Mike Miller Has Support To Remain On Knicks’ Staff
As the Knicks intensify their pursuit for a new head coach, interim head coach Mike Miller has support from people in the organization to remain on the coaching staff, SNY’s Ian Begley reports.
Miller, 55, was moved up from assistant coach to interim head coach following the dismissal of David Fizdale in early December last year. While the Knicks’ losing record persisted, the team played better under Miller, going 17-27 in 44 games until the season was stopped amid the coronavirus pandemic.
With new team president Leon Rose in the fold, the Knicks reportedly have former Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau at the top of their list. However, in addition to Miller, the team also plans to interview former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson and former Knicks head coach Mike Woodson.
While Miller’s lone head coaching experience has been a 44-game stretch this season, he has experienced success at other levels, most notably winning Coach of the Year with the G League’s Westchester Knicks in 2017/18. It remains to be seen if Miller will be given a serious opportunity to become the full-time head coach, but he has impressed team officials enough to at least be in the mix.
Kevin Durant Confirms “My Season Is Over”
Confirming a Friday report, star forward Kevin Durant told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated in a wide-ranging interview that he won’t play for the Nets when the 2019/20 season resumes this summer.
“My season is over. I don’t plan on playing at all,” Durant said. “We decided last summer when it first happened that I was just going to wait until the following season. I had no plans of playing at all this season.”
Durant tore his Achilles tendon nearly a year ago during the 2019 NBA Finals and had originally been ruled out for the entire 2019/20 season. When the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the end of the season being postponed, there was some speculation that KD might not have to wait until 2020/21 to make his Nets debut after all. However, reports in recent weeks continually indicated that was unlikely to be the case.
Prior to the suspension of the season in March, Durant had progressed to scrimmaging with teammates, but his rehab process slowed down when practice facilities became unavailable and group activities were no longer permitted. The former MVP told Spears that his rehab is still going well and that he’s “feeling like a normal player again,” but said putting off his return until next season is the right call.
“It’s just best for me to wait,” Durant said. “I don’t think I’m ready to play that type of intensity right now in the next month. It gives me more time to get ready for next season and the rest of my career.”
As for teammate Kyrie Irving, the expectation for now is that he also won’t be healthy enough to return for the Nets this summer in Orlando. Irving is recovering from undergoing shoulder surgery earlier this year.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter), Irving suggested on Friday’s NBPA conference call that he may end up joining the Nets this summer as an inactive player supporting his teammates.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Isaac, Aminu Unlikely To Play Until Next Season
Magic forwards Jonathan Isaac and Al-Farouq Aminu are unlikely to return this season despite the extended layoff, according to Roy Parry of the Orlando Sentinel.
Isaac suffered a knee injury on New Year’s Day and hasn’t played since that game in Washington. Isaac was establishing himself as a defensive force before the severe left knee sprain.
Aminu hasn’t played since November 29. Aminu underwent arthroscopic surgery in early January to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.
The Magic were granted a disabled player exception for Aminu but were denied another one for Isaac’s injury.
“Not a whole lot of news there,” Orlando president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman said of the duo. “As always, we’re going to wait and see how they respond to rehab. They’re both working very hard.”
Both players have guaranteed contracts for next season and the Magic plan to proceed with caution. Orlando is currently No. 8 in the Eastern Conference as play is expected to resume on July 31.
“There’s a difference of being healthy and then being safely healthy,” Weltman said. “It will have been a long, long time since those guys played and you know organizationally that we’re never going to put our guys in a position where they’re exposed to any sort of risk of injury. So that being said, we’ll just continue to see how they progress.”
Pacific Notes: Wiseman, Warriors, Sarver, Clippers
The Warriors have already met with some prominent draft prospects via Zoom, including center James Wiseman and guard LaMelo Ball, Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweets. Wiseman is currently rated at No. 3 by ESPN with Ball at No. 2, just behind Georgia guard Anthony Edwards. With the draft rescheduled to October 15th, the Warriors anticipate they’ll get to evaluate prospects in person at some point.
