Knicks Notes: Ball, Smith Jr., Playoffs, Aller
LaMelo Ball tops the Knicks‘ wish list for this year’s draft, according to Marc Berman of The New York Post. A 6’7″ playmaker who spent this season with the Illawarra Hawks in the NBL, Ball would solve New York’s long search for a point guard. However, unless they get some lottery luck, the Knicks would have to trade up to land Ball, who is expected to be among the first players selected.
Berman notes that new team president Leon Rose has experience in dealing with Ball’s controversial father LaVar during his time with Creative Artists Agency. League insiders told Berman that LaVar likes the idea of his son playing in a big market and will attempt to work behind the scenes to get him to New York.
If the Knicks’ pick remains in the 6-10 range, Berman expects Cole Anthony, Tyrese Haliburton, Killian Hayes and Tyrese Maxey to all be considered, along with trading down to target RJ Hampton or Kira Lewis.
There’s more from New York:
- The Knicks would like to part with Dennis Smith Jr.‘s $5.7MM salary for next season if they can put together a trade involving Chris Paul, Berman adds in the same story. The Thunder guard will make $41.36MM in 2020/21, so accommodating his salary would require sending out some contracts. Berman suggests that Kevin Knox ($4.6MM), whom Rose hasn’t committed to keeping, and Frank Ntilikina ($6.2MM) could also be included.
- A “playoffs plus” scenario being considered in a survey of general managers could leave the Knicks out in the cold, Berman observes in a separate story. New York currently ranks 12th in the East, so it wouldn’t be included if seeds seven through 10 are involved in play-in games for postseason spots.
- Plenty of people around the league believe Brock Aller will make a difference in the Knicks’ front office, writes Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. Aller left the Cavaliers last month to become VP of strategy in New York. “He’s a big-picture guy who is also a diabolical genius from a cap standpoint,” said David Griffin, VP of basketball operations for the Pelicans, who formerly served as general manager in Cleveland.
Draft Notes: Bailey, Tucker, Wesson, Kalaitzakis
Marquette forward Brendan Bailey has decided to remain in the draft, the university announced in a press release. Coach Steve Wojciechowski delivered the news about Bailey, who entered the draft pool in April.
A sophomore, Bailey played 64 games in two seasons for the Golden Eagles, averaging 5.1 points and 3.4 rebounds per night. The 22-year-old did a two-year Mormon mission after high school and didn’t join the team until the 2018/19 season.
“After counseling with my family, I have decided to forgo my junior and senior years and pursue a career in professional basketball,” Bailey added. “This has always been a dream of mine and Marquette has helped prepare me to make this dream a reality. Thank you Marquette, you will always have a special place in my heart.”
There’s more draft news to pass along:
- Butler’s Jordan Tucker has also opted to remain in the draft, announcing his decision on Twitter. The junior forward averaged 8.9 PPG and 3.8 RPG this season. “Playing in the NBA has always been my dream,” Tucker wrote. “… This is a difficult decision, but it’s the one I want to make to be completely focused on my professional goals over the next few months.”
- Ohio State early entrant Kaleb Wesson has signed with Jelani Floyd of Beyond Athlete Management, tweets Jeff Goodman of GoodmanHoops. Floyd isn’t certified by the NCAA, so it appears Wesson has decided to give up his remaining year of eligibility.
- Greek guard Georgios Kalaitzakis entered the draft last month, but Panathinaikos is interested in keeping him for another season, according to Nicola Lupo of Sportando. Kalaitzakis, 21, said he wants to go to a situation where he will get playing time.
NBA Enters ‘Exploratory’ Talks To Resume Season In Orlando
The NBA has entered exploratory conversations with the Walt Disney Corporation about restarting the 2019/20 season at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida in late July, tweets ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
“The NBA, in conjunction with the National Basketball Players Association, is engaged in exploratory conversations with The Walt Disney Company about restarting the 2019/20 NBA season in late July at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Florida as a single site for an NBA campus for games, practices and housing,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said (via Shelburne). “Our priority continues to be the health and safety of all involved, and we are working with public health experts and government officials on a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that appropriate medical protocols and protections are in place.”
As we relayed earlier this week, Orlando emerged as a frontrunner to be the host city whenever the league resumed its season. In this bubble/campus-like format, Orlando would host all players, coaches, and other essential personnel as the NBA attempts to resume play.
Given the uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic, it remains to be seen if the season can be resumed while ensuring the safety of its players. However, this represents the most serious step since the season was suspended toward a return to play.
NBA Issues Survey To GMs On Possible Formats To Resume Season
In a recent survey sent to the NBA’s 30 general managers, several different proposals for play formats were proposed as the league weighs resuming the 2019/20 season, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reports.
