Southeast Notes: Borrego, Adebayo, Heat, Wizards
Hornets head coach James Borrego has developed a notable recruiting pitch for impending free agents this summer, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer writes.
Charlotte is slated to have a respectable amount of salary-cap space after the season, allowing the team to consider multiple talents that are set to reach the open market.
“I feel like basically every guy we’ve drafted has shown some real promise for us,” Borrego explained this past week, as relayed by Bonnell. “What that leads into is what an attractive place this could be for free agents moving forward.”
The Hornets are establishing a proven track record of developing talent, currently sporting a young core that consists of Devonte’ Graham, Miles Bridges, P.J. Washington, and more. Charlotte showed flashes of potential with its young nucleus prior to the NBA’s hiatus. However, the team was just 23-42 on the season, the sixth-worst record in the East.
“Absolutely!” Borrego said when asked if his team’s pitch could attract free agents this summer. “Players are looking at (salary) numbers and years — that’s a major factor — but they want to go to a place where they can maximize growth and development. We’re putting a good body of work together to show that.”
Here are some other notes from the Southeast Division:
- Heat center Bam Adebayo chimed in on social media amidst the NBA’s hiatus, as relayed by Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Adebayo understandably expressed boredom with the league being suspended indefinitely. The 22-year-old has averaged 16.2 points, 10.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 65 contests on the season.
- Ira Winderman examines the week that could’ve been for the Heat in a separate article for the Sun Sentinel, including the rematch between Jimmy Butler and T.J. Warren on March 20. Miami has enjoyed a successful season to date, owning the fourth-best record in the East at 41-24.
- Chris Miller of NBC Sports Washington takes a look at what different Wizards players are doing during the NBA’s hiatus. As Miller notes, many players are enjoying personal activities such as playing video games, watching movies, or watching TV shows.
Italian Leagues To Complete Season Once Play Resumes
Italian Basketball Federation president Gianni Petrucci has stated that Italian leagues will finish the 2019/20 season after the coronavirus pandemic has been controlled, Nicola Lupo of Sportando reports.
“We’ll listen to what the government says, but our plan is to complete the current season and we’re studying different formats,” Petrucci said.
Across the rest of the world, including throughout other parts of Europe, several leagues have also been postponing or entirely shuttering their seasons, as Hoops Rumors has detailed over multiple posts. Much to the chagrin of its players, the Turkish BSL basketball league is also continuing play amidst the growing health crisis.
The timeline for the resumption of Italian Basketball Federation league play remains unclear.
Atlantic Notes: Butler-Brown, Theis, Knicks, Celtics
Current Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler, formerly a clutch swingman on the star-studded, title-contending 2018/19 Sixers, acknowledged that his relationship with coach Brett Brown was not particularly great, as he told his former Philadelphia teammate J.J. Redick on The J.J. Redick Podcast With Tommy Alter.
On the podcast, Butler described an uncomfortably tense and silent film-watching session with Redick, Butler, and Sixers All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. “And I told you this as we walked out, ‘J.J., why would we ever go in there again?,'” Butler said on the podcast. “‘Nothing’s getting accomplished. Nobody’s saying nothing to anybody.'”
Butler also discussed having spoken up about the offense in a subsequent film-watching session in Portland that became a hot topic in the national media. Butler suggested the conversation was blown out of proportion by outside observers, a point his former Sixers teammate agreed with. “I don’t know why it got reported the way it did,” Redick said.
There’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- Daniel Theis, the Celtics‘ starting center replacement for the departed Al Horford, was having a comparable season to his predecessor before play was suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to The Stats Corner of NBC Sports Boston. Theis’ production per 36 minutes has actually been better than Horford’s during 2018/19. Their scoring numbers are similar, while Theis is pulling down more rebounds and blocks and shooting at a higher field goal percentage. The 27-year-old German signed a two-year, $10MM contract with Boston during the summer of 2019. The 33-year-old Horford, meanwhile, inked a four-year, $97MM contract ($109MM if he hits all incentives) with the Sixers this summer.
