Cavaliers Notes: Love, Nance, Veterans
Kevin Love expressed his desire to stay in Cleveland during his exit interview with the team following the NBA Finals, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today reports. The power forward also reiterated his desire to stay once the news of LeBron James leaving town broke — during both interactions, he discussed his interest in a long-term deal.
Love inked a four-year extension with the Cavaliers worth an additional $120MM. As part of the arrangement, the big man declined his player option for the 2019/20 season, which is the first season the new pact will kick in.
Here some notes and reactions on the deal signed by Cleveland’s newest face of the franchise:
- The Love signing suggests that the Cavaliers have no interest in a full teardown, Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated writes. Outside of rookie deals, Love is the only guaranteed contract on the books past the 2019/20 campaign.
- Cleveland is reportedly interested in giving both Larry Nance Jr. and Rodney Hood new deals, Woo adds. Nance has one season at roughly $2.27MM left on his current deal. Hood is a restricted free agent, though he hasn’t had much interest this offseason after a shaky start to his Cavs career.
- The belief around the league was that the Cavaliers were going to move their high-priced veterans, but it became clear early on that the franchise wasn’t going to find takers for many of its players, sources tell Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. The scribe adds that Cleveland remains open to trades. However, after locking Love down long-term, there isn’t much urgency to move veterans.
Yogi Ferrell Discusses Backing Out Of Deal With Mavs
It might be fair to say that not many people back out of deals with Mark Cuban, but over the last four years, he’s had two NBA contracts disintegrate from his hands. DeAndre Jordan backed out of an agreement with the Mavericks during the 2015 offseason – an event that caused a Twitter-Emoji party – and this offseason, Yogi Ferrell had a change of heart after initially making an agreement.
“I decided I needed the chance in my career. With my style of play, I feel like it fits better with the Kings than the Mavericks,” Ferrell said on The Jim Rome Show (h/t SportsDay).
Dallas had reportedly told Ferrell that he’d occupy the backup shooting guard spot when he made the verbal agreement to re-sign with the club. It’s unclear the exact role the Ferrell will now play in Sacramento.
The combo guard will get a bump in salary on the Kings compared to what he would have received in the Mavs’ deal. Sacramento is paying him $6.2MM over two seasons, though the second year is not guaranteed. Dallas’ contract would have paid him $5.3MM over two years with the same stipulation on the second year of the deal.
“Cuban, he was the one that gave me my first opportunity in the league,” Ferrell said. “Coach [Rick] Carlisle is a great coach. When he first put me in, I’ll never forget my first practice he told me I was gonna start. The next day we were playing the Spurs, so everything was coming pretty quickly.
“I was fortunate they were able to put me in the position that they were in. There were no hard feelings.”
Clippers Re-Sign Montrezl Harrell
July 24: The team has officially re-signed Harrell, according to a team press release.
“Montrezl is a tough, hard-playing, gritty competitor who is committed to winning,” said President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank. “We love his passion and energy, and are very excited to have Trezz back in a Clippers uniform.”
July 19: Restricted free agent center Montrezl Harrell has agreed to a two-year, $12MM deal to return to the Clippers, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. According to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times, Harrell’s contract will be fully guaranteed.
Harrell, 24, was one of the last remaining restricted free agents on the market with a reasonable potential to sign a significant deal. Only Clint Capela and Rodney Hood now remain.
An over-the-cap team, the Clippers had already split their entire non-taxpayer mid-level exception on forwards Luc Mbah a Moute and Mike Scott, but were able to re-sign Harrell using his Bird rights.
Harrell had a breakout season in 2017/18, playing in 76 games while averaging 11.0 points and 4.0 rebounds per contest and shooting a blistering 63.5 percent from the field. His 24.73 PER was good enough for 12th best in the entire NBA among qualified players.
The Clippers lost big man DeAndre Jordan in free agency to the Mavericks, but did acquire center Marcin Gortat from the Wizards in a trade for Austin Rivers. Accordingly, Harrell and Gortat will now seemingly compete for time at the center position for the Clippers in 2018/19, with Boban Marjanovic providing reserve minutes.
Michael Beasley Talks Critics, New Home, Expectations
Michael Beasley, who joined the Lakers on a one-year, $3.5MM deal, isn’t fond of all the naysayers criticizing his fit on the team.
“For there to even be a narrative of the personalities in this room is judgment enough for me, and I don’t want to be a part of that,” Beasley said (via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com).
“You being a critic doing your job, [if] everybody do their job and stop judging a lot of players — me mainly — you will figure out that guys like me, Nick Young, J.R. Smith and Lance Stephenson and guys like that know how to play basketball and win basketball games, know how to get along with others. It is nothing to do with my maturity.”
