Gary Payton II Signs 10-Day Deal With Wizards
JANUARY 21: The Wizards have officially signed Payton, the team announced today in a press release. His contract will run through next Wednesday, January 30.
JANUARY 20: The Wizards will fill their roster opening by signing guard Gary Payton II to a 10-day contract, tweets ESPN’s Marc J. Spears. The signing is expected to take place tomorrow, which will be the deadline for Washington to get back to the 14-man roster limit, two weeks after waiving Ron Baker.
This is the latest NBA opportunity for the 26-year-old guard, who was in training camp with the Trail Blazers before being waived prior to the start of the season. Payton appeared in a combined 23 games last season — 12 with the Bucks and 11 with the Lakers — averaging 3.0 points per night. He also played six games for Milwaukee during the 2016/17 season.
Payton returned to the G League last month, signing with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. He posted a 19.2/8.2/6.6 line in 13 games.
Blazers Players Discuss Team’s Deadline Outlook
The Trail Blazers figure to be among the teams looking for some extra help at the trade deadline this season, but Damian Lillard hopes that the club will only make a move if it’s clear upgrade — otherwise, he may not want to risk upsetting Portland’s chemistry, as Jason Quick of The Athletic details.
“When you look around the league, you just see the talent. Teams are stacking up on talent,” Lillard said. “You see a lot of guys teaming up and guys wanting to be on the same team. When you want to compete with that — like on a championship level — you gotta try to fight that with firepower. For us, I think our chemistry, our style of play, and the coaching we have — that’s a big thing for us. So like, we lean on that. We’ve been successful with it. But when you talk about a championship level, it’s tough to compete with those ultra-talented teams — Golden State, Oklahoma City, teams that just have player after player after player.
“If we go away from (team chemistry and continuity), it has to be for certain that we are able to match (the West’s top teams) talent-wise,” Lillard added. “I’m not saying ‘Do it’ if we can get that, I’m just saying if we are ever going to sacrifice (chemistry), it would have to come with us being able to match a team with talent.”
As Quick relays, Lillard repeatedly cautioned that he wasn’t telling team president of basketball operations Neil Olshey what he should or shouldn’t do with the roster at the deadline. “It’s a hard job,” the star point guard said of Olshey’s position. “And that’s why I’m glad it’s not mine.”
Still, Lillard’s stance is an interesting one. Many players around the league would encourage their general managers to make whatever moves they believe will get their respective teams closer to a championship. Lillard, on the other hand, told Quick that he doesn’t want to be so focused on winning a title that he sacrifices teammates to get there.
“At the end of the day, I know in my heart I want to win. I want to win a championship for this city, but I’m not willing to put somebody under the bus to do it,” Lillard said. “That means more to me than saying ‘I won a championship, but now this guy has been traded to a bad situation, and now his team don’t like him as much and he might be out of the league in a year.’ I’m not going to have that. I’m not going to have that on me.”
Here’s more from Blazers players on the team’s trade deadline outlook, via Quick:
- Lillard explained further why he doesn’t want to get too involved in telling Olshey and the front office what they should do at the deadline: “I’ve never been somebody to go out there and be like, ‘We need to do this, or we need to do that,’ because people’s lives are involved, and I don’t deal with that.”
- When discussing the West’s top teams, Lillard also observed that it’s “hard to get that much talent to come to Portland,” acknowledging that the Blazers will be at a disadvantage against bigger-market teams when competing for top free agents.
- Like Lillard, Evan Turner doesn’t envy the position Olshey is in: “It seems like we are up and down of where we want to go. You look at one half of the roster and it looks like a rebuild, and the other half is try-to-win, and see how far we can push it. So whatever (Olshey) does, I’m sure he will do what’s best for the organization. Hopefully, if he does deal, it’s a deal you can’t say no to, as opposed to a flip of a coin whether it’s going to work or not.”
- While the Blazers are very unlikely to move C.J. McCollum, the standout guard acknowledged that he’s become accustomed to seeing his name pop up in trade rumors and speculation: “What’s his name … Bill Simmons has been trying to get me traded for like five years. There’s a proposed trade for me three times a year by him. I admire the fact that he thinks I’m worthy of being traded to … 12 teams.”
Community Shootaround: All-Star Selection Format
Monday is the last day to submit your votes for 2019’s NBA All-Star starters. Once the fan vote has been closed, the league will also take into account the picks made by players and media members in order to determine this year’s starters.