- As the Knicks continue to overhaul their front office, Cavaliers salary cap expert Brock Aller has emerged as a potential addition to new team president Leon Rose‘s staff, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. After spending a decade as the personal assistant to team owner Dan Gilbert, Aller graduated to a position as senior director of basketball operations in 2017.
- The Celtics team, staff, and attendant beat reporters experienced a tense journey on the road as the coronavirus spread beyond tenable levels, according to Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe in his first-person account of what transpired.
And-Ones: Belgian League, Clark, Pitino, NCAA Brackets
Belgium’s EuroMillions League has canceled the rest of its season in an effort to curtail the rampant spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, according to Sportando’s Nicola Lupo.
The EuroMillions League has named the team with the best record (13-4), FILOU Oostende, as its national champion. This is an intriguing step, and one several other leagues (like the NCAA) have yet to implement.
There’s more from around the basketball world:
- Wes Clark, a guard for Italy’s Serie A League team Pallacanestro Cantù, has returned home to the U.S. from Italy following the suspension of the season, according to Nicola Lupo of Sportando. The 6’0″ Clark is an alum of Missouri and Buffalo.
- Newly-minted Iona College head coach Rick Pitino still intends to coach Greece’s national team for the June Olympic qualifier in British Columbia, Pitino told Marc Stein of the New York Times (Twitter link). Prior to his NCAA return, Pitino had served as head coach of the Greek EuroLeague club Panathinaikos since 2018.
- The NCAA has decided not to release what would have been this year’s March Madness brackets, Stadium’s Jeff Goodman reports (Twitter link). NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt emailed all coaches relaying this decision. “To be clear, this is my decision,” Gavitt said in his message. “The basketball committees support and concur.”
Tyronn Lue The Best Choice For Brooklyn?
Tyronn Lue is expected to receive serious consideration to become the next head coach of the Nets, with oddsmakers in Las Vegas listing him as the early favorite, writes Greg Logan of Newsday. Brooklyn will be in the market for a coach once the season officially ends after parting ways with Kenny Atkinson last weekend.
Lue’s previous experience coaching Kyrie Irving in Cleveland makes him an obvious candidate, and current Laker Jared Dudley believes a reunion could be successful.
“T. Lue respected Kyrie,” Dudley said. “He loved Kyrie. He wanted the best for him. Every time he talked to him, it might be to calm down a situation and show him what he wanted. I could easily see it. T. Lue can walk into a room and every player is going to ‘dap’ him up because they respect him. Every ex-player who becomes a coach doesn’t always get the respect, but he put the work in.”
Lue was briefly the front-runner for the Lakers’ head coaching job last year, but he turned down an offer because he wanted a longer commitment and more say in hiring his staff. He eventually accepted a job with the Clippers as Doc Rivers’ lead assistant.
Another possible candidate is Lakers assistant Phil Handy, who was a developmental coach in Cleveland when Irving was there. Irving tried to convince him to join Brooklyn’s staff last summer, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
Lewis talked to Nets guard Joe Harris, another former Cavalier, who gave strong endorsements to Lue and Handy.
“They’re both excellent coaches, Ty Lue especially,” Harris said. “Playing in this league, being an assistant for a long time, just the way he was able to relate with the players, especially just day-to day was pretty unique in terms of a coaching perspective. I always liked that about him, just his ability to jell and mesh with everybody. He seemed like, to me, to be one of those guys when he did play he was probably close with everybody in the locker room, just the way he was able to interact with every single guy on the team.”
Knicks Notes: Coronavirus Threat, Dolan, Van Gundy
The positive test by Detroit’s Christian Wood adds to fears that the Knicks may have been exposed to coronavirus, according to Marc Berman of The New York Post. New York hosted the Pistons last Sunday, with Wood playing 33 minutes. That came the night after Detroit faced the Jazz, who have both Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell with confirmed cases of the virus.
The Knicks also had a game against Utah on March 4, but a source tells Berman there’s only a 1% chance that Gobert and Mitchell were infected at that point.
The NBA advised the Knicks’ traveling party to self-quarantine Thursday night when they returned from their game in Atlanta. No one was exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, but nobody had been tested as of Friday morning, Berman adds. However, that could change in light of the news about Wood.