The forward added that he feels this year’s squad is going to “come together like a basketball team.”
Magic Johnson had a vision for the type of talent he wanted to put around newly-signed LeBron James. The President of Basketball Operations wanted veteran toughness, playoff experience, defense, basketball IQ, and multiple offensive weapons, Youngmusik writes in the piece for ESPN.
Playoff experience? JaVale McGee has a ring. Same with Rajon Rondo. Basketball IQ? While the former Celtics point has had his run-ins with coaches, he’s widely regarded as one of the brightest minds in the game. Veteran toughness? Look no further than Stephenson and his calling card is his offensive ability.
Beasley’s offense is likely better than the average Knicks’ viewer realized last season. Sound defense with the group? That might be a tougher sell than any attribute listed above. Still, Beasley knows what the team expects from him.
“Just be myself,” Beasley said of what the Lakers want from him. “I come in here and try to help the young guys and put the ball in the basket…Don’t be shy about being myself.”
Nets, D’Angelo Russell Extension Unlikely
As we noted earlier this summer, the Nets still hadn’t had any rookie-scale extension talks with D’Angelo Russell after about a week into free agency. Now, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post, it appears that an extension is unlikely given Brooklyn’s plan to be a major spender in free agency next summer.
The Nets’ deadline to sign Russell, 22, to an extension is the last day before the start of the regular season, but even if no extension is agreed to, the Nets will still be able to make Russell a restricted free agent in the summer of 2019 by tendering him a $9.16MM qualifying offer next June.
“For now we’re going to see how this group plays together, how it all unfolds,” said general manager Sean Marks said. “But — again, I’m not going to rule out anything — as we stand now, this is the group and we have no plans to make any crazy changes, whether that’s an extension or signing or trade anyone else. But things happen quickly.”
Russell, the No. 2 overall selection in the 2015 NBA Draft, averaged 20.9 points, 5.7 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game before getting hurt last season, but given the plan to maximize cap space and the fact that Russell will be under team control as a restricted free agent, Lewis opines that the Nets would be prudent to stand pat and let the market set the price for Russell next summer.
Only one other member of the 2015 NBA Draft class – Devin Booker – has signed a rookie-scale extension so far this summer, but Karl-Anthony Towns, Bobby Portis, and Larry Nance Jr. are among those considered strong candidates for new deals.
Knicks Sign Noah Vonleh
5:25pm: Begley is now reporting that Vonleh signed a one-year, partially guaranteed deal (via Twitter).
3:16pm: The Knicks have officially issued a press release announcing their deal with Vonleh.
2:54pm: The Knicks are making another addition to their roster, according to Ian Begley of ESPN.com, who reports (via Twitter) that the team has reached an agreement to sign free agent forward Noah Vonleh.
The ninth overall pick in the 2014 draft, Vonleh has appeared in 231 games (113 starts) during his first four NBA seasons, but hasn’t developed into the kind of impact player that the Hornets were hoping for when they used a lottery pick to nab him.
The former Indiana standout has been traded twice since entering the league, having been sent from Charlotte to Portland to Chicago. The Bulls didn’t tender him a qualifying offer earlier this summer, so he entered the open market on July 1 as an unrestricted free agent.
In 54 total games last season for the Trail Blazers and Bulls, Vonleh averaged 4.9 PPG and 5.8 RPG in 16.2 minutes per contest.
The addition of Vonleh is an interesting one for the Knicks, who already have 14 guaranteed salaries – plus Trey Burke‘s non-guaranteed deal – on their books for 2018/19. Burke played well down the stretch for New York last season and is unlikely to be waived, so players like Joakim Noah and Ron Baker appear to be release candidates unless the club trades someone else before the regular season begins.
While a minimum-salary deal seems likely for Vonleh, the Knicks do have their bi-annual exception available to make a slightly more lucrative offer if necessary.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Northwest Notes: Schroder, Lillard, Towns, Crowder
In an extended analytical piece, Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer takes a look at how the Thunder‘s soon-to-be acquired point guard Dennis Schroder will fit with incumbent starter and All-Star Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City’s backcourt.
Consistently ranked near the bottom of the league in passing metrics, Thunder head coach Billy Donovan has regularly spoke about how he wants better ball movement on offense. But, as Donovan admits, “There’s a balance between [giving the ball to your stars] and then trying to play faster with more ball and player movement.”
Enter Schroder, who can create against a defense with his quickness perhaps better than any other point guard the Thunder have had in recent years outside of Westbrook, including Reggie Jackson.