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- With the Warriors left out of the 22-team restart of the season, Draymond Green stands to benefit the most among the franchise’s players, Slater opines in a separate story. Green had been nursing a variety of injuries prior to the suspension of play and now he’ll get plenty of time to heal up prior to next season. Young players such as Eric Paschall, Jordan Poole, Alen Smailagic and Mychal Mulder will be hurt the most by the long gap between seasons, Slater adds.
- Suns owner Robert Sarver says there are many hurdles to clear before play can resume in Orlando on July 31, according to Matt Layman of ArizonaSports.com. Sarver made his comments in a radio interview with 98.7 FM. “The logistics with Disney — you know a number of these hotels have had layoffs, have been partially closed or fully closed, and so there’s a re-startup there,” he said. “And then there’s the whole health concern with COVID-19 and how that plays out and making sure that we go back to what our first priority was, which was the health and safety of the players and the staff.”
- If the Clippers are able to re-sign free agents Marcus Morris and Montrezl Harrell, they’re likely to bring back virtually the same team next season, John Hollinger of The Athletic predicted in a conversation with fellow Athletic writer Jovan Buha. Hollinger believes in that scenario the only additions will be a second-round draft pick and a minimum-contract point guard to replace Reggie Jackson.
Eastern Notes: Kennard, Biyombo, Van Gundy, Tatum
Pistons swingman Luke Kennard has fully healed from the knee tendinitis that sidelined him for nearly three months before the season was suspended, Rod Beard of the Detroit News tweets. Kennard will have to wait until December to play again since the lottery-bound Pistons won’t be part of 22-team restart in Orlando. He’ll be eligible for a rookie scale extension when this season ends.
We have more from the Eastern Conference:
- The Hornets’ season is over and that means three of their players are now free agents, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer notes. Centers Bismack Biyombo and Willy Hernangomez and guard Dwayne Bacon will be on the market in October when free agency begins. Guard Malik Monk remains suspended indefinitely for violation of the NBA anti-drug policy, Bonnell adds. Monk was suspended in late February.
- Tom Thibodeau is considered the front-runner for the Knicks head coaching job and Jeff Van Gundy says Thibodeau is misunderstood, Marc Berman of the New York Post relays. The longtime TV analyst and former Knicks coach made his comments during a Sirius XM Radio interview. “Unfortunately for him the perception of him on the sidelines as this gruff, nasty dude is not even close to who is he personally,” Van Gundy said. “Like, he is a great guy. He’s fun to be around. He’s enjoyable to be around, and he loves basketball.”
- NBC Sports’ A. Sherrod Blakely takes a close look on what Celtics fans should watch for when the season resumes, including whether Jayson Tatum can continue his breakout season.
NBPA Views December 1 Start Date For 2020/21 As “Unlikely”
The National Basketball Players Association announced today that it has approved further negotiations with the NBA on its resumption plan and various changes to the league’s calendar. However, the NBPA also told its players that it considers a December 1 start date for the 2020/21 regular season “unlikely,” reports Shams Charania of The Athletic.
As we noted in our earlier story, the players’ union and the league still need to work out a number of details, with many aspects of the Collective Bargaining Agreement expected to be revisited and renegotiated.
NBPA executive director Michele Roberts has informed members that next season’s start date and “a myriad of items” will be part of the union’s negotiations with the NBA in the coming weeks, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
A November 10 training camp date and December 1 regular season tip-off date were among the most surprising details put forth by the NBA on Thursday. There’s a belief that the league hopes to start the 2020/21 season that early in part because it would allow next year’s Finals to wrap up before the Tokyo Olympics begin on July 23, 2021.
However, since this year’s NBA Finals could run as late as October 12, some players could have less than a month off if such an aggressive timeline is approved. As such, those proposed 2020/21 dates were considered tentative and subject to change even before Charania’s report this afternoon.
Details related to the league’s health and safety protocols for this summer’s restart will also need to be negotiated and finalized. A number of financial issues – including how much players are ultimately paid for 2019/20 and what the salary cap for ’20/21 will look like – will need to be addressed and resolved as well.
NBPA Approves NBA’s 22-Team Return-To-Play Format
After a virtual meeting today, the National Basketball Players Association has approved the NBA’s 22-team return-to-play format, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links). Charania reports (via Twitter) that all 28 team player representatives on the call approved the plan.
