Dillon Brooks Enters 2017 NBA Draft
Oregon forward Dillon Brooks will enter the 2017 NBA draft, he announced today in a video posted to YouTube. Brooks will sign with an agent, forgoing his remaining NCAA eligibility, per Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports (Twitter link).
Brooks, 21, is coming off a solid junior year at Oregon in which he averaged 16.1 PPG, 3.2 RPG, and 2.7 APG in just 25.3 minutes per contest. He also improved his three-point shot — after making just 33.8% of his attempts in his first two years, the 6’6″ forward connected on 40.1% in 2016/17.
Ranked 42nd on Jonathan Givony’s big board at DraftExpress.com and 54th on Chad Ford’s ESPN board, Brooks projects as a potential second-round pick this June. As Ford outlines, the Oregon junior is an excellent scorer whose defensive struggles “continue to hurt him a bit” with scouts at the NBA level.
Check out the full list of early entrants for this year’s draft right here.
Joakim Noah Expected To Miss 4-6 Months With Torn Rotator Cuff
12:11pm: The Knicks have confirmed that Noah has a rotator cuff injury, clarifying that the injury is to his right shoulder. While team doctors have recommended surgery, a final decision has yet to be made and an official recovery timeline hasn’t been determined, according to the team (Twitter link).
8:35am: Joakim Noah‘s nightmare first year in New York has taken another unfortunate turn, with Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical reporting that the veteran center will require surgery for a torn left rotator cuff. The injury is expected to keep Noah sidelined for the next four to six months, which could jeopardize his training camp availability in the fall.
Noah, 32, signed a four-year, $72MM+ contract with the Knicks last summer and struggled to produce for his new team this season, averaging 5.0 PPG and 8.7 RPG in 46 games (all starts). As NBA.com’s advanced stats show, the Knicks had a -6.0 net rating with Noah on the court, compared to -3.5 when he was on the bench.
In addition to his underwhelming play on the court, Noah has suffered a handful of other setbacks in the last two months. He underwent a left knee arthroscopy in February and then received a 20-game suspension in March for violating the NBA’s anti-drug program. The Knicks center served eight games of that suspension this season, meaning he’ll have to serve the remaining 12 next season, once he’s ruled healthy enough to play following his shoulder surgery.
Noah’s contract, which has $55MM+ left on it for the next three years, looks like an albatross, but it would be a little surprising to see the Knicks make any drastic moves with it this summer.
If the team were to waive Noah and stretch his deal, that leftover salary could be spread out over seven years, with an annual cap charge of just under $8MM. That would create about $10MM of extra cap space for the next three years, but would add four extra years of cap hits for Noah, impacting the Knicks’ long-term flexibility. New York may prefer to wait and see if Noah can bounce back somewhat in 2017/18.
Wizards’ Ian Mahinmi To Miss Start Of Playoffs
The Wizards will be without a key bench piece when their first-round series against the Hawks gets underway this weekend, reports Candace Buckner of The Washington Post. According to Buckner, veteran center Ian Mahinmi is dealing with a strained left calf, and will miss the team’s regular season finale, in addition to the start of the postseason.
Mahinmi, who sustained the injury on Monday, underwent an MRI that revealed some swelling. While Washington’s playoff schedule hasn’t yet been announced, the team intends to re-evaluate Mahinmi in seven to 10 days, so even if he’s ready to get back on the court at that point, he’d likely miss the first two or three games of the first round.
It’s a disappointing setback for Mahinmi, whose first season with the Wizards after signing a four-year, $64MM deal last summer has been marred by injuries. Although knee problems kept the 30-year-old out of action for most of the first half of the season, he had played well off the bench for Washington over the last couple months, averaging 5.6 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 1.1 SPG in 31 regular season contests (17.9 MPG).
“We’ll definitely miss Ian because he was actually playing his best basketball, defensively he was giving us a very good rim protector and pick-and-roll player,” Wizards head coach Scott Brooks said. “I’m still confident in the group. We’ll still play hard and play well.”
With Mahinmi out, the Wizards may lean more heavily on starting center Marcin Gortat, with players like Markieff Morris and Jason Smith spelling him as needed.
