Atlantic Notes: Cordinier, Fall, Guy, Norvell
Shooting guard Isaia Cordinier is hopeful of landing a two-way contract with the Nets, according to a NetsDaily.com report. Cordinier anticipates playing with Brooklyn’s summer league team. The 6’5” Cordinier was taken in the second round by the Hawks last June and shipped to the Nets in the Jeremy Lin trade. Cordinier played in the French league this season after missing the 2017/18 season due to surgery on both knees to treat tendinitis.
We have more from around the Atlantic Division:
- Central Florida center Tacko Fall’s workout with the Knicks, which was scheduled for Monday, was postponed due to travel issues, Ian Begley of SNY-TV tweets. Fall is expected to reschedule his visit. The 7’7” Fall made a strong impression at the G League Elite Camp and Draft Combine.
- Virginia guard Kyle Guy will be among the prospects the Raptors will evaluate on Tuesday, Blake Murphy of The Athletic tweets. The Raptors will also work out three other guards, including Canadian Andrew Nembhard, Matt Morgan (Cornell) and John Konchar (Purdue Fort Wayne). Centers Dewan Hernandez (Miami-Fla.), and Zach Hankins (Xavier) are the other prospects working out.
- The Celtics worked out Gonzaga shooting guard Zach Norvell Jr. on Monday, A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston tweets. Norvell is ranked No. 16 among shooting guard prospects by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony. Penn State’s Josh Reaves, ranked No. 20 on the shooting guard list by Givony, was also in for a visit, according to Bryan Kalbrosky of Celtics Wire.
Vogel Isn’t Worried About Kidd Taking His Job
New Lakers head coach Frank Vogel says he won’t feel threatened by the presence of former Nets and Bucks head coach Jason Kidd on his staff, he told ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk and other reporters on Monday.
Vogel called Kidd an “incredible asset” during his introductory press conference. The Lakers brass suggested to Vogel that he should bring in Kidd, who also interviewed for the job, as his lead assistant. Vogel and Kidd had a long discussion that made the former Pacers and Magic coach comfortable with Kidd joining his staff.
“I am very good at blocking out noise,” Vogel said. “I have been around this business a long time. I really don’t give that (the possibility of Kidd eventually taking over) a second thought. You can say that about every coach in the league about their assistant coaches. It happens from time to time. I believe if you treat people with the right respect and do the job at the highest level, build an environment of positivity and collaboration, you can’t worry about that stuff. You can’t worry about looking over your shoulder.”
Vogel was essentially the Lakers’ third choice to replace Luke Walton, who was let go immediately after the season. They were keenly interested in Monty Williams, who took the Suns job, and failed to complete negotiations on a contract with former Cavs coach Tyronn Lue.
Vogel admitted he didn’t have much of a relationship with Kidd before their long talk.
“I had a great, lengthy interview process with Jason where we talked about every topic you can imagine, and came away thinking he’s going to be an incredible asset to our program,” Vogel said.
There has been speculation that the addition of Kidd could be a means to woo Giannis Antetokounmpo if he becomes a free agent.
Lakers Notes: Pelinka, Johnson, Demps, Russell
Lakers GM Rob Pelinka said Magic Johnson‘s blistering comments about him were “surprising” and “disheartening,” Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Johnson, who resigned as president of basketball operations shortly before the season ended, accused Pelinka on ESPN’s First Take of “backstabbing” him for telling people around the league he wasn’t working hard enough. Pelinka responded to the accusation during coach Frank Vogel‘s introductory press conference.
“They’re just simply not true,” Pelinka said. “I stand beside him. I stand with him as a colleague and a partner. I’ve always supported everything he’s done and will continue to.”
According to an ESPN report, Pelinka spoke to Johnson two days ago regarding the team landing the fourth pick in the draft lottery.
We have more on the Lakers:
- Pelinka confirmed that the organization will not hire a president of basketball operations to replace Johnson, according to a post from ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk. Pelinka revealed that, in terms of decision-making, he consults with the basketball staff as well as senior adviser Kurt Rambis and then makes suggestions to owner Jeanie Buss.
- Pelinka vows that the turmoil surrounding the organization won’t prevent it from building a championship team as soon as next season, ESPN’s Dave McMenanim writes. “I think if people take a look at where this franchise is right now, again we have a great coach, we have a high draft pick. We have a great young core, maybe one of the best in the league. We have a superstar on our team, and an open slot,” he said. “So I think people can look at this as an opportunity to win a championship possibly next year.”
