Blazers Exercise 2020/21 Options On Collins, Simons
The Trail Blazers have exercised their 2020/21 team options on Zach Collins and Anfernee Simons, a league source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).
Collins, Portland’s first-round pick in 2017, will have a $5,406,255 cap hit on his fourth-year option in ’20/21. He’ll be extension-eligible next summer and will otherwise be on track for restricted free agency in the summer of 2021.
The big man, who turns 22 in November, projects to have a major role for the Blazers with Jusuf Nurkic still sidelined to start the season. Collins averaged 6.6 PPG and 4.2 RPG in 77 games off the bench last season, but will likely be part of the starting lineup this fall and figure to play more than the 17.6 minutes per game he averaged in 2018/19.
[RELATED: Decisions On 2020/21 Rookie Scale Team Options]
As for Simons, his third-year option for ’20/21 will have a very modest cap hit of $2,252,040. The 20-year-old, who was selected 24th overall in the 2018 draft, appeared in just 20 games during his rookie season but has been generating buzz this offseason and should play more minutes going forward. Simons figures to get an opportunity to back up Damian Lillard at the point now that Evan Turner is no longer in the picture.
With Collins and Simons now locked in for 2020/21, the Blazers have approximately $91.4MM in guaranteed money on their cap. That figure doesn’t include player options for Rodney Hood or Mario Hezonja.
Pelicans Awarded Disabled Player Exception
The NBA has approved the Pelicans‘ request for a disabled player exception, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The exception, which was applied for in response to Darius Miller‘s torn Achilles, will be worth $3.625MM, half of Miller’s $7.25MM salary for 2019/20.
As we outline in our glossary entry on the disabled player exception, a team can apply for a DPE to replace a seriously injured player. In order for the exception to be granted, an NBA-designated physician must determine that the player is “substantially more likely than not” to be sidelined through at least June 15 of that league year, so it sounds as if Miller is expected to miss all of 2019/20.
The Pelicans’ newly-generated disabled player exception doesn’t open up a 16th regular-season roster spot for the club, but gives New Orleans some extra cap flexibility to add a player. The exception – which has a March 10 deadline – can be used to to sign a free agent to a one-year deal or to acquire a player on an expiring contract via trade or waivers, assuming his salary fits into the exception.
Since the Pelicans already used all their cap space and their room exception, the $3.625MM DPE could come in handy at the trade deadline or during buyout season. However, if the club isn’t in playoff contention, it’s possible it’ll simply go unused.
New Orleans would lose the DPE if Miller is traded before the exception is used.
Marks: Nets Planning For Durant To Miss Entire Season
The Nets are entering the 2019/20 campaign planning as if they won’t have Kevin Durant available for the entire season, general manager Sean Marks said today to reporters, including Ian Begley of SNY.tv and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic (Twitter links).
“The expectation now is that he’ll be out for the year,” Marks said (video link). “We’re not going to plan on him playing.”
A weekend report suggested that there’s a feeling around the NBA that Durant’s torn Achilles might not keep him out of action for all of the 2019/20 season. While it may be true that such a sentiment exists around the NBA, it’s apparently not a sentiment shared by the Nets, who are thinking long-term when it comes to KD’s health.
Still, Marks didn’t entirely close the door on Durant beating his timeline. Brooklyn’s GM told reporters that the two-time Finals MVP, who is attacking his rehab aggressively and is making good progress, will have a large say in when he returns (Twitter link via Begley). If the Nets make the playoffs and Durant is pushing to get back on the court, the team would have a tough decision to make.
Even if Durant and the Nets both ultimately agree that he won’t return until the 2020/21 season, the club won’t be able to apply for a disabled player exception to gain extra cap flexibility. The Achilles tear occurred before the star forward signed with Brooklyn and the Nets obviously knew about it when they signed him, making them ineligible for a DPE.
