Atlantic Notes: Lopez, DeRozan, Nets
DeMar DeRozan missed 22 games last season for the Raptors with a groin injury and the shooting guard used the scare it gave him to motivate himself to return to form in 2015/16, Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca writes. “I don’t talk about it too much,” DeRozan said of the time he missed in 2014/15. “But mentally that injury was tough on me. It took a lot out of me just to accept that I was hurt and I was going to be away from the game that long.”
The swingman also used the time to study the game and players who excelled by the use of their brains not their athleticism, Grange adds. “I watched all these guy who were successful and weren’t even athletic and I asked myself: How were they successful when they weren’t the fastest on the court?” DeRozan told Grange. “You tried to figure out how they did it and apply that to your game, so I didn’t have to jump higher than the defender or be faster than the defender, but just be craftier, smarter and be more patient.”
Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- Knicks center Robin Lopez has become a more integral part of the team’s offense recently, something he credits to becoming more comfortable with his teammates as well as the addition of a hook shot to his game, Fred Kerber of The New York Post writes. “I think I have a better idea of where guys are on the floor and where my opportunities are going to present themselves,” said Lopez. “Guys, the team, coaching staff, they’re developing a confidence in me and that helps, that’s contagious.“
- The Nets‘ offseason signings of Shane Larkin, Thomas Robinson, Wayne Ellington and Andrea Bargnani were considered low risk at the time, but with each underachieving this season their deals could hamper the franchise next season, NetsDaily opines. All four players possess player options for next season and if they all opt in it could impact the team’s free agent plans, NetsDaily notes.
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript
4:05pm: We hosted the weekly live chat.
3:00pm: The Eastern Conference has experienced a renaissance of sorts this season, but two of the East’s most powerful teams absorbed blows in the past week. The Bulls lost Joakim Noah for a four-to-six-month timeframe that likely ends his season and wrecks his value as a trade candidate, while the Cavaliers took a beating at home against the Warriors, just days after Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported that Cleveland was exploring the trade market for slumping center Timofey Mozgov. The second-place Raptors keep chugging along despite DeMarre Carroll‘s injury, though ex-GM Bryan Colangelo is reportedly a serious candidate for the Nets GM vacancy. We can talk about that and more in this week’s chat.
Pistons To Target Ryan Anderson, Motiejunas?
The Pistons are reportedly seeking an upgrade at the power forward position and intend to target soon-to-be free agents Ryan Anderson and Donatas Motiejunas in the offseason, according to ESPN’s Zach Lowe in his most recent podcast. “They want a four in free agency this summer, the Pistons, really badly,” Lowe said. “They’re going to look at Stan’s [Van Gundy] old friend Ryan Anderson. I’ve heard they’re hot on Motiejunas from Houston who’s always hurt. So, who knows how hot they actually are?”
Detroit has indicated that it intends retain current starter Ersan Ilyasova, whose $8.4MM salary for 2016/17 becomes fully guaranteed if he remains on the roster past July 1st, but the franchise would prefer to use the big man off the bench, Lowe notes. The 28-year-old has appeared in 41 games for the Pistons this season, all as a starter, and he is averaging 11.1 points and 5.5 rebounds in 27.6 minutes per game. His career numbers through 494 regular season NBA contests are 10.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.1 assists to accompany a slash line of .445/.371/.770.
As for Detroit’s reported targets, Anderson, whom New Orleans has reportedly been listening to offers about, isn’t likely to come cheap. A source within an NBA team told Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times and Basketball Insiders that he expects that Anderson will be able to command a maximum-salary contract this summer. Anderson is making $8.5MM in the final season of his contract. He’ll be a veteran of eight years by this summer, so he’d be eligible for the middle-tier max of a projected $24.9MM. The stretch-four has ties to Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy, having played for him when the duo were with the Magic. The 27-year-old is averaging 16.8 points and 6.1 rebounds in 39 contests this season.
Motiejunas, 25, has only appeared in 14 games this season for the Rockets as he struggles with back issues. He is averaging 5.6 points and 2,1 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game this year, with career numbers of 8.0 points and 4.0 rebounds on 48.2% shooting. Motiejunas has never appeared in more than 71 games in a season during the course of his NBA career, which speaks to the injury issues that Lowe mentioned in his podcast. The Rockets will be able to match offers for him as a restricted free agent if they tender a qualifying offer worth nearly $3.279MM.
