Southeast Notes: Morris, Hawks, Hornets, Adebayo
Markieff Morris will be entering the final year of his contract with the Wizards this fall, raising questions about his long-term future in D.C. While Morris’ outlook could change between now and his 2019 free agency, his current preference would be to not only stick with the Wizards beyond his current deal, but also to remain in Washington for several years, as Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington details.
“I would definitely want to finish my career here,” Morris said of the Wizards. “I love playing here. I love being in the city that I was basically raised in and playing for this organization.”
After a first-round exit in the postseason this spring, the Wizards will be looking for ways to improve their roster this season, so Morris isn’t necessarily a lock to return. However, his $8.6MM salary makes him a better value than the team’s two centers, Marcin Gortat ($13.57MM) and Ian Mahinmi ($15.94MM).
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- The Hawks will be working out six draft prospects on Monday, the team announced in a press release. Terence Davis (Ole Miss), Tyler Davis (Texas A&M), Brandon Goodwin (Florida Gulf Coast), Jared Harper (Auburn), Josh Okogie (Georgia Tech), and Luke Maye (UNC) will participate in the session.
- In a piece for The Charlotte Observer, Rick Bonnell explains what the Hornets like about Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga, who is considered a “strong” candidate for Charlotte’s head coaching job.
- While Bam Adebayo proved in his rookie season that he should be considered a building block for the Heat, his position remains a bit of a mystery, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. As Winderman notes, Adebayo played primarily at center in 2017/18, but if Hassan Whiteside and Kelly Olynyk are both back next season, more minutes at power forward may be necessary to get Adebayo an increased role.
Pacific Notes: Kokoskov, Suns, Ball, Buss
Igor Kokoskov is set to become the Suns‘ next head coach and it is just the latest chapter in his legacy which has been defined by breaking barriers, NBA.com’s Cody Cunningham writes.
A car accident ended Kokoskov’s playing career, but it allowed him to move into a coaching role. Soon after, he became the youngest coach in Yugoslavian basketball history. Not long after that, Kokoskov became the first non-American assistant coach to win an NBA championship as part of the 2004 Pistons.
Since then, Kokoskov enjoyed a successful run under his mentor Alvin Gentry — the former Suns coach and current Pelicans coach — during his first stint in Phoenix. Kokoskov went on to enjoy international coaching success, most prominently leading Slovenia to a first-place finish at FIBA EuroBasket 2017. He will be the first non-American head coach in NBA history and it’s something Gentry feels he’s ready for.
“He’s had some great head coaching experience internationally,” Gentry told 98.7 FM’s Arizona Sports Station. “I think he’s very much ready to be a head coach. I think he understands the game, (he’s) got great personal relationships with the players … he’s got great temperament. I think he would be a great choice.”
Check out more Pacific Division notes below:
- While the hiring of Kokoskov has led to speculation that the Suns are eyeing Slovenian prospect Luka Doncic with their lottery pick, GM Ryan McDonough dismissed the idea that Phoenix is locked in on Doncic. “It’s an easy assumption to make, but we’re going to draft whoever we think the best player is,” McDonough said, according to Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic. “If we do get the No. 1 pick, Doncic will certainly be in that mix. But [Deandre] Ayton and a few other guys will, as well.”
- LaVar Ball, the father of Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball, is back in the United States after younger sons LiAngelo and LaMelo wrapped up their first professional season in Lithuania. The elder Ball has been quiet since returning but if history is any indicator, it’s only a matter of time before he’s making headlines again, Martin Rogers of USA TODAY Sports writes.
- The Lakers‘ season ended early once again this season and now the team prepares for free agency and the draft. Assistant general manager, Jesse Buss, the youngest of all the Buss siblings, will be an important factor in the team’s draft plans, as Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report writes.
- As we noted yesterday, there are indications that the Clippers and Doc Rivers have agreed to an extension to keep him in his role as the team’s head coach.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Jay Larranaga Interviews Again With Hornets
Celtics assistant coach Jay Larranaga was away from the team on Sunday as he was in Florida interviewing with the Hornets for the team’s head coaching vacancy, tweets Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. This is Larranaga’s second interview with Charlotte.
Hornets president Michael Jordan was part of the interview, as we relayed yesterday. In addition to Larranaga, Spurs assistant James Borrego is among those reportedly receiving strong consideration for the position.
The Hornets are seeking a replacement for Steve Clifford, who was relieved of his duties last month.