- Johnson blamed former Pelicans GM Dell Demps in the ESPN interview for leaking trade offers involving Anthony Davis prior to the trade deadline, Dan Feldman of NBC Sports relays. “I told Dell Demps, ‘Let’s just do it in private. What we offer, let’s keep it between us.’ Well, Dell didn’t do that. So, that’s how it got out,” Johnson said.
- Johnson also said during the First Take interview that his decision to trade D’Angelo Russell to the Nets was directly related to the issues he had with former Lakers guard Nick Young, Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News writes. Russell pranked Young by goading his teammate into admitting that he cheated on his former fiancé, recording star Iggy Azalea. Russell posted the recording on his private Snapchat account but it became public.
Grizzlies To Interview Tibbetts For Coaching Job
The Grizzlies have been granted permission to interview Trail Blazers assistant Nate Tibbetts for their head coaching vacancy, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
Tibbetts has been on other teams’ lists recently during their head coaching searches. He was expected to be interviewed by the Cavaliers, but they chose Michigan coach John Beilein before that potential meeting. Tibbetts interviewed with the Suns before they selected Monty Williams. He was also one of four finalists for the Hawks job last summer that went to Lloyd Pierce.
Memphis, which parted ways with J.B. Bickerstaff after the season, has already interviewed at least three other candidates for the job — former Suns coach Igor Kokoskov, Jazz assistant Alex Jensen and Warriors assistant Jarron Collins. Memphis is also believed to have interest in Lithuania’s Sarunas Jasikevicius.
The Grizzlies are the only team that hasn’t filled its head coaching vacancy.
Mavs’ Forward Dwight Powell To Decline Option
Mavericks power forward Dwight Powell will decline his $10.26MM player option in order to become an unrestricted free agent, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports.
Powell was entering the final year of a four-year, $37MM contract signed in 2016. The 6’11” Powell, 27, averaged a career-high 10.6 PPG, 5.3 RPG and 1.5 APG in 21.6 MPG this season. Powell has spent much of his five-year career with the Mavs, starting just 51 out of 331 career games. He was a second-round selection in the 2014 draft.
The decision comes as somewhat of a surprise, since Powell had expressed interest in staying with Dallas and owner Mark Cuban mentioned during a radio interview that Powell might receive a three-year extension. It’s still possible that Powell returns with the Mavericks but he could be leaving quite a bit of money on the table for someone who has served a second-unit role most of his career.
The addition of Kristaps Porzingis made it likely that Powell would remain a bench player, so perhaps he’s looking for a team that views him as a starter. Dallas is expected to be very active in the free agent and trade markets this summer, as it only has $45.9MM in guaranteed salaries on its current payroll for next season.
Five Key Offseason Questions: Charlotte Hornets
Since being reborn in 2004 as the Bobcats, Charlotte’s NBA team – now the Hornets – has failed to win more than 48 games or advance past the first round of the postseason. Improbably, the 2018/19 season represented the first time during that stretch that the Hornets had even finished higher than third place in the Southeast. Unfortunately for Charlotte, that spoke more to the weakness of the division than the strength of the Hornets, as the team still missed the playoffs for a third straight season.
Entering the 2019 offseason, the Hornets find themselves at a crossroads. Given the organization’s struggles in recent years – and its inability to build a legit contender over the last 15 seasons – it might be time to blow things up and attempt another rebuild. However, it remains to be seen if ownership and management are ready to go down that road.
Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:
1. Is this the end of the Kemba Walker era in Charlotte?
Walker was the subject of trade rumors leading up to the 2018 trade deadline, but the Hornets overhauled their front office shortly thereafter and talk of dealing Kemba died down. He and the team said all the right things, with both sides expressing interest in a long-term union. There’s no reason to think that either side was lying or that that interest doesn’t still exist, but it’s hard to make the case that this remains the right fit.
Walker has long been the face of the Hornets, but he’s about to become eligible for a five-year contract worth up to nearly $190MM — or $221MM, if he earns All-NBA honors. Charlotte has had a hard enough time building around Walker while he has been on one of the most team-friendly contracts in the NBA ($12MM annually). Paying him upwards of three times that much as he prepares to enter his age-29 season could hamstring the team’s financial flexibility for the rest of Kemba’s prime.