While the All-Star Game itself no longer pits the Western Conference against the Eastern Conference, the selection format still dictates that five starters must come from each conference. Given a somewhat underwhelming crop of star guards in the East this season, that format ensures that Kyrie Irving will likely be joined by one of Ben Simmons, Bradley Beal, or Kemba Walker in the Eastern backcourt.
Those players are having strong seasons, but there will be reserves in the Western Conference more deserving of a starting nod. Due to the conference and position restrictions, two players out of the five-man Western frontcourt group of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Nikola Jokic, and Anthony Davis won’t crack the starting lineup.
The two frontcourt stars in that group who miss out on starting spots will still end up on the All-Star roster. However, there may be other deserving players who don’t make the cut — even though the rules on positions are less restrictive for the reserves, coaches are still limited to picking seven players in each conference, rather than simply choosing the next 14 best players, regardless of position or conference.
As Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer details in a column on his All-Star picks, he spoke to a number of people around the league – including executives, coaches, and reporters – about their own All-Star selections, and all of them admitted that if they were just asked to pick the NBA’s 24 best players, they wouldn’t get to 12 in the East. According to O’Connor, everyone he polled chose between eight and 11 Eastern players in that hypothetical scenario — the most common response was nine, with the other 15 coming from the West.
Given how many players around the NBA have All-Star bonuses and incentives in their contracts, the league won’t be able to unilaterally alter the selection format without some pushback from the players. Still, it’s an idea worth considering.
If the actual All-Star Game no longer features Eastern Conference players vs. Western Conference players, does it make sense to still require an even number of representatives from each side? And now that we’re in an era of so-called “positionless” basketball, would it make sense to further loosen the restrictions on positions in the selection process?
What do you think? Should the All-Star selection format be changed and modernized to better identify the NBA’s 24 best players, or is it fine as is?
2018/19 Salaries For Two-Way Players Become Guaranteed
As of today, the 2018/19 salaries for players on two-way contracts will become fully guaranteed. The NBA’s calendar calls for that salary to become guaranteed if a player remains under contract through January 20, so the 57 players currently on two-way deals should be safe.
[RELATED: 2018/19 NBA Two-Way Contract Tracker]
The January 20 two-way salary guarantee date ensures that a two-way player will be entitled to the remainder of his G League salary, plus any NBA salary he has already earned. The G League salary for a two-way player is $77,250 in 2018/19, but a two-way player can earn a prorated portion of his NBA minimum salary for each day he spends with the NBA squad.
It’s unlikely we’ll see many more transactions involving two-way players for the rest of the season. The deadline to sign players to two-way contracts passed last week (January 15), and now that the salary guarantee date has passed as well, there’s little incentive for a team to release a two-way player.
For more information on how two-way contracts work, be sure to check out our glossary entry on the subject.
Atlantic Notes: Raptors, Smart, Baynes, Irving
As the 2019 trade deadline approaches, more and more reports are surfacing regarding which teams are looking to make additions to their roster ahead of this season’s stretch run. Ken Berger of Bleacher Report recently wrote about the Bradley Beal sweepstakes, in which it is revealed that the Raptors may be looking to add an elite shooting guard this season.
The Raptors have been one of the best teams – if not the best team – in the league so far this season and certainly have the ingredients on their roster for a run to the NBA Finals. However, the team’s shooting has slipped in recent weeks as they are down to 34.3% shooting on 3-pointers, good for 24th in the league (they rank 11th in attempts per game).
While it may be hard for the Raptors to enter the Beal sweepstakes (especially if the Wizards aren’t focused on moving him), it shouldn’t surprise anyone if Toronto does make a move to add another shooter to its rotation for the remainder of the season.
There’s more from the Atlantic division:
- Marcus Smart continues to shoot lights out (for his standards) from beyond the arc, which is helping him provide more value for the Celtics. As Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston points out, Smart is now shooting nearly 37 percent from beyond the arc, which is above league-average and well above his career average.
- After rolling out a dual big man lineup involving Al Horford and Aron Baynes for 863 minutes last season, Celtics coach Brad Stevens is planning on going back to the tandem more moving forward, as Taylor Snow reveals for the team’s website.
- After it was revealed that Kyrie Irving called LeBron James to apologize for being stubborn when he was a younger player, Chris Forsberg writes that Irving should be praised for admitting his imperfections.