Larranaga enjoyed a lengthy international career as a player before transitioning into coaching after his retirement in 2009. Before joining the Celtics’ coaching staff in 2012, Larranaga was the head coach of the G League’s Erie BayHawks. This is not Larranaga’s first attempt at a head coaching gig as he was considered for jobs with the Celtics, Sixers, and Grizzlies in recent years. This spring, he interviewed with the Knicks and Hawks about their head coaching openings.
Keep up with all the latest coaching developments with our 2018 NBA Head Coaching Search Tracker.
Ricky Rubio Will Not Play For Jazz In Game 4
4:00pm: Rubio will not be available for the Jazz against the Rockets for Game 4 tonight, the Jazz announced (via Twitter).
8:52am: The Jazz are hopeful that Ricky Rubio will be back on the court for today’s Game 4 against the Rockets, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
Rubio missed the first three games of the conference semifinals with a strained left hamstring he suffered nine days ago in the closeout game with the Thunder. He will get treatment on the hamstring this morning, and the Jazz will decide on his availability based on how he responds.
With Rubio sidelined, point guard duties have fallen to Donovan Mitchell, whose numbers across the board have fallen off as he tries to handle an unfamiliar role. He’s shooting just 32.2% from the field against Houston while averaging 16 points, 6.3 assists and 3.3 turnovers per game.
“We’re asking Donovan right now to be a point guard, and it’s different,” Utah coach Quin Snyder said. “There’s a lot of things when you take someone out of your lineup as instrumental as Ricky that you have to adjust.”
Rubio is officially listed as questionable for tonight’s contest, as is power forward Derrick Favors, who left Game 3 with a sprained left ankle. Favors has been a strong frontcourt presence in the playoffs, averaging 10.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per night.
NBA Planning Summer League In Sacramento
The NBA is planning a Summer League exhibition to take place in Sacramento in addition to scheduled tournaments in Utah and Las Vegas, according to Ben Dowsett of Basketball Insiders. The event is tentatively scheduled to host the Kings, Warriors, Lakers, and Heat, Dowsett notes.
The Summer League allows NBA teams to showcase roster hopefuls, young players and draftees ahead of training camp. Last November, it was reported that the Magic would not host their annual Summer League and would instead participate in the Las Vegas event. Thus, the Sacramento Summer League replaces the canceled Orlando event.
Utah’s Summer League is scheduled to occur prior to the Vegas event, but only four teams – the Celtics, Spurs, Sixers, and Jazz – played in that league last year.
As we passed along in late January, for the first time ever, all 30 NBA teams will take part in the Las Vegas Summer League in July. Last summer, 24 teams took part in the Vegas exhibition with the Knicks, Pistons, Pacers, Hornets, Magic, and Thunder sitting out the event.
“Summer League has become such an integral part of the NBA calendar, especially in Las Vegas,” NBA executive VP of basketball operations Kiki Vandeweghe said last year. “It’s grown exponentially. You kind of think about where Summer League has come from, years ago. Now it’s become this event that all 30 teams have to be a part of. … It’s a place you must be. And really, it’s become the center of basketball in the month of July.
“Anybody who is a high draft choice, a free agent trying to make it in the league or a young player trying to get some extra practice, is there,” Vandeweghe continued. “It’s a very central location that has established itself as the premier summer event for basketball in general, not just the NBA but also international as well.”
Lloyd Pierce To Meet With Hawks Ownership
After a pair of interviews for the organization’s head coaching vacancy, Sixers assistant coach Lloyd Pierce will meet with Hawks ownership early this week, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports. If the meeting goes well, there is a “strong chance” that Pierce will be Atlanta’s next head coach, Wojnarowski adds.
We relayed yesterday that Pierce interviewed with the Hawks twice recently as the organization looks to replace former head coach Mike Budenholzer. With the Sixers trailing the Celtics 3-0 in the Eastern Conference semifinals, it’s possible Pierce’s stint in Philadelphia is nearing its end.
Pierce has served as an assistant with the Sixers for the past four seasons. He previously worked with Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk in Golden State. Pierce also spent time as an assistant coach with the Cavaliers and Grizzlies prior to joining the Sixers staff.
Atlanta has already interviewed Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga, Hornets assistant Stephen Silas, Warriors assistant Jarron Collins, and Trail Blazers assistant Nate Tibbetts. Other names connected to the opening include Spurs assistants Ime Udoka and James Borrego. Atlanta also interviewed David Fizdale, who agreed to become the Knicks‘ head coach earlier this week.
