Suns Notes: Harrison, Reed, Booker, Cooley
Shaquille Harrison turned up his defense in Las Vegas in a bid for a roster spot, writes Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic. The 24-year-old averaged 2.7 steals per game to go with a 12.2/4.4/6.0 line in five summer league contests.
Harrison is hoping to earn a role as the third point guard behind Brandon Knight and rookie Elie Okobo, and Bordow believes his fate depends on what other moves the team makes this summer. New coach Igor Kokoskov said he puts “a lot” of value on Harrison’s defensive abilities.
Harrison joined the Suns on a pair of 10-day contracts before signing for the rest of the season in mid-March. A $50K guarantee kicks in August 1 on his $1,378,242 salary for 2018/19.
There’s more news out of Phoenix:
- Davon Reed, another young guard hoping for a roster spot, also helped his cause in Las Vegas, Bordow adds in the same story. Reed showed no effects of the arthroscopic knee surgery that slowed him last year as he averaged 13.4 PPG and displayed the quickness and athleticism he had before the injury. The Suns have a logjam at shooting guard with Devin Booker established as the starter and Troy Daniels, Mikal Bridges and Josh Jackson all in the mix for backup minutes. Reed has placed himself in a good position to make the roster, tweets John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7, who notes that the Suns extended his guarantee date so they could watch him in summer league.
- Booker was happy that the Suns elected to give him a max extension this year instead of waiting until he was a restricted free agent next summer, Bordow writes in a separate story. “Like I said Phoenix, the entire organization has been behind me since day one, starting with the draft,” Booker said. “For a team to draft you and take a chance on you means they believe in you. [Owner] Robert Sarver and [GM] Ryan McDonough, I think those guys truly believe in me and it showed with the contract.”
- Although he’s surrounded by big-name prospects, Jack Cooley has become a summer league fan favorite, relays Kevin Zimmerman of Arizona Sports 98.7. The 27-year-old center was part of the Suns’ entry as he tries to get another shot at the NBA. He played seven games with the Kings last season after being out of the NBA for two years. “There’ve been talks with not just only Phoenix, but there have been a couple other teams that have rediscovered interest that wasn’t previously there,” Cooley said.
Nets Renounce Rights To Quincy Acy, Milton Doyle
The Nets cleared the way for a few roster moves by renouncing the free agent rights to Quincy Acy and Milton Doyle, tweets Keith Smith of Real GM. The extra cap space will allow them to re-sign Joe Harris and add free agents Ed Davis and Shabazz Napier.
Acy, 27, spent the past year and a half with Brooklyn after signing with the team in January of 2017. He appeared in 70 games last season, starting eight, and averaged 5.9 PPG and 3.7 RPG. He also spent time with the Raptors, Kings, Knicks and Mavericks.
Doyle, 24, signed a two-way contract with the Nets in December. He appeared in 10 NBA games, averaging 3.4 PPG in 12.5 minutes.
Nets Notes: Lin, Faried, Napier, Vezenkov
The Nets weren’t convinced that point guard Jeremy Lin will be physically ready for training camp, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Lin, who was traded to the Hawks on Thursday, is coming off a ruptured patellar tendon that he suffered in last season’s opener.
The 29-year-old point guard hasn’t been medically cleared for three-on-three contact games and may take a while to get ready for five-on-five. He played just 37 games over two years after signing with Brooklyn in 2016 and carried a $12.5MM salary that the team needed to unload before completing a deal with Denver.
“I love Jeremy Lin because he represents the underdog in all of us — truly first class on and off the court,” tweeted co-owner Joe Tsai after the deal was completed. “Jeremy is not only exciting to watch, he sets an example for perseverance and leadership. We are great friends, and I will follow his progress no matter where he is.”
There’s more today out of Brooklyn:
- The Nets had been trying for months to acquire Kenneth Faried from the Nuggets, Lewis adds in the same story. Brooklyn officials hoped to make a deal before last month’s draft, but Denver was unwilling to give up this year’s first-rounder, which it used to get Michael Porter Jr. Nets GM Sean Marks improved his bargaining position by unloading Timofey Mozgov to the Hornets and Lin to the Hawks, giving him enough cap room to take on Faried and Darrell Arthur while getting a future first-rounder and second-rounder.