Ranging from a direct-to-playoffs format to resuming the regular season, a number of different scenarios are mentioned. As the NBA zeroed in on Disney World in Orlando to resume play sometime in mid-July, the following scenarios are on the table:
- Playoffs: The top eight teams in each conference would advance directly to the postseason.
- “Playoffs Plus”: Increasing the number of teams that receive a chance to continue playing through either a play-in tournament or replacing the playoffs first round with a group stage.
- Note: The number of teams to return in this scenario would be either 18, 20, 22, or 24.
- Regular Season: Under this proposal, all 30 teams would resume the season where it ended and continue on as scheduled.
- Regular Season + Play-In: All teams play the same amount of games which would then include a play-in tournament and conclude with a traditional postseason.
- Playoffs Plus play-in: A play-in tournament which includes bubble teams playing for the eighth seed; a play-in tournament for the seventh and eighth seed; or a stage that replaces the first playoff round and all groups. In this scenario, every team would play two games against each group opponent and the top two teams from each group would advance to a traditional second round.
Further discussions in the survey include the amount of scrimmage games that would be played before a restart (between two and five), the total number of regular-season games that would be played (72 or 76), whether or not to do a traditional playoff format or reseed all teams, and when the season would end (Labor Day, Sept. 15, Oct. 1, Oct. 15 or Nov. 1).
Discussions continue on how and when the NBA season could be resumed safely and without fans in attendance.
Victor Oladipo Talks Health, Pacers, Legacy
Pacers All-Star Victor Oladipo was able to return to action earlier this year after undergoing surgery for a torn quad last January, which ended his 2018/19 season and forced a late start to the currently-suspended campaign.
All told, over an 18-month period, Oladipo has had to abruptly stop playing basketball twice. As the NBA weighs the possibility of continuing the season, Oladipo tells Michael Lee of The Athletic he wants to establish himself as one of the greats.
After returning in January, Oladipo appeared in 13 games (10 starts) before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered play. Oladipo admitted that he “would be lying” if he said he was playing above 80% this season.
Ahead of free agency this summer, the 28-year-old discussed his personal goals moving forward, his intended legacy and much more.
Check out the highlights below:
On hiss ultimate career goal::
“At the end of the day, I wanted my name to be mentioned with one of the greats. So, when this quad injury happened, my job is not over. My legacy isn’t finished. This knee is a little bump in the road, I guess you would say. But someone once told me a long time ago, ‘If the road you’re on is easy, then you’re on the wrong road.’ So I hate calling it a ‘bump in a road.’”
On the feeling he needs to constantly prove himself:
“Me, personally, I feel they don’t really respect me. And that’s fine. I get it. It was only one year or a year and a few months, or whatever the case may be. And I still got a lot to prove. I want the whole world to remember my name. That’s why I do what I do. And that’s why I’m going to come back stronger than ever because I still have some unfinished business. And I still got a lot of things that I need to accomplish and want to accomplish — so my name can ring bells.”
On understanding the Pacers culture:
“The money is great, obviously, and the lifestyle is cool, but coming from where I come from, if they ain’t talking about you as one of the best, it’s no point in you even playing. That’s what I got from PG County. I want to be a legend, period, when it comes to this game. That’s why I work as hard as I do. I remember when no one knew who I was, and that’s what keeps me going every day. That makes me work harder every day. That’s why it’s so hard to take a break because it’s so many things I need to do.”
Poll: Should The NBA Bring Back All 30 Teams?
The NBA apparently wants to bring back as many of its 30 teams as possible, provided that the league moves forward with tentative plans for a resumption of league play later this summer. The spread of the novel coronavirus caused league commissioner Adam Silver to halt the 2019/20 season on March 11. But should every team return, even the 14 likely lottery squads?
The most popular proposed plan is resuming play in one or two “bubble” sites, with Walt Disney World in Orlando emerging as the current front-runner, starting around mid-July. When play was paused in March, all teams had played between 63 and 67 of the regular season’s standard 82 games.
The notion of adding an extra 14 teams’ worth of players, team personnel and loved ones to a mass population that already includes 16 teams (with approximately 35 people traveling per each team), on top of referees and a broadcast media presence, at a moment in time when the highly-contagious COVID-19 is still incurable and spreading rampantly amidst close contact feels superfluously dangerous.
With a significant majority of the NBA’s games already having been played, why not limit the “bubble” head count with just the 16 teams sporting the best records when league play stopped?
If the league is concerned about teams being rusty due to the extended time off (at least four months by the earliest possible projections), perhaps the teams present could participate in something akin to a five-game tune-up “preseason” for two weeks. That way, lottery-bound teams or teams with the faintest of hopes at a playoff berth would not be taking undue extra risk by traveling to the “bubble” cities and mingling with the other teams.