Nuggets Notes: Connelly, Arthur, Karnisovas
Nuggets GM Tim Connelly, fresh off signing his extension Tuesday, said he plans an aggressive approach as the trade deadline nears and added that he doesn’t like to see the team, which lost Tuesday to fall to 16-26, as far below .500 as it is, as Matt Moore of CBSSports.com relays. Still, he cautioned that he doesn’t want to rush the process of building a contender and wouldn’t rule out trading for another first-round pick, Moore notes, even though the team is likely to have at least two and could have as many as four this June. Denver also has the right to swap picks with the Knicks. Rumors have linked the Nuggets to the unprotected pick that the Nets owe the Celtics, but indications are Boston doesn’t intend to trade that selection, Moore writes. See more from Denver:
- Nuggets signees this past season lauded the culture that Connelly and his staff are building, and the extension was a sign that the franchise believes it’s found the right direction for itself after a 2014/15 that Connelly on Tuesday called an embarrasment, Moore relays in a separate piece. Denver is on track to succeed, though the missing piece is a superstar, Moore opines. “I think we’ve turned the corner,” Connelly said, “and now we have to be aggressive, opportunistic, but also patient.”
- Darrell Arthur was one of the Nuggets who signed this summer in part because he liked where the Nuggets were headed, notes Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post, and retaining the power forward has paid dividends for the team this season, as Dempsey examines. That’s in large measure because Arthur has been healthy, Dempsey notes.
- The Nuggets had been working on extensions for Connelly as well as assistant GM Arturas Karnisovas and others in the front office staff for months, according to Dempsey, who adds that the franchise has long intended to keep Connelly and his aides (Twitter link).
- Denver is reportedly shopping J.J. Hickson while ex-Nuggets combo forward Kostas Papanikolaou has officially signed overseas. See details on those stories and more on our Nuggets team page.
Sixers Notes: Marshall, Smith, Embiid, Brown
Nobody in Kendall Marshall‘s camp thought he would be ready for opening night, as Sixers GM Sam Hinkie predicted he would be, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, speaking in his latest “The Vertical” podcast (audio link, scroll to six-minute mark). Another team that considered signing Marshall this past summer told the point guard that it didn’t envision him returning to play from his torn ACL before January 1st, so Wojnarowski expressed surprise when Sixers coach and podcast guest Brett Brown said he, like Hinkie, thought Marshall would be ready for the start of the regular season. Marshall made his season debut December 11th after signing a four-year, $8MM contract that represents Philly’s largest free agent contract since Hinkie joined the team. See more on the Sixers from Brown’s conversation with Wojnarowski:
- Brown believes the arrival via trade of point guard Ish Smith, who’s taken the starting job from Marshall, is directly related to the relative success the club has had since, adding that the unsettled point guard situation prior to that made it tougher to fuse Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel into an effective on-court duo. “I think it caught everybody off-guard to have to figure out that position with some of the young guys and sort of journeymen that we did,” Brown said to Wojnarowski (scroll to five-minute mark). “I think it no doubt hurt us.”
- Hinkie and Brown were in agreement that it was worth it to draft an already-injured Joel Embiid at No. 3 overall in 2014, Brown told Wojnarowski in remarks that made it clear the coach hasn’t lost faith in the center’s potential. “I feel there is something uniquely special in him,” Brown said (scroll to 55-minute mark). “… I look at him, and I see his size, and I see how he carries himself, and I see [an] amazing competitor in all of it. So we get excited for Joel Embiid, no doubt.”
- The coach admitted to Wojnarowski that the team’s rebuilding project has persisted longer than he imagined when he first took the job in 2013 (scroll to 12-minute mark) and explained how he ended negotiations with the Sixers for a brief time at that point when the team was hesitant to give him a four-year deal (scroll to 49-minute mark). Brown signed an extension in December that tacks two additional years onto the contract.
Eric Gordon Likely To Miss Four To Six Weeks
10:37am: Gordon will be out four to six weeks, the Pelicans announced, confirming Kushner’s Twitter timetable. He had surgery on the finger this morning, the team said.
7:57am: Eric Gordon suffered a broken right ring finger in Tuesday’s win over the Timberwolves, coach Alvin Gentry said, and sources tell Scott Kushner of The Advocate that they expect Gordon will miss four weeks. Kushner followed up with a tweet citing sources who expect Gordon to miss four to six weeks. In any case, it’s yet another serious injury for the Pelicans, who’ve been worse than expected this season thanks in no small measure to players missing time.
New Orleans (14-27) is ineligible to apply for a disabled player exception, because the deadline to do so was this past Friday. Gordon and Quincy Pondexter, who’s scheduled for season-ending surgery today, are the only Pelicans with current long-term injuries, so a hardship provision of a 16th roster spot isn’t a possibility. That means the team will have to deal with the injury through internal means, barring a trade or a roster cut. It’s unclear whether Jrue Holiday or Norris Cole will start in Gordon’s place, Kushner writes.