- Today’s agreement with Shabazz Napier will use up the last of the Nets’ remaining cap room, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Brooklyn has 14 players under contract, 13 with guaranteed money, and can now exceed the cap by finalizing deals with Joe Harris under the Early Bird exception and Ed Davis under the room mid-level exception.
- Aleksandar Vezenkov, a second-round pick from 2016, will get a better chance to develop his skills after signing with Olympiacos in Greece this week, according to NetsDaily.com. A stretch four, Vezenkov spent last season with F.C. Barcelona, which allotted more minutes to players who weren’t likely to eventually leave for the NBA. That shouldn’t be a concern with Olympiacos, where Vezenkov will play for former Cavaliers coach David Blatt.
Notes & Reactions On The Jabari Parker Signing
The Bucks felt that the organization and Jabari Parker were trending in different directions, league sources tell Jordan Schultz of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The team let Jabari Parker become an unrestricted free agent, allowing him to sign a two-year, $40MM deal with the Bulls.
Schultz notes that GM Jon Horst didn’t have to rescind the qualifying offer which kept Parker as a restricted free agent, but he did so to allow Parker the ability to negotiate the best possible deal with Chicago.
Here are more notes and reactions from around the league:
- For Parker to provide good value at $20MM per season, he’ll have to develop into an All-Star caliber player, Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com writes. Pelton can envision a scenario where Parker continues to be limited defensively and becomes what amounts to a high-scoring sixth man. The scribe sees that value to be comparable to Will Barton‘s deal, one that will pay the wing an annual value of $13.5MM.
- The Bucks would have had to part with either a productive player or attach an asset in order to dump one of their players with larger, unfriendly contract if they intended to sign Parker and stay under the luxury tax, Pelton notes in the same piece. Pelton evaluates Milwaukee’s roster and finds that it didn’t have any smaller contracts that provided poor value, meaning the franchise would have had to find takers for either Matthew Dellavedova, Tony Snell or John Henson, something that’s easier said than done.
- The Bucks are set to have $116MM on the books this season after the signings of Ersan Ilyasova and Brook Lopez, ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (ESPN now link). Milwaukee’s future cap space will be dependent on what Khris Middleton does with his $13MM player option next season. If he opts out and Eric Bledsoe does not return, the team could have upwards of $28MM in cap space.
Jazz Sign Naz Mitrou-Long To Two-Way Deal
4:08pm: The signing is now official, the Jazz confirmed in a press release.
2:39pm: The Jazz will sign Naz Mitrou-Long to a two-way contract, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
“I’m just happy that the Jazz were so patient with me and just kept contributing to the fact that they wanted to see me grow,” the guard said (via Eric Woodyard of the Deseret News on Twitter).
Mitrou-Long earned two 10-day deals with the Jazz last season, as the team needed to add depth at the guard spot with Ricky Rubio battling injuries. He didn’t see any real action for the NBA club though, entering just one contest for a total of one minute.
Mitrou-Long also played for Utah’s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars, last season. The soon-to-be 25-year-old appeared in 40 games with the Stars, averaging 18.0 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per contest.
Noise From The North: The Latest On Kawhi Leonard
Kawhi Leonard has dominated headlines all summer and he’ll likely be featured in the rumor mill until either the Spurs trade him or he commits to playing in San Antonio long-term. Rumors of the Raptors making a play for the disgruntled star made rounds during Summer League, and other teams such as the Sixers and Celtics come up in speculation about where Leonard is going to play next season.
Most of the news may simply be noise, as Leonard has long been linked to Los Angeles, the only city he reportedly wants to play for. Cris Carter of Fox Sports hears that Leonard hasn’t changed his stance.
“Nothing’s changed from Kawhi’s side from these standpoints: He still wants to go to Los Angeles, and he’s still not interested in being rented out for one season, so that being Philadelphia, Boston, Toronto or any other team,” Carter said on First Things First on Friday (Twitter link).
Carter, a Hall-of-Fame NFL wide receiver, is an unlikely source for NBA news, though he appears to be dialed into the situation. Longtime sports agent Mitch Frankel, who represents Leonard, was Carter’s agent during his NFL playing days.