The higher the head count, the higher the hypothetical risk of a COVID-19 spread among the players, coaches, and other traveling team personnel present. In a new piece, Steve Popper of Newsday also voiced his concern that including all 30 teams in an un-paused season was an unnecessary exercise. The best way to minimize risk is to keep the pool in a potential “bubble” city as finite as possible.
Vote below in our poll, then head to the comment section to weigh in with your thoughts!
Should the NBA bring back all 30 teams?
-
No 64% (960)
-
Yes 36% (544)
Total votes: 1,504
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
Injury Updates: Gordon, Kaminsky, Blazers, Isaac
Rockets shooting guard Eric Gordon expects to be able to play if the 2019/20 NBA season resumes, per Fox 26 Houston’s Mark Berman (Twitter link). Gordon, who underwent November right knee surgery, has been in and out of the lineup since then. The extra two months off (and counting) provided by the pause in NBA play has been beneficial for Gordon’s health.
“I’ll be ready to roll (if play resumes),” Gordon said. “I can only focus solely on this team and basketball.”
There are further health updates from around the NBA:
- Suns big man Frank Kaminsky, out since January with a right patella stress fracture, claims that he is now “ready to make a push towards playing again” if the NBA resumes regular season play, according to Gina Mizell of The Athletic (Twitter link).
- The Trail Blazers frontcourt will be getting some serious reinforcements if the NBA’s regular season returns, The Athletic’s Jason Quick reports. Starting center Jusuf Nurkic, sidelined since breaking his leg on March 25, 2019, and starting power forward Zach Collins, out of commission since undergoing surgery for a dislocated left shoulder three games into his season, are now both fully healthy. Blazers All-NBA guard Damian Lillard expressed excitement for their return to what had been an injury-ravaged Portland roster. “It’s going to be a completely different situation, and we’ll be close to full strength,” Lillard said.
- The status of Magic forward Jonathan Isaac for the rest of the 2019/20 season remains up in the air, according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link). A serious knee injury paused Isaac’s third season on January 1st. Isaac, one of the team’s most promising young players, ran on an Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill earlier this week. This marked the first time he had run at all since the injury.
Northwest Notes: Millsap, Schroder, Nuggets, Ingles
Nuggets forward Paul Millsap is optimistic about his squad’s title odds, per The Athletic’s Nick Kosmider. The 35-year-old veteran has hardly rested on his laurels during the two-month pandemic-mandated league shutdown. Millsap revealed in a team Instagram interview recently that he has focused his workouts around a plyometrics-strengthening program, working toward getting stronger and quicker than he was in March.
Millsap, a two-time All-Star with the Hawks, is earning $30.35MM in the final year of his contract with Denver. The 43-22 Nuggets, led by All-Star center Nikola Jokic and promising young point guard Jamal Murray, are the No. 3 seed in the West. Millsap thinks that the team’s familiarity will give them an edge in a season with so many changing faces among the league’s elite teams. “I think we have an advantage,” Millsap said. “We’ve been together probably longer than any team out there.”
There’s more out of the Northwest:
- On July 1, Thunder guard Dennis Schroder will become the majority owner of his German hometown team, Löwen Braunschweig in the Basketball Bundesliga League, per Nick Crain of Forbes. Schroder’s first pro experience was with Löwen Braunschweig’s farm team in 2010. After three seasons in the BBL, Schroder took the leap to the NBA, where he’s currently in the third year of a four-season, $62MM contract extension he signed with the Hawks before being traded to Oklahoma City in 2018/19.
- Colorado University forward Tyler Bey could be an enticing fit for the Nuggets in the 2020 draft given his defensive skill set and rebounding skills. Bey’s raw offensive game and lack of a clear position at the level give The Denver Post’s Mike Singer pause about the fit. Elsewhere in his mailbag, Singer addresses other pressing Nuggets questions, including the Denver futures of post players Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee, and Millsap.
- Following up on March comments that suggested Jazz forward Joe Ingles might avoid a return to league play this season due to safety concerns, Ingles clarified his stance on the matter in a recent tweet. “When it’s safe to go back and play, I will not let my teammates down!” he said, in part.
2020/21 Salary Cap Preview: Sacramento Kings
Hoops Rumors is looking ahead at the 2020/21 salary cap situations for all 30 NBA teams. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the NBA, it’s impossible to know yet where the cap for 2020/21 will land. Given the league’s lost revenue, we’re assuming for now that it will stay the same as the ’19/20 cap, but it’s entirely possible it will end up higher or lower than that.