Gordon’s name had emerged in trade rumors of late, with the Pelicans reportedly having offered him along with Alonzo Gee in continuing talks with the Kings about Rudy Gay. This year was the first since Gordon joined the Pelicans in 2011/12 that he stayed healthy through the entire first half of the season, notes John Reid of The Times Picayune. He’s averaging 14.9 points per game in the final year of his contract, which expires in the summer.
What should the Pelicans do in the wake of Gordon’s injury? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
NBA Franchise Values Up 13%, Knicks On Top
A new local TV deal and the league’s highest take from premium seating propelled the Knicks into the top spot of the Forbes annual NBA team valuations, which the magazine released today via Forbes.com, as Kurt Badenhausen of Forbes.com details. The Lakers, last year’s most valuable franchise, fell to No. 2, but they remain the league’s most profitable team, Badenhausen notes, adding that Forbes’ findings show the Nets as the only team not to turn a profit, which the NBA will surely dispute. Indeed, the league often dismisses the Forbes data, though it doesn’t make its information publicly available.
NBA franchises are worth an average of $1.25 billion, according to Forbes. That’s 13% more than last year as the league continues to show gains even after last year’s 74% jump, which was related to the $24 billion TV deal the league struck with its media partners in 2014, as Badenhausen points out. Forbes pegs 13 teams at $1 billion or more, up from just three in 2015. Teams generated $5.2 billion in revenue and $900MM in operating profit last season, according to Badenhausen. The Knicks are worth more than every U.S. sports team except the NFL’s Cowboys and Patriots and Major League Baseball’s Yankees, Badenhausen notes.
Here’s a look at how each NBA team stacks up, according to Forbes:
- Knicks: $3 billion (last year: $2.5 billion)
- Lakers: $2.7 billion (last year: $2.6 billion)
- Bulls: $2.3 billion (last year: $2 billion)
- Celtics: $2.1 billion (last year: $1.7 billion)
- Clippers: $2 billion (last year: $1.6 billion)
- Warriors: $1.9 billion (last year: $1.3 billion)
- Nets: $1.7 billion (last year: $1.5 billion)
- Rockets: $1.5 billion (last year: $1.25 billion)
- Mavericks: $1.4 billion (last year: $1.15 billion)
- Heat: $1.3 billion (last year: $1.175 billion)
- Spurs: $1.15 billion (last year: $1 billion)
- Cavaliers: $1.1 billion (last year: $915MM)
- Suns: $1 billion (last year: $910MM)
- Raptors: $980MM (last year: $920MM)
- Trail Blazers: $975MM (last year: $940MM)
- Wizards: $960MM (last year:$900MM)
- Thunder: $950MM (last year: $930MM)
- Kings: $925MM (last year: $800MM)
- Magic: $900MM (last year: $875MM)
- Jazz: $875MM (last year: $850MM)
- Nuggets: $855MM (last year: $855MM)
- Pistons: $850MM (last year: $810MM)
- Pacers: $840MM (last year: $830MM)
- Hawks: $825MM (last year: $825MM)
- Grizzlies: $780MM (last year: $750MM)
- Hornets: $750MM (last year: $725MM)
- Timberwolves: $720MM (last year: $625MM)
- Sixers: $700MM (last year: $700MM)
- Bucks: $675MM (last year: $600MM)
- Pelicans: $650MM (last year: $650MM)
Kostas Papanikolaou Signs To Play In Greece
Former Nuggets and Rockets combo forward Kostas Papanikolaou has officially signed with Olympiacos of his native Greece, the team announced via Facebook (translation via Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi). Barcelona of Spain had the right to match European offers for him, but declined to do so, according to Jose Ignacio Huguet of Mundo Deportivo (on Twitter; translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). Sport24 first reported the sides had a deal that runs through June 2019. The 25-year-old was reportedly deciding between a shorter offer from the team and a deal through June 2018 from fellow Greek club Panathinaikos, so perhaps the lengthening of the Olympiacos offer was what convinced Papanikolaou to sign. In any case, it’s unclear what, if any, NBA outs the contract includes.
The Nuggets waived Papanikolaou twice this season, once at the start of training camp while he was on a non-guaranteed contract and again earlier this month, when Denver let go of the $350K partially guaranteed deal he signed in early November. He averaged 2.6 points in 11.3 minutes over 26 games with the Nuggets, including six starts, modest stats that nonetheless exceeded the 1.8 points per game he produced for the Greek national team at this summer’s Eurobasket tournament.