Community Shootaround: Potential Hot-Seat Coaches
With the exception of the 2016/17 season, which took place during a period of unprecedented stability for head coaches, at least three NBA teams have made in-season coaching changes in each of the last five years. In 2018/19, Tyronn Lue got the axe after just six games, with Fred Hoiberg and Tom Thibodeau later joining him in the unemployment ranks.
While it’s possible that 2019/20 will be a repeat of ’16/17, recent history tells us that the safer bet is to expect multiple teams to make coaching changes before the season ends.
With that in mind, Ben Golliver of The Washington Post singled out five head coaches around the NBA who might end up on the hot seat in the coming months. Golliver’s picks are Frank Vogel (Lakers), Mike D’Antoni (Rockets), Brett Brown (Sixers), Billy Donovan (Thunder), and Scott Brooks (Wizards).
The Lakers, Rockets, and Sixers will enter the 2019/20 season with championship aspirations, so if they get off to slow starts, it’s not hard to imagine their respective head coaches feeling some pressure.
Vogel was just hired this spring, but he didn’t appear to be L.A.’s first choice and received a shorter-term contract than most other recent hires. D’Antoni is entering a contract year, which is rare for a head coach, and anything short of an NBA Finals appearance will be a letdown for Houston. Brown, meanwhile, appeared to be on the hot seat after losing in the second round of last year’s postseason before Toronto’s championship run made the Sixers’ series against the Raptors look more impressive in retrospect.
As for Donovan and Brooks, they’re suddenly at the helm of rebuilding clubs rather than the contenders they originally signed on to join. The Wizards also have a new head of basketball operations in place, so it’s possible that Tommy Sheppard will want to bring in his own head coach at some point.
What do you think? Will any of those five head coaches be dismissed during the 2019/20 season? Do you expect other coaches to find themselves on the hot seat in the near future?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your two cents!
Adam Silver Discusses New Anti-Tampering Measures
The NBA’s Board of Governors approved a series of new anti-tampering measures last week as the league looks to crack down on the “pre-agency” deals that have become increasingly prevalent in recent years. However, there are league-wide doubts about how effective those measures can be, given the inherent limitations in identifying and proving instances of tampering.
As Sam Amick of The Athletic writes, one team executive believes that even a $10MM fine – the new maximum for a tampering violation – wouldn’t necessarily dissuade a club if it was the penalty that club had to pay for landing a star player. A second team exec suggested that the only way to truly clamp down on tampering would be to find a way to sanction agents, not just franchises.
With these concerns in mind, Amick spoke to commissioner Adam Silver about the new anti-tampering measures to get a little more clarity on how the NBA expects them to work in practice. If you’re an Athletic subscriber, the Q&A is worth checking out in full, but here are a few of Silver’s most noteworthy quotes:
On the NBA’s efforts to create a “culture of compliance”:
“There needs to be — maybe more important, even, than the penalty — a true stigma around cheating. …There’s something unique about sports, (and) I think no one wants to be viewed as having had to cheat to win. And I think what we saw was that it was a slippery slope over time, and people no longer saw themselves as violating our rules. They saw certain practices around tampering, around signings, as business as usual, rather than inappropriate conduct.
“So a lot of what we’re trying to do is make a cultural shift in this league, and I believe we can do that successfully because I believe teams want to compete on a level playing field.”
On how the league plans to handle player-to-player recruiting:
“If two players are going out to dinner and say, ‘Boy, wouldn’t it be great to play in City X together?’ That’s not something we’re looking to go after. The only context in which we raised player-to-player communication is where we have a belief that a player is being sent out at the behest of the team to have a conversation with another player that the team itself could not have with that player. In essence, where a player is acting as an agent for the team, and then saying to the player, ‘What do you think about the following scenario, with the confidence that this is something that my team is willing to do?'”