The Kings‘ 39-43 performance in 2018/19 qualified as a breakthrough. It was the team’s best record in 13 years, after all. Sacramento didn’t take another step forward in ’19/20, but hung around the outskirts of the playoff race even as former No. 2 overall pick Marvin Bagley III missed most of the season and other key contributors – like De’Aaron Fox and Richaun Holmes – were sidelined with injuries for extended stretches.
Continued development from young players like Fox and Bagley will be crucial as the Kings look to make the leap from frisky lottery team to solid playoff contender. However, the team’s young core will start getting more expensive going forward, beginning with Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic in 2020/21.
Here’s where things stand for the Kings financially in 2020/21, as we continue our Salary Cap Preview series:
Guaranteed Salary
- Buddy Hield ($24,931,817)
- Harrison Barnes ($22,215,909)
- Cory Joseph ($12,600,000)
- Marvin Bagley III ($8,963,640)
- De’Aaron Fox ($8,099,627)
- Richaun Holmes ($5,005,350)
- Justin James ($1,517,981)
- Total: $83,334,324
Player Options
- Jabari Parker ($6,500,000)
- Total: $6,500,000
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- Nemanja Bjelica ($7,150,000) 1
- Kyle Guy (two-way)
- Total: $7,150,000
Restricted Free Agents
- Bogdan Bogdanovic ($10,661,733 qualifying offer / $16,205,833 cap hold): Bird rights
- DaQuan Jeffries (two-way qualifying offer / $1,445,697 cap hold): Non-Bird rights
- Total (cap holds): $17,651,530
Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds
- Kent Bazemore ($28,904,493): Bird rights
- Alex Len ($5,408,000): Early Bird rights
- Yogi Ferrell ($4,095,000): Early Bird rights
- Harry Giles ($3,976,510): Bird rights 2
- No. 12 overall pick ($3,831,840)
- Corey Brewer ($1,620,564): Non-Bird rights
- Total: $47,836,407
Offseason Cap Outlook
Parker will likely opt in, so adding his salary and the cap hold for Sacramento’s first-round pick increases the club’s guaranteed commitments to about $94MM for nine roster spots. It’s safe to assume the Kings will do all they can to re-sign Bogdanovic too, so they’ll operate as an over-the-cap team.
A deadline deal that sent Dewayne Dedmon to Atlanta ensured that the Kings should have the flexibility to negotiate a market-value deal – or match any reasonable offer sheet – for Bogdanovic without approaching the luxury tax line. As such, Sacramento should have the non-taxpayer mid-level and bi-annual exceptions at its disposal this offseason, though it might not make sense to use both exceptions in full — especially if the team wants to retain Bjelica, Bazemore, or any of its other free agents.
Cap Exceptions Available
- Mid-level exception: $9,258,000 3
- Bi-annual exception: $3,623,000 3
- Trade exception: $2,673,334 (expires 2/8/21)
Footnotes
- Bjelica’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after October 17.
- The Kings can’t offer Giles a starting salary worth more than his cap hold, since his rookie scale team option for 2020/21 was declined.
- These are projected values. If team salary gets high enough, it’s possible the Kings would instead be limited to the taxpayer mid-level exception ($5,718,000).
Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are based on the salary cap and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders and Early Bird Rights was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Coronavirus Notes: Travel Parties, Testing, More
The traveling parties for NBA teams typically exceed 50 members, but Marc Stein of The New York Times (Twitter link) says the league has told clubs that number will have to be trimmed down if and when the season resumes in a bubble/campus-like environment.
According to Stein, teams have been informed that they’ll likely be permitted to bring approximately 35 total players, coaches, and staffers into the “bubble” this summer. Of course, if all 30 teams return to play, that would still work out to over 1,000 people, and that’s before taking into account all the other individuals, including league officials and staffers, who would need to be involved as well.
Here’s more on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the NBA:
- The NBA has informed its teams that it’s engaged in discussions with multiple national providers of COVID-19 tests, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links). As Charania notes, coronavirus testing will be a “central component” of the resumption of the season, so the league is shoring up its testing protocols and has asked clubs to create accounts with BioReference Laboratories, LabCorp, Quest Diagnostics and Vault Health/RUCDR Infinite Biologics at Rutgers.
- Two medical experts who spoke to Seerat Sohi of Yahoo Sports have concerns about the “campus-like” environment described by Jared Dudley this week for the NBA’s return, suggesting that the plan relies too much on the accuracy of coronavirus tests, which may produce false negatives.
- In an ESPN report that features 15 bylines, writers who cover several different sports take an in-depth look at how those sports are attempting to return to action. As ESPN’s writers observe, the attitude among sports leagues has shifted over the last couple months, “from fear of one positive test shutting down a season to the gradual acceptance of risk.”