NBA G League Assignments/Recalls: 1/20/19
Here are Sunday’s NBA G League assignments and recalls from across the league:
- The Magic have recalled rookie wing Melvin Frazier from their G League affiliate, according to a tweet from the team’s PR department. Frazier has appeared in just 3 games for the Magic so far this season.
- The Rockets have assigned center Isaiah Hartenstein to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. This was done ahead of the team’s expected signing of Kenneth Faried on Monday.
- The Trail Blazers announced in a press release that they have recalled Wade Baldwin and assigned both Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent to the G League.
- The Spurs have recalled rookies Lonnie Walker and Chimezie Metu from their G League affiliate in Austin, according to Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express (via Twitter).
Pacific Notes: Kuzma, Cousins, Okobo, Suns
While many fans and analysts have focused on Lonzo Ball‘s and Brandon Ingram‘s development as the two key young players for the Lakers, so far this season it has been Kyle Kuzma that has provided the most value to the team. Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report writes that Kuzma has emerged as the Lakers’ best young talent, especially in the wake of LeBron James‘ injury.
As Pincus points out, Kuzma has averaged nearly 25 points per game in the 10 games he has played without James, with the Lakers winning five of those contests. While Kuzma has struggled to hit 3-pointers (just 31.3% so far this season), he can score in a variety of ways while also providing another capable ball-handler.
Meanwhile, Ball’s jump shot continues to disappoint, while Ingram hasn’t looked comfortable playing alongside James, a big issue if he plans on being a crucial piece of the team in the years to come.
There’s more from the Pacific division:
- While DeMarcus Cousins made his return on Friday and will continue to work his way into a larger role moving forward, Nick Friedell of ESPN points out that Warriors head coach Steve Kerr doesn’t plan on slowing the pace for Cousins to catch up.
- As Elie Okobo continues to adjust to life in the NBA, he was able to face (and learn from) his childhood idol Tony Parker over the past week as the Suns faced the Hornets on two occasions. Duane Rankin of Arizona Central writes about how Okobo grew up watching Parker.
- The Suns‘ call for public funds to renovate their arena will reach a vote in the upcoming week. As Bob Young details for The Athletic, the team is calling for $150 million in public funds to help make renovations to an arena that opened in 1992.
Lonzo Ball To Miss 4-6 Weeks With Ankle Sprain
Lakers guard Lonzo Ball will miss four to six weeks with a grade 3 left ankle sprain, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium. The Lakers also confirmed the injury and timetable in a press release.
Ball injured his ankle in Saturday night’s game against the Rockets and needed help getting off the court. While Ball struggled with injuries in his rookie season (he appeared in just 52 games), he had stayed healthy this season up until this point, appearing in all 47 games the Lakers have played.
So far in 2018/19, Ball is averaging 9.9 points, 5.4 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game, but continues to struggle with his shot, shooting just 40.6% from the field and 32.9% on 3-pointers.
Rajon Rondo was recently cleared for practice and is nearing a return, which will help a Lakers team that has fallen out of the playoff picture due to LeBron James‘ injury.
Dennis Smith Jr. To Return To Mavericks
Amidst reports of tension in the Mavericks‘ locker room between head coach Rick Carlisle and Dennis Smith Jr. – which led to reports that Smith was being put on the trading block – it appears that tension has subsided.
Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium is reporting (via Twitter) that Carlisle and Smith spoke on the phone and were able to have productive conversations. Smith will, in turn, report back to the team on Tuesday. Charania also tweeted that Carlisle apologized to Smith and expressed his remorse over the situation.
The Mavericks play the Clippers on Tuesday and the plan is for Smith to play in that game, which will be his first game since January 7.
For the season, Smith is averaging 12.6 points and 3.9 assists per game while shooting 37.5% on 3-pointers, a significant improvement from last season. While the Mavericks may continue to look for possible trades involving Smith, it appears tensions have calmed down for now.
Pacers Sign Stephan Hicks On 10-Day Contract
The Pacers have signed guard Stephan Hicks to a 10-day contract, his agency, JCK Sports Group, confirmed on social media.
Hicks joined the Pacers in their locker room shortly after signing his deal, prepping for the team’s game against Charlotte on Sunday night, Scott Agness of The Athletic tweets.
Hicks, 26, has spent the past four seasons with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants — G League affiliate of the Pacers. He went undrafted in 2015 after playing college basketball at Cal State Northridge, holding per-game averages of 16.2 points, seven rebounds and 33.3 minutes with Fort Wayne this season.
Indiana has won seven of its past 10 games, currently owning the third best record in the Eastern Conference at 30-15.