Poll: 2015/16 Team Power Rankings (No. 30)
The start of NBA training camps is less than two weeks away, and teams are in the process of finalizing their preseason rosters. Every new season brings with it the hope for each franchise that it will conclude with the hoisting of the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. But for the more jaded fans — or practical, depending on your outlook — not every team has a realistic shot at making the playoffs, much less at being the last team standing when all is said and done and the playoffs have concluded.
We at Hoops Rumors want to know what you, the reader, think about each team’s chances this coming campaign. To help facilitate that, we’ll be posting a series of polls asking you to vote on where in the standings each franchise is likely to end the season. We’ll be going in reverse order, beginning with the question of which team you believe will occupy the very bottom of the standings. So please cast your vote below for the franchise you expect to end the season with the worst overall record, or at No. 30 overall. But don’t end your involvement with the simple click of a button. Take to the comments section below to share your thoughts and opinions on why you voted the way that you did. We look forward to what you have to say.
The No. 30 Ranked Team For the 2015/16 Season Is...
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76ers 62% (362)
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Knicks 8% (44)
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Lakers 5% (29)
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Nets 5% (27)
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Nuggets 3% (19)
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Trail Blazers 3% (18)
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Timberwolves 2% (13)
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Cavaliers 2% (9)
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Celtics 1% (7)
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Kings 1% (7)
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Mavericks 1% (6)
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Magic 1% (6)
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Warriors 1% (5)
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Jazz 1% (5)
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Pistons 1% (4)
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Suns 1% (4)
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Bulls 1% (3)
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Clippers 1% (3)
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Spurs 1% (3)
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Rockets 0% (2)
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Heat 0% (2)
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Raptors 0% (2)
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Bucks 0% (1)
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Pelicans 0% (1)
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Thunder 0% (1)
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Wizards 0% (1)
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Hawks 0% (0)
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Hornets 0% (0)
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Pacers 0% (0)
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Grizzlies 0% (0)
Total votes: 584
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Submit Your Questions For Hoops Rumors Mailbag
In addition to our regular weekly chat, which Chuck Myron facilitates every Wednesday, we have a second opportunity for you to hit us up with your questions in our weekly mailbag feature, which is posted every Saturday.
Have a question regarding player movement, free agent rumors, the salary cap, the NBA draft, or the top storylines of the week? You can e-mail them here: hoopsrumorsmailbag@gmail.com. Feel free to send emails throughout the week, but please be mindful that we may receive a sizable number of questions and might not get to all of them.
If you missed out on any past mailbags and would like to catch up, you can view the full archives here.
Lakers Express Interest In Sebastian Telfair
The Lakers have expressed interest in unrestricted free agent point guard Sebastian Telfair, Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops relays (via Twitter). Scotto does note that no signing currently appears imminent, but with training camps set to begin at the end of this month, that could certainly change rather quickly.
In 16 games for the Thunder during the 2014/15 campaign, Telfair averaged 8.4 PPG, 2.8 APG, and 1.9 RPG in 20.4 minutes per contest. The 30-year-old then caught on with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of China, appearing in 22 contests and notching averages of 19.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in 28.2 minutes per game. The Clippers were reportedly interested in adding Telfair toward the end of last season after the CBA campaign was complete, though no agreement was ever struck.
The Lakers currently have a roster count of 18 players, including 12 with fully guaranteed contracts. Los Angeles already has this year’s No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell, 2014 second-rounder Jordan Clarkson, Michael Frazier, and Marcelo Huertas in the mix at the point.
Cavaliers To Sign Nick Minnerath
The Cavaliers have agreed to a deal with unrestricted free agent forward Nick Minnerath, Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports (Twitter link). The pact is for one year and non-guaranteed, Haynes adds. It’ll have to be for the minimum salary, since that’s all the Cavs can offer after spending the taxpayer’s mid-level exception on Mo Williams and Sasha Kaun.
Minnerath, 26, passed up a training camp invitation from the Lakers two seasons ago to play for Obradoiro in Spain. The forward spent the 2014/15 campaign with Cholet Basket of France where he averaged 13.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 0.5 assists in 32 contests. He played his collegiate ball at the University of Detroit, logging career NCAA averages of 12.7 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 0.9 APG to go along with a slash line of .493/.369/.814.
The addition of Minnerath will give Cleveland a roster count of 16 players, including 13 possessing fully guaranteed pacts. This number doesn’t include power forward Tristan Thompson, who still remains unsigned.
Norris Cole Takes Qualifying Offer From Pelicans
THURSDAY, 3:00pm: The signing is official, the Pelicans announced.
WEDNESDAY, 11:22am: Restricted free agent Norris Cole has accepted his qualifying offer from the Pelicans, a source tells Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Agent Rich Paul confirmed to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that he’s signed the tender, worth $3,036,927, though the team has made no official announcement (Twitter link). The qualifying offer, which covers one season, sets Cole up for unrestricted free agency next summer, and it also gives him the right to veto trades this season.