Send Your Best Blog Posts Our Way
Hoops Rumors will be expanding how we engage with the basketball blogosphere and ramping up our current Hoops Links offerings. We love what the blog community means to the sports world and want to make sure that we shine a light on the best original content pumped out by journalists and fans alike.
Typically, we’ve posted our weekly round-up of the blogosphere’s best content on Sundays. That will change going forward so that we can publish our weekly celebration of the internet’s top material during the middle of the week when readers are chained to their cubicles desperate for distraction material.
Help us help you be that distraction material.
My name is Austin Kent and I’ll be the primary point of contact for this venture heading forward, you can get at me on Twitter at @AustinKent. With or without content submissions, I’ll be constantly scouring the web for the best blog content, the funniest material, and the most thought provoking analysis printed on this here contraption we call the internet.
If you’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into an original long-form feature for your own independent blog, send it my way. If you know of a particularly entertaining post from a major networked blog, yeah, we want that too. At the end of the day, we want the highest quality content churned out by the fan community, regardless of the publication’s pedigree, and we want it all.
This is a green light to promote your favorite blogs, even if that blog is your own. Just be aware that we receive a significant volume of submissions and will only be able to share the best of the best with our readers.
What are you waiting for? It’s time to start generating content.
Twitter: @AustinKent
Email: HoopsRumorsTips@sports.ws
Draft Updates: Bryant, Humphries, Blakeney
Four members of the Indiana Hoosiers announced on Tuesday that they’ll be entering their names in the 2017 NBA draft, and at least one – OG Anunoby – will hire an agent, forgoing his remaining NCAA eligibility. Anunoby’s decision was previously reported, as was James Blackmon Jr.‘s decision to test the draft waters.
Of the two other Indiana prospects entering the draft, sophomore center Thomas Bryant is the more intriguing prospect. He ranks 43rd on Jonathan Givony’s big board at DraftExpress.com and 50th on Chad Ford’s list at ESPN.com, with Ford suggesting that Bryant would likely come off the board in the 25-50 range despite a somewhat disappointing sophomore season. The other Hoosier testing the draft waters is junior guard Robert Johnson, ranked 47th among NCAA juniors by DraftExpress.
Here are a few more of the latest early entrant decisions:
- Kentucky sophomore center Isaac Humphries has decided to turn pro and will sign with an agent, the school announced today in a press release. Humphries is definitely no lock to be drafted, but Kentucky’s announcement notes that he may explore international opportunities, with Evan Daniels of Scout.com tweeting that Europe and Australia are possibilities for the young big man.
- LSU sophomore Antonio Blakeney will enter the draft, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports relays (Twitter link). A source tells Rothstein that the shooting guard has not yet decided whether he will hire an agent.
- USC junior guard Elijah Stewart will test the draft waters without hiring an agent, according to Jonathan Givony (Twitter link). DraftExpress ranks Stewart 16th among juniors, but he’s not currently on the site’s top-100 list.
NBA Nixed Idea Of Tony Romo Signing Contract
Longtime Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was a Maverick for a day on Tuesday, but only ceremonially. According to Todd Archer of ESPN.com, Mavs owner Mark Cuban initially intended to formally sign Romo to a contract and perhaps even get him into last night’s game, suggesting he was willing to accept a fine from the NBA to do so. However, commissioner Adam Silver nixed that idea, telling Cuban that such a contract wouldn’t be honored, per Archer.
“Signing him and stuff like that, would have been too much for a lot of reasons,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle acknowledged after the game. “No. 1, he’s a football athlete that’s not ready to play in an NBA game. That’s very risky. No. 2, to sign a guy with all of our requirements from a physical standpoint with the hours and hours of screening and all that kinds of other stuff, it just wasn’t worth going there. And that’s not really what this is about.”
Carlisle didn’t get into it, but formally signing and playing Romo may have also been viewed as a sign of disrespect toward players more deserving of a spot on an NBA roster, particularly those who have been playing well for the Mavericks’ D-League affiliate all season long.
Even though the Mavs didn’t officially sign Romo, he participated in the team’s Tuesday shootaround and was in uniform for the game, with the franchise honoring him for his 14 years with the Cowboys and his support of the Mavs over the years. The move was panned by some observers, but Cuban dismissed those criticisms, as Archer details.