On whether Silver believes the new measures will be effective:
“There are no silver bullets here. There isn’t any one aspect of the package where we came in to say, ‘This will fix the problem.’ This is something that will change over time. It’s going to change by teams seeing that it’s not just that the league office means business, but the people at the top in these organizations, these governors, when they’re putting their names on a contract, they really want to believe that what they’re signing is accurate and there has been nothing inappropriate that is done in order to sign that player.
“So I believe in it, and I think — again — now we’ve gotten the sign-off but now there’s a lot of work to do in terms of the implementation of these procedures.”
Magic Sign Isaac Humphries To Exhibit 10 Deal
SEPTEMBER 24: The Magic have officially signed Humphries, per RealGM’s NBA transactions log. The club now has 19 players under contract, leaving one opening on its 20-man offseason roster.
JULY 24: The Magic and big man Isaac Humphries have agreed upon an Exhibit 10 deal, reports Olgun Uluc of Fox Sports Australia. Humphries, an Australian native, became an unrestricted free agent this summer when the Hawks opted not to extend him a qualifying offer.
Humphries only played five games for Atlanta last season after being signed in April, but he averaged 11.3 PPG, 6.9 RPG, and 1.1 BPG in 46 games (21.8 MPG) for the Hawks’ G League affiliate, the Erie BayHawks, before signing his rest-of-season deal with the Hawks.
Humphries appears to be the first player to receive an Exhibit 10 deal from the Magic so far this summer, but Orlando did recently come to terms with Josh Magette and Amile Jefferson for the club’s open two-way spots.
Accordingly, it’s unlikely that Humphries will make his way onto the Magic roster for the 2019/20 season. Instead, he’ll probably end up playing for the team’s G League affiliate, the Lakeland Magic.
Western Notes: Kerr, Clippers, Melli, Mavs
All the changes to the Warriors roster will make training camp “critical,” coach Steve Kerr told Anthony Slater of The Athletic. While in recent years the Warriors have only made tweaks to their scheme, this training camp will involve sorting out the rotation and finding the team’s strengths.
“This year, it’s totally different,” Kerr said. “Nobody really knows each other that well. We’re really going to have to examine our team in camp, the exhibition season, early in the season. Figure out the best way to play on both ends.”
Kerr sees the need to take more control of the offense.
“When you lose continuity, it’s more important to have sets and calls that you can rely on,” he said. “Random stuff gets more difficult if you don’t know each other well.”
We have more from the Western Conference:
- Sixth man Lou Williams was the Clippers’ closer the last couple of seasons, but the additions of superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George change that dynamic, as coach Doc Rivers explained to Jovan Buha of The Athletic. “Lou is always going to be a closer, but it’s more closing plays now than who the closer is,” Rivers said. “You know who the closers are. The fact that that’s plural is a very good thing. Now it’ll be the closing lineups, the closing sets, the closing formations.”
- Pelicans forward Nicolo Melli has returned to the court after undergoing offseason knee surgery, Will Guillory of The Athletic tweets. Melli skipped the FIBA World Cup due to the injury. The 28-year-old signed a two-year, $8MM contract in July after playing professionally in Europe for over a decade.
- The Mavericks have prioritized continuity on their roster, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News notes. More than half of the players on the training camp roster have played at least half a season for Dallas, Townsend notes. The Mavs have also invested $320MM in guaranteed contracts over the next four seasons, Townsend adds.
Rockets Notes: Westbrook, Harden, Anthony, Mbah a Moute
Scouts and assistant coaches from rival teams are skeptical that the Rockets‘ Russell Westbrook–James Harden backcourt pairing will work, Sean Deveney of Heavy.com reports. There is widespread doubt that the two stars will blend their games offensively since Westbrook is poor 3-point shooter and prefers to play at a different pace than Harden. Many of those interviewed also predicted the Rockets’ perimeter defense will decline.
“They’re both hardheaded guys and we know Harden’s history with other players there,” one scout told Deveney.