The point guard’s free agency had been slow-going, as is common among Paul’s clients. However, the start of camp is less than two weeks away, and fellow Paul client Montrezl Harrell reached an agreement in principle Tuesday with the Rockets. Cavs restricted free agent Tristan Thompson, Paul’s most prominent unsigned client, remains in limbo.
Cole, once he officially signs the qualifying offer, will become the just 20th player to do so since 1995, joining Matthew Dellavedova, who signed his qualifying offer from the Cavaliers in July. Still, it’s no shock that Cole is doing so, as a source told Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops in late July that the 26-year-old saw the qualifying offer as a viable option. Grantland’s Zach Lowe suggests both sides have reason to be comfortable with it (Twitter link). Cole, a backup, will play this season on a salary that’s almost as much as the value of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception and hit the open market next summer, just as the salary cap is set to spike and teams will have money to burn. The Pelicans keep costs in check and preserve about $5MM worth of room beneath the luxury tax line.
The Sixers, Knicks and Lakers all reportedly had interest this summer in the former 28th overall pick, but New Orleans kept up its pursuit and had the right to match offers. New coach Alvin Gentry recently expressed a desire to have Cole re-sign, and Anthony Davis was also hopeful that Cole would be back. Dana Gauruder of Hoops Rumors examined Cole’s free agency in depth last month, concluding that he would do well to sign the qualifying offer.
Cole is becomes the 17th Pelican to have either a signed contract or a verbal agreement with the team, and his addition will give New Orleans 14 fully guaranteed deals. It’ll bump the Pelicans team salary to about $79.652MM, well beneath the $84.74MM tax threshold and their $88.74MM hard cap.
Who do you think benefits the most from a signed qualifying offer, Cole or the Pelicans? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Eastern Notes: Wade, Bucks, Nicholson, Celtics
Dwyane Wade praised the Heat brass for the job that they did building the roster for the season ahead, and while he acknowledged the somewhat bumpy path he and the team took to his new one-year, $20MM contract, he reiterated his commitment to Miami. Wade made his comments in a variety of venues today, including on 790 The Ticket radio, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald transcribes.
“There’s a business side of everything,” Wade said to 790 The Ticket. “But my heart, and where I always said I wanted to be, was here. I started my career here and I would like to finish it. I came here just happy to be here, just wanting to make this organization proud for drafting me as the fifth pick.”
Wade batted down criticism from local fans that’s extended even to his choice of football jerseys for casual wear, imploring to the 790 The Ticket audience, “Don’t question my loyalty, you all. Do not question my loyalty.” The 11-time All-star will have another chance to back up those words with action when he hits free agency again next summer. See more from the Eastern Conference:
- Former Nets assistant GM Bobby Marks and Grizzlies executive vice president of player personnel Ed Stefanski are drawing prominent mention for the Bucks assistant GM job, reports Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times (Twitter link). Milwaukee let go of former assistant GM David Morway this week when team reached an extension with GM John Hammond.
- Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel finds it tough to see where Andrew Nicholson fits in with the Magic as he enters the last season of his rookie scale contract, given that four others who can play power forward are on the roster. Nicholson is eligible for a rookie scale extension this fall, but little, if any, talk has emerged suggesting the Magic will seek to give him one.
- It’s a waiting game in Boston, where an opportunity for the Celtics to cash in their trade assets hasn’t materialized and the team’s young players still must prove their worth, writes Shaun Powell of NBA.com in his season preview for the team.
Top Bloggers: Dave King On The Suns
Anyone can have a blog about an NBA team, but some set themselves apart from the rest with the dedication and valuable insight they bring to their craft. We’ll be sharing some knowledge from these dialed-in writers on Hoops Rumors in a new feature called Top Bloggers. As with The Beat, our ongoing series of interviews with NBA beat writers, it’s part of an effort to bring Hoops Rumors readers ever closer to the pulse of the teams they follow.
Knicks Notes: Porzingis, Galloway, Isiah
Phil Jackson‘s concerns about the slender frame of Kristaps Porzingis have fueled the fire of this year’s No. 4 overall pick, as Porzingis made clear Wednesday, writes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. Jackson had expressed worry to Charley Rosen of ESPN.com that “like Shawn Bradley, who was nevertheless a pretty good player, KP might almost be too tall for the game.”
“Yeah I saw it. I don’t know what to say. I guess that’s what Phil does, gets us to work hard and fired up. That fired me up. I’m like, ‘I’m not Shawn Bradley,’ you know?” Porzingis said, according to Bondy. “I want to be better than Shawn Bradley obviously and be stronger than him, but I’m a different player.”
The 7’2″ Porzingis, who’s gained 11 pounds this summer eating at least 5,000 calories a day, said that he declined to play for the Latvian national team at the Eurobasket tournament this month because the Knicks encouraged him not to, Bondy also notes. See more on the blue-and-orange here:
- Langston Galloway‘s partial guarantee jumped from $220K to $440K when he remained on the Knicks roster through Tuesday, as our schedule of contract guarantee dates shows. Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders first reported the guarantee structure. Galloway now has the league’s fifth-largest partial guarantee for this season.