Follow all the latest coaching moves with our 2018 NBA Head Coaching Search Tracker.
Weekly Mailbag: 4/30/18 – 5/6/18
We have an opportunity for you to hit us up with your questions in this, our weekly mailbag feature. Have a question regarding player movement, the salary cap or the NBA draft? Drop us a line at HoopsRumorsMailbag@Gmail.com.
Will my Wizards target DeAndre Jordan to bolster our frontcourt to give us the athletic big we need to compete in the East? — Jermaine, via Twitter
If Jordan opts out of his $24.1MM salary for next season and becomes a free agent, the Wizards won’t have a chance. They are already over the cap for next year and have no realistic way of opening up enough space to make a near-max offer. However, if Jordan opts in and the Clippers want to shake up their roster, the Wizards might be in the running. Kelly Oubre and Tomas Satoransky both have bright futures, but they will be due for extensions soon and Washington has to be careful about adding any expensive long-term contracts to John Wall, Bradley Beal and Otto Porter. The Wizards could match salaries by offering both players and Ian Mahinmi, who is owed nearly $31.5MM over the next two seasons. When Marcin Gortat‘s deal expires next summer, they would be in position to re-sign Jordan.
Would there be any chance the Pacers make a big grab in the offseason? — Adam Harris, via Twitter
Not only has Indiana assembled one of the NBA’s best young rosters, there aren’t any bad contracts to restrict the team from being aggressive in free agency. The Pacers won’t know how much cap room they have until Thaddeus Young [$13,764,045] and Cory Joseph [$7,945,000] decide on their player options for next season, and choices have to be made on non-guaranteed contracts for Bojan Bogdanovic [$10.5MM], Darren Collison and Al Jefferson [$10MM each]. Indiana could be in position to upgrade its front court with a nice offer to a restricted free agent like Aaron Gordon or Julius Randle.
With the hiring of David Fizdale, do you agree this is the Knicks’ best coaching hire in quite some time? Because I do! — Deven Parikh
It’s not an especially high bar to clear, considering that the franchise has been through 11 coaches in 14 seasons, but Fizdale feels like the next step in a new era in New York. There’s a reason he was on the interview list for nearly every head coaching slot that opened. Fizdale was a highly respected assistant for years, he has a rapport with many star players and there was a feeling that he got a raw deal in Memphis. He was due to get another chance soon and he seems like the right man to lead the Knicks back to the playoffs, if team president Steve Mills and GM Scott Perry can stick to their pledge to remain patient.
Raptors Notes: Casey, Valanciunas, Lowry, DeRozan
Rival executives expect the Raptors to make a coaching change if they can’t rally from a 3-0 deficit against the Cavaliers, writes Kevin O’Connor of the Ringer. Dwane Casey is a Coach of the Year candidate after leading Toronto to a 59-win season, but his lack of playoff success may have caught up to him.
Toronto has three qualified replacements in its organization in assistants Nick Nurse and Rex Kalamian and G League coach Jerry Stackhouse. Nurse, who recently interviewed with the Suns and Hornets about their head coaching vacancies, would be the favorite to take over if Casey is dismissed, according to O’Connor, who adds that Nurse played a bigger role than Casey in the changes the Raptors made to their offensive system.
There’s more today out of Toronto:
- The series with the Cavaliers is displaying the problems with Toronto’s roster, O’Connor notes in the same story. The Raptors are short on defenders at the wing and forward, their big men aren’t versatile enough for the modern NBA game and they don’t have a superstar who can be the best player on the court in a playoff series. O’Connor states that even if LeBron James heads to the Western Conference in free agency, the Raptors will have difficulty getting past the Celtics or Sixers in the future.
- With Toronto already in tax territory for next season and this year’s draft picks dealt away, O’Connor points to trades as the only realistic way to improve. He notes that the Raptors had interest in DeAndre Jordan before this year’s deadline and may explore that route again if he opts in. O’Connor states that a young player like Jakob Poeltl or Delon Wright would have to be included along with Jonas Valanciunas to get the Clippers’ interest. He suggests offering Lowry, C.J. Miles and Pascal Siakam to the Wolves for Jeff Teague and Andrew Wiggins. That would free Minnesota from the cap-clogging contract it gave to Wiggins, and it would pair Lowry and Jimmy Butler, who became friends during their Olympics experience.
