadelphia had serious interest in him, it would seem that an offer sheet would have already been made.
The Knicks have also been linked to Cole. Their point guard trio of Jose Calderon, Langston Galloway (who can play either guard spot) and rookie Jerian Grant doesn’t get the pulse racing, and Cole could compete for a starting job there. However, the Knicks have been so active in the free agent market that they’re limited to offering a minimum salary to Cole if they can’t engineer a sign-and-trade.
The Lakers are a possibility, though the signing of Lou Williams to back up rookie D’Angelo Russell makes that an unlikely scenario.
The relatively quiet market for Cole is somewhat surprising, considering that the Wizards, Thunder, Bucks and Cavs were reportedly interested in Cole leading up to the February trade deadline. Cole wound up with the Pelicans when the Heat included him in the three-team Goran Dragic trade.
For what it’s worth, Cole made a favorable impression on the team’s most important player. Davis has said that he wants Cole back and the fact that the Pelicans allowed the deadline to withdraw the qualifying offer to pass means they’re serious about retaining Cole, as long as it fits their budget.
In the meantime, New Orleans is exploring other options. The club has reportedly made an offer to veteran Jason Terry, though there hasn’t been any movement on that front over the past week.
Cole still has the leverage of signing the qualifying offer but the longer he waits, the more competition he may face for a rotation spot. So unless there is another suitor ready to extend an offer sheet, it may be in his best interest to come to terms quickly with the Pelicans. He should get enough playing time to enhance his value if he accepts the qualifying offer. He can then get the long-term security he desires — with a major bump in salary — next summer.
Most Within Kings Want DeMarcus Cousins Traded?
5:44pm: Cousins, Divac and Ranadive all took to Twitter in an apparent effort to debunk the latest rumors, with Cousins posting “Blah blah blah…” and Divac chiming in with “I agree…#family.” Ranadive followed with the hashtag #WeAreFamily (hat tip to Marc Stein of ESPN.com).
2:04pm: The vast majority of the people in the Kings organization would prefer to see the team trade DeMarcus Cousins, as Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck says he’s been told (video link). Owner Vivek Ranadive has said publicly since the spring that he has no desire to trade the All-Star center, and while Beck believes that the owner is steadfast against a move, it appears others in the team’s power structure feel differently. Beck adds that coach George Karl would still like to see the team move on from Cousins, even though Karl has said otherwise.
It’s the latest twist in an ongoing saga involving the Kings and Cousins that comes on the heels of weeks of apparent peacemaking. Cousins said last week that he and Karl were on the same page after a meeting that they’d had along with vice president of basketball operations Vlade Divac and assistant GM Mike Bratz. That meeting came after a brief encounter between Cousins and the coach at summer league that was reportedly their first interaction for a period of months. Cousins notoriously tweeted snake and grass emojis shortly after a report surfaced indicating that Karl had actively attempted to have him traded. A person familiar with Karl’s thinking told Beck all the way back in February that the Kings weren’t ruling out trading Cousins at the deadline this past February, and Karl advanced that notion in April when he said that he’d never coached a player who was off-limits for a trade.
Karl’s apparent efforts to trade Cousins reportedly upset Ranadive to the point that he considered firing the coach, and a conflicting narrative exists about whether the Kings reached out to John Calipari as a potential replacement. Indeed, the line of Cousins rumors has been rife with denials and nuance, dating back to concerns over Cousins’ reaction to the pair of coaching changes that Sacramento made this past season. His contract still has three full seasons left, valued at an average of nearly $16.958MM a year, so it doesn’t present an urgency to make a deal.
The Lakers emerged as a strong suitor for Cousins around draft time. The Dan Fegan client reportedly wanted to play with them, and Ranadive apparently gave Fegan permission to see if he could find a workable trade that would take Cousins out of Sacramento. However, no deal materialized as Divac, who has echoed Ranadive in saying publicly many times that he wants to keep Cousins, sought a reconciliation between Cousins and Karl. It had seemed, before today’s news, that the coach and his star player had patched up their relationship, but apparently that effort still has a ways to go.
What do you think of the latest development in the DeMarcus Cousins saga? Leave a comment to tell us.
Southeast Notes: Webster, Beal, Kalinoski
Martell Webster‘s partial guarantee of $2.5MM for 2016/17 becomes a full guarantee of more than $5.845MM if he plays in 70 games this coming season, and the Wizards forward has embraced a new commitment to his fitness this summer, as he explains to Ben Mehic of Fansided’s Wiz of Awes blog. Webster also made it clear that he wants to continue to play past the expiration of the contract, backtracking from comments he made this past fall that indicated he would most likely retire in 2017.