- The success Isiah Thomas has had with the New York Liberty, whom he secretly began working with in January before the team announced his hiring in May, probably hasn’t increased his chances to return to the Knicks, writes Marc Berman of the New York Post. Officials with MSG indicated to Berman that owner James Dolan still has no desire to reinsert Thomas, with whom Dolan is friends, into the line of fire as Knicks president. Thomas and Knicks GM Steve Mills, whom Jackson wants as his successor in the team president’s role, aren’t close, Berman notes.
- Porzingis was New York’s top offseason addition, Tommy Beer of Basketball Insiders opines, in an offseason in which the team’s free agent acquisitions simply weren’t of the caliber that Jackson was hired to make, as fellow Basketball Insiders scribe Lang Greene also writes in the site’s season preview.
Pacific Notes: Morris, Kobe, Nash, Thompson
Suns free agent signee Tyson Chandler is optimistic that the team and Markieff Morris can resolve their differences, having gone through a tenuous time himself years ago when New Orleans traded him to the Thunder only to have Oklahoma City nix the deal, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic details. Phoenix doesn’t intend to fulfill the trade demand that Morris has made, Coro writes, which jibes with his report from earlier and what Grantland’s Zach Lowe heard, even though Morris reportedly plans on greeting the Suns front office with silence and coach Jeff Hornacek with only one-word answers if they bring him to camp.
“It’s not about them,” Chandler said to Coro about Suns executives. “That’s no offense to Ryan [McDonough], the GM, or the owner. Players play for players and the coaches. You’ve got a bond. Management has nothing to do with anything that goes on when you’re on the court. That’s just my thoughts. I’m not saying this for anything against Keef either. He’s a man and he has to go through his own process. But he can be special and I know he will. I feel like all this stuff will be forgotten once we kick off and we’re having success.”
See more from the Pacific Division:
- The Lakers announced a nine-month recovery timetable when Kobe Bryant had surgery to repair his torn right rotator cuff in January, which would have made his return in time for camp a close call, but he’s been medically cleared for all basketball activities, Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding hears.
- Warriors coach Steve Kerr is high on what Steve Nash can bring as a part-time player development consultant for the team, though he cautioned in an interview with Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group that the deal to hire him for that role isn’t official. Kerr added that he won’t ask Nash to return to play, as the Mavs reportedly considered doing. “In Phoenix we grew very close and he’s probably the smartest basketball player I’ve ever been around in my life, not only the way he played but the way he prepared and trained and thought about the game,” Kerr said to Kawakami. “I just felt like if we could just get him to help out, just be around our guys occasionally and develop relationships, spend some time on the floor with them occasionally, it’d be a big help.”
- Kerr expressed his desire for continuity, though he does envision a role for trade acquisition Jason Thompson, as he said to Kawakami for the same piece. The coach was also quick to point to his fondness to James Michael McAdoo, who has only a partially guaranteed deal with the Warriors.
Sixers Don’t Expect Jordan McRae At Camp
The Sixers don’t expect that draft-and-stash prospect Jordan McRae will be at training camp in spite of an August report that he would be, a source tells Michael Kaskey-Blomain of Around the Arc. Philadelphia issued the required tender of a non-guaranteed one-year offer for the minimum salary that the team had to make to retain McRae’s draft rights, but the Tandem Sports & Entertainment client hasn’t taken that yet, Kaskey-Blomain writes, cautioning that the situation may still change before the start of camp. J.P. Tokoto, this year’s No. 58 pick, reportedly signed his required tender from the Sixers. Tokoto is one of 20 players aside from McRae with whom the Sixers reportedly have either signed contracts or verbal agreements, as our roster count shows, and Philadelphia can’t bring more than that to camp, so McRae would risk ending up on waivers even before camp began if he were to sign the tender.
His alternatives would be playing overseas or in the D-League, since he can’t sign with another NBA team. McRae, a 6’5″ shooting guard who was the 58th overall pick in 2014, connected on only 29.5% of his shots from the floor during four summer league games in July, as Kaskey-Blomain points out. He nonetheless managed to score by other means for the summer Sixers, averaging six made free throws and 12.5 points on 11.0 field goal attempts per game. McRae, now 24, averaged 19.9 PPG in 27 games with CTI Melbourne United in Australia last year, and their season ended early enough for him to join the Sixers D-League affiliate for 13 contests. He put up 18.4 PPG for the D-League Delaware 87ers.
Philadelphia acquired the rights to McRae, along with the rights to 2014 No. 60 pick Cory Jefferson, in a draft-night deal last year with the Spurs, who received the rights to Nemanja Dangubic, the 54th pick that year. The Sixers flipped Jefferson’s rights to the Nets for cash.
Do you think the Sixers should work out a deal with McRae for camp or let him continue to develop elsewhere? Leave a comment to tell us.