“Anybody who thinks a layup line is disrespectful hasn’t watched an NBA game,” Cuban said. “We’ve got people shooting half-court shots at every break, we’ve got kids for ball boys … We’re entertainment. And if they’re so self-important they can’t recognize that, it’s on them. Not me.”
Ultimately, rather than signing Romo with the open roster spot on their 15-man squad, the Mavs used the slot to claim DeAndre Liggins off waivers from the Cavaliers. Liggins’ contract includes a team option for 2017/18, so he could stick with Dallas through the summer.
Jarrett Allen To Enter 2017 NBA Draft
APRIL 12: Allen has decided to keep his name in the draft and will sign with an agent, a source tells Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports (Twitter link).
MARCH 21: Texas freshman Jarrett Allen will enter the 2017 NBA draft, but won’t immediately hire an agent, reports Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports. By not hiring an agent, Allen will retain the ability to test the draft waters and withdraw his name at a later date, retaining his NCAA eligibility.
Assuming he does keep his name in the draft, Allen is projected as a probable first-round pick. Both Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress and Chad Ford of ESPN.com view the 6’11” center as a top-20 prospect for 2017, with Givony placing him 12th and Ford ranking him 16th.
In his first – and possibly only – season as a Longhorn, Allen averaged 13.4 PPG, 8.4 RPG, and 1.5 BPG for the club, shooting 56.6% from the field. According to Ford, some scouts have questions about Allen’s toughness, but love his athleticism and his 7’6″ wingspan.
Our full list of early entrants for the 2017 NBA draft can be found right here.
Sixers Notes: Simmons, Saric, McConnell
The Sixers lost to the Celtics in Game 7 of the 2012 Eastern Conference semifinals and Lavoy Allen believes that if Philadelphia had prevailed in that contest, the franchise would be in a much different position, as Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer relays.
“We would have had a couple of more years with [Nikola Vucevic], Andre Iguodala, and a few of the guys,” said Allen. “We would have had some more good years if we would have kept that team together.”
Instead, the team pivoted, making a trade for Andrew Bynum. The big man wasn’t able to stay on the court and a year later, The Process was born.
Here’s more from Philadelphia:
- Coach Brett Brown would like to see Ben Simmons participate in summer league, but it’s unclear if the 2016 No.1 overall pick will be healthy enough to play, Pompey passes along in the same piece. “His health and the judgment of his health rules the day. I don’t know what that looks like when we are talking about the summer league,” Brown said.
- Brown would like to see the Sixers add shooters this offseason, David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News relays. “We need shooters,” Brown said. “That’s kind of the bottom line. We need to get Ben Simmons the ball, we need to have Joel be Joel, and get a bunch of shooters around them.”
- Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Inquirer believes Dario Saric is best suited for a role off the bench next season. The scribe believes Joel Embiid needs someone who can shoot from behind the arc next to him in the frontcourt and Saric only made 31.1% of his 3-point attempts this season.
- If the Sixers want to win next season, T.J. McConnell may give them the best chance to do so, Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News opines. Hayes is a fan of the point guard’s defense and he believes McConnell will return better immediate value at the position than Simmons or a first-round draft pick would.
Zach Collins Declares For Draft
Gonzaga’s Zach Collins has declared for the draft and will hire an agent, according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (ESPN Now link). Goodman tweets that numerous NBA executives feel Collins will be selected in the 8-20 range.
The center helped lead the Bulldogs to their first national championship game appearance this past season. He was first on the team in blocks per game, swatting 1.8 per contest, and he pulled down 5.9 rebounds per game, which was good for third on the team.
Jonathan Givony of Draft Express ranks Collins as the 13th best prospect in the upcoming draft. Givony notes that the freshman had his best game of the season against South Carolina in this year’s Final Four, but cautions that Collins is a prospect that will need some time to develop.
Sixers Sign Alex Poythress For Rest Of Season
The Sixers have signed Alex Poythress for the remainder of the season, the team reports in a press release on its official site. The team has one more game left this season, a matchup against the Knicks on Wednesday.
Previously inked to a 10-day deal because Philadelphia had qualified for a hardship exception, Poythress is eligible to re-sign with the club because that exception was extended.
The Kentucky product has appeared in five games for Philadelphia. He averaged 9.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in 25.0 minutes per game.
Austin Kent contributed to this post