- DeMar DeRozan had his worst postseason game Saturday with eight points on 3-of-12 shooting and was benched for the final 14 minutes, notes Brian Windhorst of ESPN. Casey told reporters not to read too much into the move and expressed confidence that DeRozan will get back to normal. “He had a tough night,” Casey said. “He wasn’t the reason we lost. We are professionals, he’s a pro. He has had tough games before, he’ll bounce back. But we have one more game, our pride is on the line, basically our season is on the line, but I think he’ll bounce back.”
Knicks Notes: Fizdale, Lee, Porzingis
With David Fizdale being welcomed as the next coach of the Knicks, Marc Berman of The New York Post examines what went wrong for him in Memphis. Fizdale, who inherited a perennial playoff team, took the Grizzlies to the postseason last year before being fired after 19 games this season with a 7-12 record.
Former NBA player Brevin Knight, who serves as a broadcaster in Memphis, suggests that Fizdale tried to infuse too much of an uptempo approach into a veteran team that was comfortable with its “grit and grind” philosophy.
“It’s hard to give a true assessment of him as a bench coach because he was trying to change a culture when he came to Memphis,’’ Knight said. “It wasn’t just him running his offense. It was almost a hybrid of what he would’ve liked to have done — coupled with guys who were comfortable and accustomed to doing something else for so long.’’
Fizdale also had a long-running feud with center Marc Gasol, which raises concerns about how he might relate to Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis. Knight said Fizdale had a “learning experience” in Memphis about coaching international players after years with the Heat where LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh served as team leaders.
There’s more news today out of New York:
- Knicks guard Courtney Lee, who remains close to some of his former Grizzlies teammates and has heard the inside story of Fizdale’s time there, is ecstatic about his new coach, relays Al Iannazzone of Newsday. “Even in his time in Memphis, you can tell he was focused on a team or getting better — whether it was holding your best player accountable or your worst player accountable,” Lee said. “He wasn’t afraid to be confrontational and get his message across. So that’s a quality I like about him.”
- Fizdale’s plan to travel to Latvia to meet with Porzingis is the latest sign that the Knicks are committed to building the franchise around their young star, notes Ian Begley of ESPN. The rift between Porzingis and the organization that caused him to skip his exit meeting last year hasn’t been fully repaired, Begley adds. Porzinigis is eligible for a five-year, $157 million extension this summer, but it’s uncertain whether the Knicks are willing to commit to that while he’s recovering from a torn ACL.
- It’s now up to Fizdale to end the cycle of coaching changes in New York, writes Mike Lupica of The New York Daily News. The Knicks have employed 11 coaches in the past 14 years, he adds, and nearly all have left with damaged reputations.
Community Shootaround: Toronto Raptors
A few days ago, the Raptors were being praised for keeping the core of their team together and not firing coach Dwane Casey after a string of playoff disappointments. Those decisions led to a 59-win season and the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Then came an overtime loss to the Cavaliers in Game 1 of the conference semifinals, followed by an embarrassing performance in Game 2 and tonight’s heartbreaker that left them in an 0-3 hole. With another potential early postseason exit looming, sounds of discord are emerging from across the border.
A second-round ouster may be enough to cause a shakeup in Toronto, but as with most contending teams, major change won’t come easily. The Raptors gave new three-year contracts to Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka last summer, adding to the expensive one already owned by DeMar DeRozan. As a result, Toronto is already above the projected tax line for next season with a potential payroll of $133MM, a figure that could go even higher in 2019/20.
No help will be coming from the draft because the Raptors sent both of this year’s picks to the Nets last summer as the price for taking on DeMarre Carroll‘s contract. That also limits flexibility in pre-draft trades as the team can’t deal another first-rounder until 2020.
Over the next two years, Toronto owes more than $64MM to Lowry and nearly $45MM to Ibaka. DeRozan will make more than $27.7MM in each of the next two seasons, with a player option for the same amount in 2020/21. An extension for Norman Powell kicks in for next season, paying him about $42MM over four years.
Rather than upending the roster, the Raptors may opt for a coaching change. Casey, with one year left on his contract, has won 320 games in seven seasons in Toronto, but has been under fire for his lack of success in the playoffs. Assistant Nick Nurse and G League coach Jerry Stackhouse have both been candidates for head coaching jobs this summer, and the Raptors may decide to promote one of them before they leave.
We want to get your input. How would you fix the Raptors if they flame out in the playoffs again? Give us your feedback in the comments section below.