Knicks Notes: Offseason Activities, Calipari, More
As one of the eight teams not invited to Orlando to complete the 2019/20 season, the Knicks are anxious to have some form of offseason activities for their players this summer and/or fall, writes Marc Berman of The New York Post.
With the NBA prioritizing the restart of the season for now, the Knicks are waiting on the league to review a handful of the options on the table for its bottom eight teams. If the league moves forward with a specific plan, it will need to be approved by the NBPA.
According to Berman, the Knicks are hoping to at least get approval to hold a mandatory two-week camp between the October 15 draft and the proposed November 10 start of training camp. That would give the team a head-start on the 2020 preseason after seven-plus months of inaction.
As Berman details, the Knicks are also in favor of the proposed target date of December 1 for opening night of the 2020/21 campaign. There’s an expectation that the players’ union will want to push back that date a little, but New York and the other seven teams whose seasons are over will be eager to get next season started as soon as possible.
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- Within the New York Post article linked above, Berman suggests that John Calipari would challenge Tom Thibodeau‘s frontrunner status if he were to “throw his hat into the ring” for the Knicks’ head coaching job. However, Ian Begley of SNY.tv says interviews are expected to begin this week and notes that Calipari continues to reiterate he has no interest in leaving Kentucky. In other words, it seems pretty safe to cross Calipari off New York’s list of potential candidates.
- The Knicks’ decision-makers were still finishing up their exit interviews with players as of Monday, a source tells Berman (Twitter link). Those conversations took place via video conference calls.
- After some internal back-and-forth last week about the Knicks’ silence following the death of George Floyd, the team put out a statement today saying it stands with “all who act for a positive change.” Team owner James Dolan had initially told MSG employees in a pair of memos that he didn’t believe a public statement was necessary, even as the rest of the NBA’s teams issued statements of their own. ESPN’s Malika Andrews has more details.
Poll: Will Grizzlies Hang Onto No. 8 Seed In West?
When the NBA season was suspended in March, the Grizzlies held a 3.5-game lead over the top challengers for the No. 8 seed, but were entering one of the toughest stretches of their 2019/20 schedule. At 32-33, Memphis had 17 games left. Of those 17 games, 11 were against playoff teams and five were against immediate threats to the Grizzlies’ playoff spot (Portland, New Orleans, and San Antonio).
Now that the league has settled on playing just eight more games this summer, the Grizzlies’ path to a postseason spot is simpler in some ways, but more complicated in others. Any team hoping to pass the Grizzlies for the No. 8 seed will have to make up four games in an eight-game stretch, which will be a tall order.
Even if the Grizzlies play sub-.500 ball and go 3-5 when play resumes, the Trail Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, or Spurs will have to go 7-1 to surpass or match them. The Suns, who are six games back, wouldn’t even be able to catch Memphis if the Grizz win more than two games.
However, the NBA’s new rules for Orlando also ensure that the Grizzlies will be subject to a play-in tournament if at least one team finishes within four games of them. In other words, unless Memphis increases or maintains its lead over all five teams behind them in the Western Conference standings during those eight seeding games, a play-in tournament is happening.
The Grizzlies would still have a leg up in that play-in tournament, which would pit them against the No. 9 team. Memphis would only have to win one game, while the challenger would have to win twice. But the club wouldn’t have much room for error — losing the first game in the play-in tournament would result in a winner-take-all second game.
Assuming the summer schedule is made up primarily of the next games on the team’s initial schedule, as expected, the Grizzlies will still have a challenging path, but it won’t be too grueling. Memphis wouldn’t be a major underdog against Portland, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, or New Orleans (twice). And while the Grizzlies would likely have to face the Bucks and possibly the Celtics, none of the West’s top three teams would be on their upcoming slate.
What do you think? When play resumes this summer, will the Grizzlies hang onto the No. 8 seed, clinching it outright or in a play-in tournament? Or will another team make a run and claim the conference’s final postseason berth?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
Which team will earn the final playoff spot in the West?
