Cavaliers Finalizing Deal With David Nwaba
The Cavaliers have agreed to sign free agent swingman David Nwaba, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). According to Charania and Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com (Twitter link), Nwaba and the Cavs are still in the process of finalizing the details of the deal.
A former undrafted free agent, Nwaba had a solid season for the Bulls in 2017/18, averaging 7.9 PPG and 4.7 RPG while playing strong perimeter defense in 70 games (21 starts). He opened the month of July as a restricted free agent, but when Chicago made a series of cost-cutting moves to create the cap room necessary to sign Jabari Parker, rescinding Nwaba’s qualifying offer was one of those moves.
After Nwaba became an unrestricted free agent, Vardon reported that there was mutual interest between the 25-year-old and the Cavaliers. Nwaba also reportedly drew interest from the Lakers and Spurs, and Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News tweets that there was “lots of dialogue” with the Timberwolves, but Cleveland was aggressive in its pursuit.
According to Charania (via Twitter), the Cavs were in touch with Nwaba from the very first day of free agency and recruited him hard, meeting last week with the Los Angeles native.
While the terms of Nwaba’s deal with the Cavs aren’t yet known, the team has plenty of options for what it could have offered. Cleveland is over the cap, but still has its full mid-level and bi-annual exceptions available.
Nwaba will only be the 12th Cavaliers player on a fully guaranteed contract for 2018/19, though the club also has decisions to make on Rodney Hood‘s restricted free agency and Okaro White‘s non-guaranteed salary. With approximately $108MM in guaranteed money on their books before signing Nwaba or accounting for Hood or White, the Cavs will have one eye on the $123.73MM tax line as they fill out their roster.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Community Shootaround: Next Star To Be Traded
A year ago, Paul George and Kyrie Irving were the highest-profile stars to push their way out of their longtime NBA homes, asking for trades to new teams and having those requests granted. During the 2018 offseason, Kawhi Leonard followed suit.
Now that Leonard has been dealt to the Raptors in a trade that sent DeMar DeRozan to San Antonio, there are no marquee names still out there on the trade market.
Kevin Love looked like a possible trade candidate in the wake of LeBron James‘ free agency departure, but the Cavaliers opted to lock up Love to a long-term extension rather than shopping him. Kemba Walker was also viewed as a potential trade chip, but both he and the Hornets have been saying all the right things as of late about keeping their relationship going beyond his 2019 free agency.
With offseason roster moves slowing down, there doesn’t appear to be a star player out there who is unhappy enough in his current situation to request a trade before the season begins. Still, based on recent NBA history, it’s likely only a matter of time before the next star player becomes available.
Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders tackled this topic on Tuesday, speculating about a few All-Stars who might be among the next group of disgruntled veterans to seek a change of scenery. Kyler named Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard, Kyle Lowry, and Anthony Davis as possible candidates, though he acknowledges that it would take a disaster scenario for some of those names to show up in the rumor mill.
A player’s contract situation and his team’s success – or lack thereof – generally goes a long way toward determining how stable his situation is. A player like Butler is a candidate for this list because he can become a free agent next summer and the Timberwolves aren’t necessarily a lock to make the postseason in a hyper-competitive Western Conference. If Minnesota gets off to a poor start and whispers about supposed tension between Butler and his younger teammates persist, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear his name involved in trade rumors before the 2019 deadline.
Still, Butler is hardly the only candidate to be the next star player traded. Besides Kyler’s choices, newly-acquired stars like Leonard and DeMarcus Cousins could find themselves back on the trade block at some point in 2019 if things don’t go well with their new teams. Maybe the Wizards underperform again and decide to break up their All-Star backcourt. Perhaps a healthy Celtics roster creates playing-time problems for certain players and makes one of the team’s veteran stars unhappy.
Some of these situations are, of course, less likely than others, but it’s hard to rule anything out entirely — after all, we never thought the Leonard/Spurs situation would become as toxic as it did.
What do you think? Who will be the next NBA star who is traded, either as a result of a trade request or his team deciding to make a change?
Jump into the comment section below to share your thoughts!
Rockets Remain In Market For Wing Player
The Rockets are poised to finalize a deal with Carmelo Anthony after he clears waivers later today, but signing Anthony won’t necessarily complete Houston’s offseason. As ESPN’s Zach Lowe details in a recent podcast conversation with Chris Herring of FiveThirtyEight, the Rockets remain in the market for at least one more wing player.
“They are going to get another wing,” Lowe said of the Rockets. “It’s going to happen.”
The Rockets lost two key forwards last month when Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute signed with new teams in free agency. Despite re-signing Gerald Green, adding James Ennis, and lining up a deal with Anthony, Houston could use another player with the ability to make threes on offense and guard talented perimeter players on defense.
Earlier this week, we heard that Houston has interest in Hawks swingman Kent Bazemore — Lowe and Herring discuss that possibility, with the ESPN analyst suggesting that the Rockets would likely offer Atlanta a package of Ryan Anderson and their 2019 first-round pick. However, the Hawks aren’t the only team the Rockets are keeping an eye on.
According to Lowe, the Rockets have also talked to the Heat. While Lowe doesn’t identify any specific Miami players that Houston is targeting, he speculates that perhaps the Rockets would be willing to offer that same package of Anderson and a pick for someone like Tyler Johnson.
The Rockets have also “kicked the tires” on Cavaliers shooting guard J.R. Smith, per Lowe. At $14.72MM, Smith has a smaller 2018/19 salary than players like Bazemore and Johnson, so the Cavaliers wouldn’t be able to trade him straight up for Anderson ($20.42MM) and a pick. Smith also only has a modest partial guarantee on his 2019/20 salary, making his contract much more palatable than Anderson’s. That could complicate any trade discussions between the two teams.
Although Lowe doesn’t go into more details on any other trade talks the Rockets might be having, there are a handful of other players around the NBA who would be logical targets as Houston dangles Anderson and a draft pick. Nicolas Batum, DeMarre Carroll, Marvin Williams, Danilo Gallinari, and Courtney Lee are other wings who make between $12-24MM in 2018/19 and are under contract for multiple seasons, though some players in that group are more realistic trade candidates than others.
International Notes: Alexander, Paul, Costello
Former Trail Blazers forward and Kansas standout Cliff Alexander will continue his playing career in Germany. Alexander has signed a two-year contract to join German team Brose Bamberg, the club announced today in a press release.
While Alexander only appeared in a total of eight regular season NBA games for Portland, he has spent time with a handful of teams. The ex-Jayhawk was in camp with the Magic in 2016 and the Pelicans in 2017, and signed a 10-day contract with the Nets near the end of the 2016/17 season.
Here are a few more notes on one-time NBA players who are playing – or may play – in international leagues this season:
- Having been waived by the Spurs on Tuesday, shooting guard Brandon Paul appears to already be drawing interest from teams in Europe. Orazio Cauchi of Sportando relays a report from El Mundo Deportivo suggesting that Barcelona and Baskonia of the Spanish League may have their eye on Paul.
- Matt Costello, another former Spurs player who spent last season on a two-way contract with the club, is weighing offers from Italy’s Avellino and Turkey’s Galatasaray, a source tells Orazio Cauchi of Sportando. Costello intends to take some time to make his decision, per Cauchi.
- Former second-round pick Tibor Pleiss, who appeared in 12 NBA games for the Jazz back in 2015/16, will continue to play in Europe. The big man signed with Turkish club Anadolu Efes on a one-year deal featuring a second-year option, according to an announcement from the team (Twitter link).