We have more on the Rockets:
- Owner Tilman Fertitta said he never met Carmelo Anthony and was surprised that his staff decided to part ways with the longtime All-Star after just 10 games last season, he told Ian Begley of SNY. “Basketball ops decided to make a decision and, you know, it kind of surprised me too, as a fan of the Houston Rockets. But I know what I know and I know what I don’t know. And if my basketball ops thought that we should move on, then I sure wasn’t going to tell them not to, even though I thought that Melo’s one the greatest players to ever play the game.”
- It isn’t out of the question that Luc Mbah a Moute will eventually sign with the Rockets, according to Kelly Iko of The Athletic. Currently a free agent, Mbah a Moute decided not to attend a team mini-camp for veteran free agents in Las Vegas. The team had conversations with him over the summer about a possible return but there was lingering doubt about the health, Iko continues. Though the team subsequently signed Thabo Sefolosha, adding Mbah a Moute to shore up wing depth would be ideal, Iko adds.
- The addition of Sefolosha became official on Monday. Get all the details here.
Iguodala Won’t Report To Grizzlies Training Camp
The Grizzlies and Andre Iguodala have reached a mutual agreement that will allow Iguodala to skip training camp, Chris Herrington of the Daily Memphian reports.
Iguodala will work out at a location of his choosing while the front office seeks the best trade offer for the veteran forward, Herrington adds. Iguodala will not make an appearance at the team’s annual Media Day, freeing him from the awkwardness of talking about his uncertain future.
His absence could stretch into the first couple of months of the season and he has braced for that possibility, Herrington adds. Many of the players signed as free agents this summer won’t become trade-eligible until December 15.
Iguodala said in an interview over the weekend that he and the Memphis front office were “on the same page.”
Iguodala has the highest salary on the roster at a shade below $17.2MM. He’s in the final year of his deal.
He was acquired in a salary dump by the cap-strapped Warriors, who sweetened the deal with a future first-round pick. Memphis believes it can obtain even more assets for Iguodala in another trade, which is why the club hasn’t shown interest in a buyout.
The 35-year-old Iguodala spent the last six years with the Warriors, mainly as their sixth man.
Iguodala is among 15 players with fully guaranteed contracts for the hard-capped Grizzlies, who are building around their last two lottery picks, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant.
Atlantic Notes: Ntilikina, Adel, Raptors, Nets Staff
Frank Ntilikina‘s last coach in the French Pro A League told the enigmatic Knicks guard that he must build off his strong showing the FIBA World Cup, Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reports. Vincent Collet knows this could be a make-or-break year for the lottery pick. Ntilikina helped Team France win a bronze medal in the tournament. “I told him he must keep going,” Collet told Vorkunov. “He must take advantage of the World Cup. When you start the camp, you must show them you are not the same Frank anymore.”
We have more from the Atlantic Division:
- The Nets’ G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets, acquired the returning player rights to Deng Adel from Raptors 905, according to a team press release. Brooklyn had already signed the small forward to an Exhibit 10 contract. Adel played on a two-way contract with the Cavaliers during the second half of last season, then became a free agent. Long Island also acquired the returning player rights of JaKarr Sampson from the Windy City Bulls in the three-team G league swap. Sampson signed with the Pacers in August.
- The five players who have partially guaranteed contracts with the Raptors will likely compete for three roster spots, as Blake Murphy of The Athletic details in an examination of the team’s salary cap situation. A dozen players have fully guaranteed deals and will almost assuredly make the squad. That leaves Cameron Payne, Isaiah Taylor, Dewan Hernandez, Chris Boucher and Malcolm Miller vying for the remaining spots on the 15-man opening night roster. Hernandez might have the biggest edge because he has the most guaranteed money and the most team-friendly contract long-term, Murphy adds.
- Former NBA center Tiago Splitter has been promoted by the Nets to player development coach, according to a team press release. Splitter joined the organization after retiring in February 2018. The other staff additions or promotions included J.R. Holden (director of player personnel), Daniel Jones (physical performance coach) and Ryan Forehan-Kelly (player development coordinator).