Carter relayed that Leonard’s camp has remained in contact with the Spurs and they were told by the organization that they’d be notified if the club was closing in on a deal. That hasn’t happened and no rival team has been in contact with Leonard, something that would typically happen if another team was in conversations to acquire a player in a trade.
Leonard’s camp considered issuing a press release about the rumors of Toronto making a play for him, Carter added. No such thing has since been released and the silence from Leonard’s people is partially to blame for the rampant speculation about the Raptors swooping in and acquiring the former MVP candidate, Sean Deveney of Sporting News writes.
Deveney believes that a Leonard trade remains distant and adds that it’s easy to see why NBA executives are connecting the dots between Toronto and San Antonio. GM Masai Ujiri has the ammunition to pull off a trade that provides value to San Antonio while maintaining Toronto’s status as a serious Eastern Conference contender.
Such a deal could be centered around a package of DeMar DeRozan and young prospects or picks and the Raptors have a deep enough team to give up two or three contributors and still surround Leonard with a top-ranked cast.
However, Deveney believes it would be foolish to make the trade for Leonard without assurance that he’ll stick around past the 2018/19 campaign. For the Raptors or any team outside of Los Angeles, getting that long-term commitment doesn’t appear to be in the cards. Leonard is a generational talent, but for those non-Southern California teams, the risk may be even greater than the reward and a trade seems unlikely until that ratio tilts in one of the other 27 organizations’ favor.
Bulls Waive Paul Zipser, Julyan Stone
As part of the series of transactions that saw them make their signing of Jabari Parker official, the Bulls have formally waived forward Paul Zipser and guard Julyan Stone, the team announced in a press release.
The moves were necessary in order to clear the cap room necessary to finalize Parker’s two-year, $40MM deal. Having already traded Jerian Grant, waived Sean Kilpatrick, and withdrawn David Nwaba‘s qualifying offer within the last week or so, Chicago was able to create about $20.6MM in cap space by cutting Zipser and Stone and renouncing their other cap holds and exceptions.
In addition to waiving Zipser and Stone, the team also had to renounce Noah Vonleh‘s cap hold of $10MM+ and give up its mid-level and trade exceptions. The Bulls had three trade exceptions available, the largest of which was worth nearly $9MM. The club will now only have access to the $4.449MM room exception.
Zipser ($1.545MM) and Stone ($1.656MM) each had non-guaranteed salaries for 2018/19, so the Bulls are no longer on the hook for any money for either player.
Zipser, 24, averaged 4.0 PPG and 2.4 RPG in 54 games (15.3 MPG) for the Bulls last season. He indicated in June that he didn’t expect the team to bring him back.
As for Stone, he was only included in last week’s three-way trade with the Hornets and Magic so that the Bulls technically received something in the deal — he was always expected to be released. The veteran guard had a very limited role for the Hornets last season, averaging just 0.8 PPG, 1.3 RPG, and 1.1 APG in 23 contests (7.6 MPG)
Jabari Parker Signs Two-Year Deal With Bulls
12:43pm: The Bulls have officially announced their new deal with Parker, issuing a press release to confirm the signing. As detailed below, it’s a two-year, $40MM agreement, but it’s only guaranteed for the first year.
11:09am: The Bulls have agreed to a two-year, $40MM deal with Jabari Parker, who became an unrestricted free agent after the Bucks rescinded their qualifying offer, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. It was reported that the Bucks did not unilaterally withdraw their qualifying offer ahead of Friday’s deadline, but the team did so today with Parker’s consent.
Bucks general manager Jon Horst said to ESPN that the organization wasn’t going to match an offer sheet and decided to let Parker negotiate a deal as an unrestricted free agent.
“Jabari and I felt it was in the best interest of both he and the team to rescind our qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent,” Horst said in a statement. “We appreciate everything Jabari has brought to our team and our community over the last four years and we wish him well.”
While Parker was reportedly interested in joining his hometown Bulls, earlier reports suggested he wanted to return to Milwaukee. Instead, Parker departs Milwaukee for a chance to prove he can stay healthy for a full season.