There’s more Knicks news to pass along:
- The BIG3 has taken a swipe at owner James Dolan in an ad promoting its upcoming stop in New York, Berman relays in a separate story. It features a picture of Spike Lee, who was involved in recent dispute with Dolan, and states, “Players are not property. The fans are our guests.” BIG3 organizers and Madison Square Garden officials both declined to comment on the ad.
- Former Knick Charles Oakley tells Berman in another piece that he doesn’t believe an old-school coach like Jeff Van Gundy can succeed in today’s game. Van Gundy has frequently been mentioned as a candidate in the organization’s upcoming coaching search. “Basketball has changed. You’re not getting the 1990s back,” Oakley said. “The game has a totally different atmosphere. You got to build a team with leadership and players willing to sacrifice. These kids don’t care about basketball. All they care about is getting the check, playing video games and the social media.”
- Steve Popper of Newsday looks back at a chaotic partial season that included a coaching change and a new president of basketball operations, but provided little information about the Knicks’ direction for the future. Of the seven free agents who came to New York last summer, Marcus Morris made the biggest difference and he has already been traded. Among the young players, Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina both saw reduced minutes, while Damyean Dotson and Allonzo Trier were often out of the rotation.
Heat Notes: Haslem, Mulder, Dragic, Free Agency
If the NBA season doesn’t resume, that will likely mark the end of Udonis Haslem‘s long career, writes Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel. The veteran forward, who will turn 40 in June, returned for another year because he didn’t want to leave the league after a non-playoff season.
Haslem didn’t commit to retiring when asked about the possibility last month, but he has gotten into just three games this year and has played a combined 21 minutes. It’s his fourth straight season with minimal court time as he has evolved into more of an assistant coach than a player. Winderman is confident that Haslem’s number will be retired after 17 years with the Heat.
There’s more this morning from Miami:
- After the Heat signed Kendrick Nunn off the Warriors‘ G League affiliate late last season, Golden State has done the same thing to Miami by taking Mychal Mulder from the Sioux Falls team, Winderman notes in a separate story. When Mulder signed a 10-day contract with the Warriors in late February, Heat officials expected him to eventually return to the organization. Instead, he had a strong performance in his tryout and earned a multi-year deal. Winderman adds that Miami elected to give a two-way contract to Gabe Vincent rather than Mulder.
- An associate of Goran Dragic tells Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald that the point guard expects a sizable one-year offer from the Heat this summer, likely around the $19MM he is currently making. Dragic will be a free agent after five and a half years in Miami, and Jackson notes that his friendship with Jimmy Butler provides extra incentive to keep him around. “We’ll see,” Dragic responded when asked about signing for one season. “A lot of different factors, my family, myself. I would say it’s too soon to talk about it. I’m not thinking about my next contract. I’ve always been a guy in the present.”
- The Heat can create more cap room this summer than any other playoff team, but they might opt to keep the current core together, Jackson adds in the same piece. Opening cap space would mean renouncing most of their free agents — a group that includes Derrick Jones Jr., Jae Crowder and Meyers Leonard as well as Dragic. Jackson doesn’t see any free agent targets worth that gamble, unless Anthony Davis decides to leave the Lakers, while the potential loss of revenue from the league shutdown makes the salary cap unpredictable.
Jazz Notes: Mitchell, Gobert, Coronavirus Tests
Stories have been circulating about a possible rift between Jazz teammates Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert after both players tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week. A source confirms to Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune that Mitchell is “frustrated” with Gobert’s irresponsible actions regarding the virus, but the organization believes the situation can be repaired.
Gobert has admitted to being “careless” in the days before a test confirmed that he had contracted COVID-19. However, even though Gobert was diagnosed first, Larsen points out that because symptoms of the virus aren’t always apparent right away, it’s possible that Gobert caught it from Mitchell or that both contracted it from someone else.
Larsen cites a report from ESPN’s Zach Lowe on his Lowe Post podcast expressing similar confidence that any hard feelings between the two players can be resolved. “My feeling from the Jazz and talking to people there is that I think once everyone takes a deep breath, that this will be okay,” said Lowe, adding that he saw several other players over the past two weeks who weren’t taking the virus seriously.