As for Walker, he was probably miscast as a franchise player in Charlotte, but he has done all he could over the last eight years to try to turn the Hornets into a winner. It hasn’t worked out, and if he wants to look elsewhere for a better situation for contending, no one would blame him. The Charlotte Observer’s editorial board even encouraged the Hornets to let him do just that.
It will be fascinating to see how this situation plays out in July. Some ill-advised investments elsewhere on their roster have put the Hornets in a sort of no-win situation here. If they re-sign Walker, they won’t have the cap flexibility necessary to get him the help he needs. But if they let him walk, they may not have enough attractive assets on hand to jump-start their rebuild. It could be years before they sniff the postseason again.
Ryan Saunders To Remain Timberwolves’ Head Coach
3:15pm: The Timberwolves have officially confirmed that Saunders has been named the team’s permanent head coach.
“I’m pleased to announce Ryan Saunders as our head coach,” Rosas said in a statement. “Ryan is an excellent communicator and has developed open and trusting relationships with our players. I’ve known Ryan for many years and have always respected his approach to the game, work ethic, basketball knowledge and passion. His coaching style and philosophies are ideal for the modern NBA and I am confident that as a partner he will get the most out of our players as we build an identity and a sustainable winning model.”
8:42am: Saunders and the Timberwolves are now in agreement on a multiyear deal that will make him the team’s permanent head coach, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (via Twitter).
7:25am: Despite opening up their search for a permanent head coach last week, the Timberwolves are prepared to remove Ryan Saunders‘ interim title and retain him going forward, according to reports from Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links).
Krawczynski first reported that the Timberwolves and Saunders are negotiating a new contract that is expected to be finalized in the coming days. Per Wojnarowski, Saunders is already working on putting together his staff for the 2019/20 season.
The general consensus among Wolves players, including Karl-Anthony Towns, was that Saunders should be brought back, but new head of basketball operations Gersson Rosas did his due diligence after assuming control of the club’s front office earlier this month.
Heat assistant Juwan Howard, Bucks assistant Darvin Ham, Pelicans assistant Chris Finch, and Trail Blazers assistant David Vanterpool all received consideration from Minnesota for the team’s head coaching job. Ultimately, the Wolves circled back to Saunders, who will become the NBA’s youngest permanent head coach. Flip Saunders‘ son turned 33 last month.
Having taken over on the sidelines for the Wolves after Tom Thibodeau was dismissed halfway through the 2018/19 season, Saunders guided the team to a 17-25 (.405) record in his first stint as a head coach. He had to deal with injuries to several rotation players during that stretch, with Robert Covington, Derrick Rose, Jeff Teague, and others missing significant chunks of the second half.
According to Krawczynski, Rosas is said to favor the Rockets’ model of having a defensive specialist complement the head coach. In Houston’s case, that meant Jeff Bzdelik playing a key role on Mike D’Antoni‘s staff. The Wolves will likely hire their own defensive guru, and will also focus on adding player-development specialists to Saunders’ staff.
With the Wolves set to formally reach a deal with Saunders, the Grizzlies will be the only NBA team still in the market for a new head coach, as our tracker shows.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Bulls Rumors: Ball, No. 7 Pick, Dunn, Asik
A report last month indicated that the Bulls and Lakers had “initial conversations” about Lonzo Ball prior to the 2019 trade deadline, and it sounds as if Chicago still has some interest in Ball. According to K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune, Ball’s pass-first mentality, defensive ability, and positional size intrigue the Bulls, who will be on the lookout for a point guard this offseason.
Johnson’s latest article for The Tribune includes several other Bulls-related rumors and notes, so let’s round up the highlights…
- Multiple league executives believe that top point guard prospects Darius Garland and Coby White received draft promises from teams that pick before the Bulls, says Johnson. If either Garland or White is available when Chicago is on the clock at No. 7, that player would be a good bet to end up in a Bulls uniform, Johnson adds.
- League executives tell Johnson that Kris Dunn‘s trade value is “low to nonexistent,” so if the Bulls attempt to upgrade the point guard spot on the trade market, the former No. 5 pick is unlikely to be a major outgoing asset.
- There’s internal optimism within the organization that the NBA will allow the Bulls to remove Omer Asik‘s cap charge from their books for medical reasons, Johnson writes. That would create an extra $3MM in cap space for the summer.