“I am extremely grateful to the Bucks and the incredible fans of Milwaukee for showing me so much love and encouragement,” Parker said in a statement. “Specifically, I’d like to thank Jon, Marc, Wes and Jamie for giving me my start in the NBA and supporting me throughout my career.”
Parker, 23, is a former second overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft who has shown flashes of his potential but has seen his career impacted by two ACL tears in his left knee.
After missing the start of the 2017/18 season, Parker returned to play in 31 games, averaging 12.6 PPG and 4.9 RPG in 24.0 minutes per contest. A year prior, Parker was in the midst of a career season, averaging 20.1 PPG and 6.2 RPG before tearing his ACL a second time. As Hoops Rumors wrote earlier this year, Parker is one of 97 NBA players to tear an ACL since 1970 and is one of nine players to do so twice.
With the troubled injury history, the second year of Parker’s new deal with the Bulls is a team option, Wojnarowski tweets. This lowers risk for the Bulls if Parker’s left knee fails to hold up and also gives him the option to pursue a long-term deal with Chicago if he can stay healthy and productive.
Since 2010, 33 players have torn their ACL and none of them have gone on to make an All-Star team after the injury. For Parker, this significant guarantee signals the chance to prove his left knee is capable of handling a full season and worth a more significant investment.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Warriors Sign Damion Lee To Two-Way Deal
JULY 14: The Warriors have officially signed Lee to a two-way contract, the team announced today in a press release.
JULY 10: Damion Lee has agreed to a two-way contract with Warriors, Chris Haynes of ESPN.com reports.
Lee, who will soon marry Stephen Curry‘s sister, Sydel, played in 15 games for the Hawks last season. The shooting guard received a pair of 10-day deals with the club late in the season before signing with Atlanta for the remainder of it.
The 25-year-old played the majority of last season for the Warriors’ G League affiliate. Lee spent parts of two seasons in the G League after not hearing his name called on draft night 2016. He split his collegiate career between Drexel University and the University of Louisville.
Warriors Notes: Curry, Cook, Bell
Stephen Curry has been the face of the Warriors franchise for the team’s three championships the past four years. He has shared the spotlight alongside Kevin Durant and two other All-Star teammates to form a modern-day dynasty.
While he was in the hospital for the birth of his child, a call from general manager Bob Myers notified him that the best team in the league got better. DeMarcus Cousins, recovering from a torn Achilles, agreed to join the Warriors for $5.3MM, giving Golden State a fifth All-Star for its starting lineup.
“I don’t think (adding Cousins in free agency) was on anybody’s radar going into the summer,” Curry said to USA Today’s Sam Amick. “(Myers) laid out how it happened with DeMarcus’ free agency, and the early stages and what-not, and he was like, ‘Hey if we can sign him would you like to play with him?’ And I said, ‘Obviously, hell yeah. That would be amazing.’”
However, the Warriors’ latest challenge will be competing with the LeBron James in the Pacific division. Curry said that Los Angeles has yet to establish an identity but when it does, the main challenge will be beating Golden State.
“There’s a lot that’s been made about the competition in the West and his eight straight Finals appearances and all that, but that just makes everybody raise the antenna up a little bit – including us,” Curry said. “It’s going to be fun for fans, playing (more) in the regular season and who knows in the playoffs. So the West obviously got stronger with LeBron but you’ve still got to beat us.”
Check out more Warriors notes below:
- Just before the postseason started, Quinn Cook, who filled in for Curry while he was sidelined, signed a multi-year deal with the Warriors. During an appearance on the Warriors Outsiders Podcast, Cook explained why he never considered restricted free agency (via NBC Sports).“I wanted to be part of the team,” Cook said. “They gave me a tremendous opportunity … I didn’t care.”
- Jordan Bell is headed for restricted free agency next summer and it may come at a poor time for Golden State, Anthony Slater of The Athletic writes (subscription required). When Golden State inked Nick Young using a full mid-level exception, Bell was only offered a two-year pact. Now, he will become a RFA a year sooner and it could cost Bell money and Golden State a useful player. “I don’t mind betting on myself, though,” Bell said. “I think it was a good thing for me, especially at my age.”