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Memphis Grizzlies 41% (443)
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Portland Trail Blazers 23% (243)
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New Orleans Pelicans 16% (175)
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Sacramento Kings 8% (90)
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Phoenix Suns 8% (81)
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San Antonio Spurs 4% (45)
Total votes: 1,077
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
And-Ones: Daye, J. Johnson, Coaches
Despite reportedly receiving some interest from NBA teams, forward Austin Daye has decided to remain in Italy and will sign a two-year contract extension with Reyer Venezia, reports Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
A former Gonzaga standout and a first-round pick in 2009, Daye averaged 5.2 PPG and 2.6 RPG with a .402/.351/.778 shooting line in 293 NBA regular season games (14.1 MPG), but has played overseas since 2015, winning an LBA (Italian League) Finals MVP award in 2019 and earning Italian Cup MVP honors in 2020.
A report last month indicated that Daye had talked to an NBA team and was considering exercising the out clause in his contract before a June 30 deadline. However, perhaps in part because of the uncertainty surrounding the NBA’s calendar, Daye has opted to remain with Reyer Venezia, where he’ll continue to play a major role.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Former NBA swingman Joe Johnson will play for Overseas Elite in The Basketball Tournament (TBT) this summer, our JD Shaw reports (via Twitter). As we detailed last month, the annual event still intends to move forward in July with frequent COVID-19 testing for participants.
- As some teams around the NBA prepare to search for a new head coach, or weigh whether or not to do so, ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz takes a deep dive into the hottest names on the coaching market, exploring which assistants and former head coaches are good bets to receive consideration for jobs this summer.
- It won’t happen, but several of The Athletic’s NBA writers consider what it would look like if the 22 teams headed to Orlando this summer were permitted to “draft” players from the league’s bottom eight teams. The results of the experiment, including Stephen Curry to Washington and Trae Young to Phoenix, are pretty entertaining.
Restart Notes: Deadlines, Roster Moves, Nets, Mavs, More
Decisions on player options for 2020/21 would typically be due later this month, but those deadlines will have to be pushed back, along with certain salary guarantee dates, trade exception expiry dates, and a handful of other key deadlines tied to the NBA’ offseason calendar.
As Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer details, a straightforward solution is being negotiated for adjusting those dates. The expectation is that they’ll be postponed in direct correlation with the new date for the start of the 2020/21 league year. For now, the new league year is tentatively scheduled to begin on October 18 instead of July 1.
In other words, if a player option decision had previously been due by June 29, it would now need to be made by October 16. If a trade exception had been scheduled to expire on July 7, its new expiry date would be October 24.
For certain dates, more negotiation may be required. For instance, if a player had a September 1 salary guarantee date written into his contract, that deadline would’ve fallen two months after the start of the league year, but well before the start of training camp. Under the NBA’s proposed calendar for 2020/21, two months after the start of the league year would be December 18, well beyond the target tip-off date of December 1. Still, for the most part, the solution O’Connor describes sounds like the most logical way forward.
Here’s more on the NBA’s restart plans and its new-look schedule:
- With a transaction window expected to open around June 22, Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) examines all 22 teams headed to Orlando this summer and speculates about what sort of roster tweaks they might make during that last week in June. As Marks notes, teams like the Nets (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving) and Mavericks (Dwight Powell, Jalen Brunson) are candidates to sign multiple injury replacements at that time.
- Scott Gleeson of USA Today ranks the six non-playoff teams invited to Orlando in terms of their upset potential, suggesting that the Pelicans and Trail Blazers are the top two threats to steal a playoff spot.
- Although the Thunder and other small-market clubs will be part of the resumed season this summer, the coronavirus pandemic may have a long-term impact on how they operate, writes Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman.
Condensed Schedule Possible For 2020/21 Season
Speaking today to reporters on a conference call, Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk said the NBA has indicated to GMs that the schedule for the 2020/21 season may be somewhat compressed in order to avoid straying too far from the league’s usual calendar, reports Tim Bontemps of ESPN (via Twitter).
As Schlenk explains, that could mean more back-to-back sets or even instances of four games in five nights for teams (Twitter link via Bontemps). The NBA has tried to reduce – or eliminate – those stretches as much as possible in recent years, including increasing the number of days in the regular season from 170 to 177 as part of the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement.
With the NBA aiming to start the 2020/21 season on December 1, a 177-day regular season would run through May 26, as Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. Typically, the league pencils in a little over two months for the postseason — in 2019, for instance, the playoffs started on April 13, with a Game 7 Finals date of June 16. A similar timeline in 2021 would result in the Finals potentially ending around August 1.