- The Bulls may be more interested in restricted free agent point guards than many of the unrestricted options expected to be available. Johnson points to Terry Rozier and Malcolm Brogdon as two potential targets for the club.
- The Bulls would also like to add a veteran big man in free agency, but the point guard position is the team’s top priority.
Magic Johnson Talks Pelinka, Lakers, Walton, Lue
Former Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson didn’t hold back during an appearance on ESPN’s First Take this morning, accusing general manager Rob Pelinka of “betrayal,” as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com writes. Johnson made it clear that Pelinka was the person he was referring to when he spoke during his resignation announcement about “backstabbing” within the organization.
“I start hearing, ‘Magic, you are not working hard enough. Magic’s not in the office,'” Johnson said. “People around the Lakers office were telling me Rob was saying things, Rob Pelinka, and I didn’t like those things being said behind my back, that I wasn’t in the office enough. So I started getting calls from my friends outside of basketball saying those things now were said to them outside of basketball now, just not in the Lakers office anymore.”
According to Johnson, he was prepared to help groom Pelinka as his eventual replacement atop the Lakers’ front office, but felt as if the GM was angling for his job sooner, and ultimately decided he couldn’t work alongside someone he thought was trying to undercut him. Asked whether there were others in the front office he felt betrayed by, Johnson only identified Pelinka.
“Just Rob,” Johnson said. “Other people didn’t bother me… what happened was I wasn’t having fun coming to work anymore, especially when I got to work beside you, knowing that you want my position.”
Here’s more from Johnson’s eventful TV appearance:
- In Magic’s view, there were too many cooks in the kitchen in the Lakers’ basketball operations department, writes Youngmisuk. Johnson specifically singled out president of business operations Tim Harris as an executive whose role and influence in basketball operations became outsized.
- Harris became involved in the head coaching decision after Johnson and owner Jeanie Buss debated the merits of firing head coach Luke Walton, according to Magic. Johnson wanted to replace Walton, but Buss apparently wavered on giving him the go-ahead to do so, as Youngmisuk details. “We went back and forth like that and then she brought Tim Harris into the meeting. Some of the guys and Tim wanted to keep [Walton] because he was friends with him. I said when I looked up, I only really answer to Jeanie Buss,” Johnson said. “Now I got Tim involved. It’s time for me to go. I got things happening that were being said behind my back. I don’t have the power I thought I had to make decisions. And I told them, when it is not fun for me, when I think I don’t have the decision-making power I thought I had, I got to step aside.”
- Johnson indicated that Tyronn Lue would have been his choice to replace Walton as the team’s new head coach (Twitter link via Clevis Murray of The Athletic).
- Discussing the Lakers’ 2018 free agent decisions, Johnson said that the Lakers didn’t want to offer Julius Randle a contract longer than one year, adding that Randle may not have been a fit anyway if he had remained on the roster (Twitter link via Murray).
James Ennis To Opt Out, Become Free Agent
Sixers swingman James Ennis will turn down his player option for the 2019/20 season, league sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The decision, which agent Scott Nichols confirmed to JD Shaw of Hoops Rumors (Twitter link), will put Ennis on track to reach unrestricted free agency in July.
Ennis, who will turn 29 on the same day he hits the open market on July 1, spent most of the 2018/19 season with the Rockets before being dealt to the Sixers in a cost-cutting deadline deal. After posting 7.4 PPG on .493/.367/.724 shooting in 40 games (25 starts) for Houston, Ennis struggled in Philadelphia and saw those averages decline to 5.3 PPG on .410/.306/.696 shooting.
Still, given the 76ers’ limited depth, Ennis played a key role off the bench for the club in the postseason. In the team’s second-round series vs. Toronto, he posted 7.9 PPG, 4.0 RPG, and 1.1 APG on .442/.304/.588 shooting in 22.7 minutes per contest.
While those numbers won’t earn Ennis a massive payday, his two-way abilities should put him in position for a raise after he earned the minimum in 2018/19. His player option would have paid him just $1,845,301. According to Charania (via Twitter), the former second-round pick is expected to command a multiyear contract this offseason.
While a reunion with the Sixers isn’t out of the question, the team’s ability to re-sign Ennis will be extremely limited. Philadelphia will only hold his Non-Bird rights, so cap room or an exception would likely be required to bring him back. The 76ers also figure to be more focused on retaining players like Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris, and J.J. Redick.
For more on player option decisions for 2019/20, be sure to check out our tracker.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.