There’s more tonight from Utah:
- Mitchell tweeted a video update on his condition today, thanking fans for their support and telling them that he’s doing well. “Just taking the proper precautions,” he said. “I’ve been told by the health authorities that I’ve got to stay in isolation. So I’m solo in here, playing video games all day. Can’t wait to get out there on the floor and play in front of the best fans in the world. I really miss playing in front of you guys.”
- No special treatment was given to the Jazz when they received 58 coronavirus testing kits Wednesday night, an official from the Oklahoma State Department of Health tells Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. The kits were available and the choice to test everyone with a connection to the team was “a public health decision” based on their contact with Gobert.
- Eric Walden of The Salt Lake Tribune writes about the experience of being quarantined in the wake of Gobert’s positive test. Walden was present at Monday’s media session and sent out a light-hearted tweet after Gobert touched every microphone and digital recorder in front of him.
Hiatus Notes: Resuming The Season, NBPA, Kirkland
The odds are against the NBA being able to resume its season and crown a champion, writes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. Commissioner Adam Silver has said the league will be shut down for at least 30 days in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus. However, with three positive tests already reported and many more possibly looming, the stoppage could go on for much longer.
League sources tell Townsend that if any players, coaches or other personnel test positive for the virus, a 14-day quarantine will be imposed for the affected team. However, to keep conditions equal, all 29 other teams will have to stop training as well. With more than 500 players, including those on two-way deals, along with 150 coaches and countless staff members, a quick resolution appears very unlikely.
A league official informed Townsend that pessimism is increasing about the fate of the season, saying, “There are no shortcuts here. Everything has to fall into place. And there are so many variables that can’t be predicted.”
There’s more as the NBA sits idle:
- The National Basketball Players Association sent a message to agents saying they “fully expect that players will continue to receive salary on their designated paydays” during the hiatus, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Sources tell Charania that the union hasn’t discussed potential adjustments to salaries and doesn’t expect that to happen until decisions are made about the schedule (Twitter link).
- Referee Courtney Kirkland has been cleared to leave Sacramento after his coronavirus test was negative, tweets Eric Woodyard of ESPN. Kirkland had remained in the city since Wednesday’s game between the Kings and Pelicans was postponed. He is free to resume all activities and will have no medical restrictions, Woodyard adds.
- The NBA should have moved more quickly to suspend its season, contends Ethan Strauss of The Athletic. Noting that each person with coronavirus infects an estimated 2.8 other people, Strauss argues that the league had a responsibility to be more proactive once cases of the virus started hitting major North American cities. He criticizes the league for holding two games at Chase Center in San Francisco with a sign in the arena that stated, “Attending tonight’s game could increase your risk of contracting coronavirus.”
Christian Wood Tests Positive For Coronavirus
Pistons center Christian Wood has received a positive test for COVID-19, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Sources tell Charania that Wood has shown no symptoms of the virus and is doing well physically.
Wood is the third NBA player to test positive for coronavirus, joining Jazz teammates Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. Wood was matched up with Gobert last Saturday when the teams met in Detroit.
The Pistons released a statement in response to the positive test without identifying Wood, relays Eric Woodyard of ESPN (Twitter link).
“A player on the Detroit Pistons, who is under the care of the team medical staff and in self-isolation since Wednesday night, was tested positive for COVID-19,” it reads. “A preliminary positive result came back on March 14. The health and safety of our players, our organization, those throughout our league, and all those potentially impacted by this situation is paramount. We are working closely with team medical staff, state and local government and public health officials and the NBA on reporting. The individual will remain in isolation and under the care of team medical staff.”
Wood may be headed for a huge raise in free agency this summer after putting up huge numbers since Andre Drummond was traded in early February. He posted 30 points and 11 rebounds against Gobert, then topped that with a career-high 32-point performance Wednesday in Philadelphia.
Sixers players were in self-quarantine as of Thursday and were hoping to get tests for players and staff members, according to Derek Bodner of The Athletic (Twitter link). There’s no word on the status of any of Wood’s Pistons teammates.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.