That schedule would be somewhat problematic for the NBA, which would prefer not to have its Finals overlapping with the start of the Tokyo Olympics. The Tokyo games have been postponed to next summer and are scheduled to begin on July 23, 2021.
On top of that, the National Basketball Players Association reportedly considers it unlikely that next season will start as early as December 1, since that timeline would create a tiny gap between the 2020 Finals and ’20/21 training camps for certain teams. The NBPA has to sign off on changes to the NBA’s annual calendar, so that start date may require some negotiation.
Reducing the number of games in the 2020/21 regular season would help condense the league year, but Schlenk told Bontemps today that the NBA hasn’t given any indication there will be fewer than 82 games on next season’s schedule (Twitter link via Malika Andrews of ESPN).
For now, the league and the players’ union are rightly focusing most of their attention on how the resumption of the 2019/20 season will work. However, figuring out how to fit in 82 games next season without playing too deep into the summer will be another issue the two sides have to address at some point, with compromises potentially required on both sides.
Villanova’s Saddiq Bey To Remain In Draft
Villanova forward Saddiq Bey has decided to keep his name in the 2020 NBA draft and go pro, he tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Bey, whose departure was confirmed by the school (via Twitter), is signing with Excel Sports Management for representation, Woj adds.
Bey announced back in April that he’d be testing the draft waters following his sophomore year with the Wildcats. However, he kept his options open and hadn’t committed to going pro until now.
[RELATED: 2020 NBA Draft Early Entrants List]
“Over the last two years, I have grown as a player, student, and man thanks to my coaching staff, teammates, and professors,” Bey said. “Villanova has the greatest fans in the world and I will miss playing in front of them next year. I will always be a Wildcat. … I am really excited to start the pursuit of my NBA career.”
The No. 18 overall prospect on ESPN’s big board, Bey averaged a team-high 16.1 PPG in 31 games (33.9 MPG) in 2019/20. He also contributed 4.7 RPG, 2.4 APG, and an eye-popping .451 3PT% on 5.6 three-point attempts per game. After earning Big East All-Freshman honors a year ago, the forward – who turned 21 this spring – was a unanimous All-Big East First Team pick this year.
Although Bey looks like a lock to be a first-round pick, most mock drafts have him coming off the board outside of the lottery. Rob Dauster of NBC Sports argued this morning that Bey is one of the safest and most undervalued prospects in this year’s class, expressing surprise that he’s not “valued higher by the industry.”
Western Notes: Thompson, Miller, Brunson, Williamson
It’s been nearly a year since Warriors guard Klay Thompson suffered a torn ACL in his left knee during last year’s Finals. However, GM Bob Myers isn’t sure if Thompson can be listed as fully recovered until he tests the knee in 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 situations, Mark Medina of USA Today tweets. Myers added, “He’s recovering fine; he hasn’t had any setback.”
Myers is also unsure whether the Warriors will be big players in the free agent and trade markets this summer, Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweets. “Depending on the economics, we have to be pragmatic and smart…I have no idea what the future holds, but we have an ownership group that’s aggressive and pushes the limits,” Myers said.
We have more from the Western Conference:
- It’s possible Pelicans forward Darius Miller could return to action this summer after suffering a torn right Achilles tendon last August, ESPN’s Andrew Lopez tweets. Miller has continued his rehab throughout quarantine and his status will be determined during the team’s training camp prior to heading to Orlando. If he can’t go, a two-way player will likely fill his roster spot, Lopez adds.
- The Mavericks still don’t plan on guard Jalen Brunson returning this season, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News tweets. Brunson underwent right shoulder surgery this same week that play was halted. He hasn’t played since February 22.
- A Florida judge ruled last week that Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson must answer questions regarding alleged benefits he received before and during his one season at Duke, Mark Schlabach of ESPN reports. Williamson is being sued for $100MM for alleged breach of a marketing agreement. A Florida appeals court subsequently granted a temporary stay and paused proceedings in the lawsuit from Prime Sports Marketing and company president Gina Ford, whose attorneys must respond within 10 days, according to an Associated Press report.
Pistons Notes: Summer League, Billups, GM Search, Roster, Grades
As one of the eight teams that won’t head to Orlando to resume the season, the Pistons have made proposals to the league for a revised summer league and earlier training camp, Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press reports.