Denver originally acquired him from the Rockets this past summer in the Ty Lawson trade. Houston signed him in 2014 to two-year deal that gave him a sizable salary of nearly $4.798MM last season. Papanikolaou had a chance to play fairly significant minutes for the Rockets early in the 2014/15 campaign, but he only notched 4.2 points in 18.5 minutes per game that season and never lived up to the contract. He came to the NBA as a draft-and-stash prospect, having been the 48th overall pick in the 2012 draft.
Do you think we’ll see Papanikolaou in the NBA again? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Nuggets Shop J.J. Hickson
The Nuggets are actively in pursuit of trades that would send out J.J. Hickson, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported last month that Denver was said to be making the power forward available. Hickson is pulling down nearly $5.614MM this season on an expiring contract.
It’s no surprise that the Nuggets would try to see what they can get for the 27-year-old, since he’s appeared in only one game since December 8th. A root canal forced him out of Denver’s landmark win over the Warriors last week, but he’s otherwise sat because he’s been out of coach Michael Malone‘s rotation. That’s a change from early in the season, when he made nine starts, averaging 9.3 points and 6.6 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per contest in those games. He’s produced 7.6 points and 4.8 boards in 16.8 minutes per game in 18 appearances overall this year, numbers similar to last season but down from 2013/14, the first on his three-year, $16.145MM deal.
Freshly extended GM Tim Connelly has the Nuggets slightly below the salary cap and just two and a half games behind the Jazz for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, though they’d have to pass the Trail Blazers and Kings to catch Utah in the crowded standings. It’s unclear whether the Nuggets will buy or sell as the February 18th trade deadline approaches. Kyler wrote last month when he reported that both Hickson and Randy Foye were said to be available that the belief around the league was growing that the Nuggets might be close to offloading talent. However, Denver has won four of its last six after losing nine of its previous 10.
The Nuggets are likely to receive the protected 2016 first-round pick the Rockets owe them, though the one headed their way from Portland is a toss-up and the one from Memphis is unlikely to convey this year, as I noted last week. Denver also gets to swap picks with the Knicks if New York’s pick is better.
What do you think the Nuggets should prioritize receiving in a Hickson trade? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 1/19/16
Mike Conley is one of the top two-way point guards in the league and there’s no doubt he’ll become an extremely rich man this summer.
Conley holds the No. 3 spot in our current 2016 Free Agent Power Rankings, behind only superstars Kevin Durant and LeBron James. It would be a shock if James leaves Cleveland for the second time in his career, so Conley could be the most sought-after free agent aside from Durant. Certainly, he tops the list of available floor leaders.
Last week, the New York Post reported that both the Knicks and Nets will be “all over” Conley when he hits the open market. The New York City teams could certainly use an upgrade at that spot.
The Knicks have used the combination of Jose Calderon and rookie Jerian Grant this season. Adding a top-notch point guard to feed the ball to Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis would make them a much more dangerous team in the Eastern Conference.
The Nets are starved for talent, particularly in the backcourt. Conley was their top free agent target as far back as November and it’s unlikely that has changed, even though Conley’s former Grizzlies coach, Lionel Hollins, was fired. They lost journeyman Jarrett Jack to a season-ending injury and are now using the unimposing combination of Donald Sloan and Shane Larkin at that spot.
There will be other suitors out there, with the Kings, Jazz, Bucks, Nuggets and Pacers — just to name a few — potentially seeking an upgrade at that spot.
Conley will be eligible for a projected maximum starting salary of $24.9MM for 2016/17 — based upon the league’s official cap projection of $89MM — and it could be more if the actual cap number rises. However, most teams will have ample cap room to sign a big name free agent and there’s the sign-and-trade option for clubs that don’t have that much to spend.
The favorite to sign Conley is his current team. He recruited Marc Gasol last summer to stay put, so it would be surprising if Conley turned his back on the franchise this summer. The Grizzlies have every intention of re-signing him, though he turned away their offers for an extension last spring because of salary limitations. But Conley does want to see what’s out there, as he told SI’s Chris Mannix this season.
“This is where I’ve had my whole career,” he said. “At the same time I understand this is a business. I have to weigh my options just like [Gasol] did. Hopefully it will be an easy decision, whatever it is.”
This leads us to our question of the day: What team do you think Mike Conley will sign with this summer?
Please take to the comments section below to share your thoughts and opinions on the subject. We look forward to what you have to say.