“I feel amazing,” Webster said to Mehic. “I transformed by body, I dropped 20 pounds and I’m probably going to drop 10 more, so that I’m about 206 — anywhere from 206 to 210 this next year, that’s what I want to play at. I feel amazing, a lot of pressure has been taken off my back and off of my joints and I feel great.”
See more from Washington and elsewhere around the Southeast Division here:
- The Wizards are hesitant to commit to the four-year, maximum-salary extension that Bradley Beal wants unless it contains some non-guaranteed salary, given his history of injuries, writes J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. That jibes with what Michael heard late last month, when he wrote that the Wizards wanted an escape hatch in any long-term deal while Beal’s camp was insistent upon a player option if he were to take less than the max. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reported in May that the Wizards were committed to giving him the max, but Michael says the club’s thinking has shifted slightly since last fall, when Washington seemed ready to move full speed ahead with extension plans despite Beal’s broken wrist.
- The Heat and Hornets had expressed interest in signing undrafted Davidson guard Tyler Kalinoski to a deal for training camp, but he signed with Elan Chalon of France instead on a contract that included an NBA out, writes Ian Thomsen of NBA.com. That escape clause has expired, but the NBA dream is not dead for the Kenny Grant client, as Thomsen chronicles in a piece that examines the path of those on the fringe between the NBA and Europe. “A guy with his skill-set is intriguing,” said Dan Craig, who coached Kalinoski on the Heat’s summer league team. “I think he is right there on the brink of being a 14th or 15th guy on an NBA roster. In the right system, under the right coaching, he could possibly come in and give you impact minutes.”
Dorell Wright To Play In China
4:34pm: Wright confirmed the deal via text message to Young (Twitter link).
4:32pm: The arrangement is for one year with no NBA escape clause, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Still, the Chinese Basketball Association season ends long before the NBA season does, so the deal would appear to give Wright the chance to return to the NBA for the stretch run in 2015/16.
4:01pm: Dorell Wright has a deal with China’s Chongqing Dragons, international journalist David Pick reports (Twitter link). Pick, who indicates that the sides have already put pen to paper, reported earlier today that the free agent forward was considering a Chinese team as talks with the Heat had failed to produce an offer.
Wright, who spent last season with the Trail Blazers, made it clear more than a month ago that he had interest in signing with the Heat, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported, and the Los Angeles native also had interest in the Clippers and the Lakers, according to Jabari Young of CSNNW.com. However, an NBA deal didn’t materialize with those teams, nor did one spring up with the Raptors, who signed No. 20 overall pick Delon Wright, Dorell’s brother.
Dorell may end up in Beijing, since the Dragons are thinking about relocating there, Pick tweets. Wright told Young that he’s excited about expanding his brand, but the Wasserman client will nonetheless return to his quest for an NBA deal after the Chinese season, as Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders hears (Twitter links).
Do you think Dorell Wright will end up on an NBA roster after the Chinese season? Comment to let us know.
Bucks Sign Marcus Landry
3:27pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
3:17pm: The Bucks have decided to sign former University of Wisconsin power forward Marcus Landry, sources tell Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). The move had been expected, according to Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times, who reported this morning that the one-year NBA veteran was set to work out for Milwaukee today. That audition apparently went well, as Scotto indicates that Landry has put pen to paper, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement. It’s unclear just what sort of terms are involved in the pact, though with the Bucks already carrying 15 guaranteed deals, it’s likely a minimum salary deal with a partial guarantee, at best.
It’ll be the fifth time an NBA team will have brought Landry to training camp, though he only made the regular season roster once, on his first try in 2009. The Knicks had him that year and he appeared in 17 games, averaging 2.6 points in 6.4 minutes per contest, but they shipped him to the Celtics at the deadline in a trade involving Nate Robinson. The C’s released Landry after he made just one appearance for them, and while he’s signed with the Kings, Suns and Lakers since then, he’s yet to see another opening night.
The Milwaukee native has made his mark in Spain and in the D-League as a three-point sharpshooter, and that’s a skill that the Bucks could use. Damien Inglis and Johnny O’Bryant have less than $1MM coming their way this year despite fully guaranteed salaries, so perhaps they’d be the most vulnerable to be cut if Landry proves worthy of sticking for the regular season, though that’s just my speculation based on the costs involved. The addition of Landry seemingly makes it tougher to envision Jorge Gutierrez remaining with the team after camp, since his deal is non-guaranteed.
If they keep Landry, which of the Bucks do you think should go? Leave a comment to tell us.