The Pistons would like to hold a “mini-summer league” in July featuring structured workouts and games against other lottery-bound teams for their younger players. They also requested to hold a team training camp in mid-September for all players under contract for next season, Sankofa adds. That wouldn’t include free agent signings and draft picks, since that would occur in October. The start of the 2020/21 season has been pushed to December.
We have more Pistons-related news:
- In the same story, Sankofa indicated that Chauncey Billups is a front office candidate but not for the position he covets. The Pistons are seeking a GM and assistant GM. Billups is only interested in the GM job but the front office would rather bring him in as assistant GM and groom their 2004 NBA Finals MVP for a higher-level executive position.
- The GM search signals that senior adviser Ed Stefanski will eventually move into a background role, James L. Edwards III of The Athletic notes. The franchise prefers an experienced candidate for the GM job who can make an immediate impact and oversee player evaluations and the draft, Edwards continues. It’s also possible that the Pistons will hire multiple assistant GMs and leave the GM spot vacant for next season, he adds.
- Blake Griffin, Sekou Doumbouya and Bruce Brown are the players under contract most likely to remain on the roster entering next season, Keith Langlois of the team’s website opines. Derrick Rose will also likely be back, though he’d be a prime trade candidate in his walk year if the team fortifies the point guard spot, Langlois adds.
- A couple of players earned A-minuses from Detroit News beat writer Rod Beard. See all his evaluations and final grades here.
Players Exiting Bubble Must Go Through Lengthy Quarantine
Any player who leaves Orlando’s “bubble” environment will have to quarantine at least 10 days and have two negative tests for COVID-19 in order to participate again, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
The same protocols will be employed if a player tests positive while in the Disney World complex, according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer.
The restrictions for players exiting the bubble should serve as a deterrent from straying outside the complex except for emergency and family reasons. If a player was caught off-campus for any other reason, they could jeopardize their team’s postseason aspirations and risk the ire of their teammates and coaches. They would have to miss multiple games, along with being confined to their rooms for 10 days or more.
With so many teams heading to Orlando, the NBA will try to stagger their arrival times for safety reasons, O’Connor hears. All teams are tentatively scheduled to arrive between July 7-9, followed by a coronavirus test and a 36-hour quarantine. The season is scheduled to restart on July 31.
Interestingly, the NBA is hopeful of using a saliva mouth swab as an alternative to the nasal swab if it proves reliable, O’Connor continues.
Prior to arriving at Orlando, teams would conduct two-week training camps with COVID-19 testing likely to occur every other day, O’Connor adds.
For more details on the return-to-play plan, click here.
Draft Notes: Combine, Interviews, Langley, Wings
If there’s a draft combine in 2020, it won’t take on its usual form, but preliminary discussions are underway for “some type of prospect gathering” in Orlando during the final week of August, reports Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
According to Givony, workouts or scrimmages are unlikely to take place at such an event, and it’s not clear how many players would be invited. But it could give teams an opportunity to interview players, conduct medical tests, and possibly get measurements.
The situation remains “fluid,” per Givony, who suggests that the NBA will want to see how the first few weeks in Orlando go before making plans to bring new people into the bubble. On the plus side, if a revamped combine takes place in late August, at least six teams would already have been eliminated by that point, reducing the number of total individuals in the bubble.
Here’s more on the 2020 NBA draft:
- Within that same ESPN story, Givony cites team sources who say it has been challenging to line up Zoom interviews with many of 2020’s projected first-round picks. Executives have instead been focusing on potential second-rounders or undrafted players — according to Givony, a number of players not listed in ESPN’s top 100 have been invited to interview with more than half of the league’s clubs.
- North Carolina A&T guard Kameron Langley is withdrawing from the 2020 draft and return to school for his senior season, a source told Jeff Goodman of Stadium (Twitter link). Langley, who has started 93 of 98 in three years with the Aggies, filled the box score in 2019/20 with averages of 9.4 PPG, 8.0 APG, 5.2 RPG, and 2.1 SPG.
- Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer took a closer look at some of the most intriguing two-way wings in the 2020 draft class, including Tyler Bey (Colorado), Robert Woodard II (Mississippi State), and Patrick Williams (Florida State), among others.