Only time will tell whether or not Westbrook and Schroder will be able to play together, but if they can, Donovan will be able to install more pace and ball-movement concepts featuring multiple ball handlers running the show, rather than relying on Westbrook alone, which should help the Thunder be less one-dimensional against the better Western Conference teams come playoff time.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- While the Trail Blazers may not have been able to bring in as much talent as they had hoped for during this summer’s free agency period in an effort to improve upon last season, Damian Lillard says that he’s ready and excited for the upcoming season and that he has a “deeper connection” with the city of Portland that goes beyond basketball, per Sean Meagher of The Oregonian.
- As part of a Wolves’ mailbag, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic opines that although the relationship between Karl-Anthony Towns and the Timberwolves could obviously use some work right now, the opportunity for repair remains, as Towns likely would have cancelled his recent basketball camp in the Twin Cities had he already completely written off Minnesota as a long-term home.
- After struggling on-court to adjust to a new role and new teammates at the beginning of last season and coping off-court with the death of his mother from cancer, Jae Crowder finally feels at home with the Jazz, writes Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult,” Crowder told The Tribune. “It was hard being thrown into the fire. But, from Day One, the locker room and my teammates [in Utah] were great. The coaching staff was great. … It helped build toughness.”
Bucks Sign Trevon Duval To Two-Way Contract
The Bucks have signed undrafted rookie Trevon Duval to a two-way contract, reports Matt Velazquez of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link).
[RELATED: 2018/19 NBA Two-Way Contract Tracker]
A former Duke point guard, Duval left the Blue Devils after his freshman season, declaring for the 2018 draft this spring. In 37 college games, the 19-year-old posted 10.3 PPG, 5.6 APG, 2.0 RPG, and 1.5 SPG. He struggled with his scoring efficiency, compiling a .428/.290/.596 shooting line.
Despite ranking as the 53rd overall prospect on Jonathan Givony’s big board at ESPN.com, Duval went undrafted last month. He joined the Rockets’ Summer League squad in Las Vegas and averaged 9.2 PPG on 36.1% shooting in five games earlier this month.
The Bucks tendered qualifying offers to both of their two-way players last season, but have since withdrawn their QO to Marshall Plumlee. Xavier Munford‘s QO is still on the table, so it’s possible he’ll eventually join Duval and fill the other two-way slot on Milwaukee’s roster.
Pelicans Sign Kenrich Williams
The Pelicans have signed undrafted free agent Kenrich Williams to a contract, a source confirms to Hoops Rumors. The deal, which features a partial guarantee for 2018/19, is listed in the NBA’s official transactions log as having been completed on Monday.
Williams, who played college ball at TCU after transferring from New Mexico Junior College in 2014, averaged 13.2 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 3.9 APG, and 1.8 SPG for the Horned Frogs in 2017/18. The 6’7″ guard/forward posted a shooting line of .477/.395/.688 during his senior year.
The No. 64 prospect on Jonathan Givony’s big board at ESPN.com heading into last month’s draft, Williams wasn’t selected on draft night, but caught on with Denver for Summer League action. He averaged 5.4 PPG and 5.6 RPG in five games in Las Vegas for the Nuggets.
As we noted when we discussed Garlon Green‘s agreement with the Pelicans on Monday, New Orleans doesn’t yet have a G League team. That means the Pelicans are unlikely to hand out Exhibit 10 contracts, which generally award a player a bonus if he spends 60 days with the club’s NBAGL affiliate after being waived. Neither Green’s nor Williams’ deal features that Exhibit 10 clause.
Lakers Sign Travis Wear To Two-Way Deal
1:54pm: The Lakers have officially signed Wear to a two-way contract, the team announced today in a press release.
11:29am: The Lakers have reached an agreement to sign free agent forward Travis Wear to a two-way contract, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).
Wear has had multiple stints with the Lakers over the last couple years. He participated in training camp with the club in 2016 and played for the Lakers’ G League affiliate in each of the last two seasons. In the second half of the 2017/18 campaign, he signed a pair of 10-day contracts with L.A., followed by a rest-of-season deal.
In 17 games for the Lakers last season, Wear averaged 4.4 PPG and 2.2 RPG in 13.4 minutes per contest, knocking down 36.2% of his three-pointers. He was more effective for the South Bay Lakers, recording 16.2 PPG, 8.1 RPG, and a .445/.419/.855 shooting line in 34 G League games.
Wear will join Alex Caruso as the two Lakers currently on two-way contracts. The club had signed Malik Newman to a two-way deal at the start of the month, but cut him last week, opening up a slot for Wear.