As Wojnarowski notes (via Twitter), the two sides still need to work out a number of details related to the resumption of the season, with many aspects of the Collective Bargaining Agreement expected to be revisited and renegotiated. For instance, just because the NBPA approved the tentative plan today, that doesn’t mean the two sides are locking in the NBA’s target date of December 1 as the start of the 2020/21 season.
“The Board of Player Representatives of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) has approved further negotiations with the NBA on a 22-team return to play scenario to restart the 2019/20 NBA season,” the NBPA said in a statement. “Various details remain to be negotiated and the acceptance of the scenario would still require that all parties reach agreement on all issues relevant to resuming play.”
Still, now that the Board of Governors and the players’ union have both signed off on the league’s restart plan, two crucial hurdles have been cleared. The two sides intend to work together toward resuming play on July 31 at Walt Disney World.
One important aspect of the return-to-play plan that will require further discussion is the long list of healthy and safety protocols the NBA plans to implement to help individuals in Orlando avoid contracting and spreading COVID-19.
Sources tell Charania (Twitter link) that the NBPA informed players today that coronavirus testing will happen every night after everyone reports to Orlando. According to Charania, a quarantine period of at least seven days will be required if a player tests positive for COVID-19.
Additionally, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter link), players have been told that the goal is to have a maximum of 1,600 people within the NBA’s Disney bubble at a given time. Players’ families are expected to be allowed after the first round of the playoffs, with up to three family members at a time permitted, Woj adds. Those family members will need to quarantine for seven days upon arriving, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.
Here are a few more details that were discussed on today’s call, per Charania:
- The plan is to have teams play two or three exhibition games before the eight “seeding games” begin.
- The NBA and NBPA are still discussing how to handle the no-fans environment. Using crowd noise via NBA 2K audio is one option.
- Players won’t be blood-tested (ie. for anti-drug policy violations) in Orlando.
- Players are expected to once again receive their full pay checks this summer after accepting a 25% reduction as of May 15.
Interestingly, Charania also reports (via Twitter) that NBPA leadership stressed to players that staying within the campus environment during play is mandatory in order to ensure player safety. We’ve heard that the league would permit players to leave that “bubble,” but it sounds like the NBPA is strongly discouraging that idea in order to keep the playing environment as uncompromised as possible.
Restart Notes: FA Moratorium, Safety Protocols, BBL
With the NBA targeting October 15 for its 2020 draft and October 18 for the start of free agency, the player-movement portion of this year’s offseason figures to be fast-paced and hectic. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the moratorium at the start is expected to reflect that compressed timeline.
“I’m told the moratorium will only last two days,” Charania said during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show (video link). “October 20, it’ll be lifted so guys can sign contracts. Usually the moratorium can be anywhere from six to seven days. Now, because of this truncated schedule, two days.”
As we explain in our glossary entry on the subject, the July moratorium – which runs from the start of free agency (June 30 or July 1) until July 6 – is a period in which agreements on free agent deals and trades can be reached, but most of those agreements can’t be officially completed. This year, it sounds like the first contracts agreed upon at the start of free agency can be signed just a couple days later.
Here’s more on the NBA’s restart:
- In an excellent behind-the-scenes story, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne looks at how the NBA and NBPA formulated a plan for the resumption of the season, focusing on the relationships NBPA president Chris Paul has with commissioner Adam Silver and Disney executive chairman Bob Iger.
- Appearing this morning on ESPN’s Get Up (video link), Brian Windhorst said the NBA will soon disseminate a series of healthy and safety protocols for its return that will be over 100 pages long. “The schedule part of this was easy,” Windhorst said. “The health and safety part of this is going to be harder than you can possibly imagine.”
- German’s Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) is asking players to wear chips to monitor their movements as they resume play this weekend, according to ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Jonathan Givony. The BBL doesn’t have a players’ union and it sounds as if players aren’t thrilled about the fact that they weren’t informed of the league’s plans, but commissioner Stefan Holz insists the chips are “optional” and are only for COVID-19 tracing purposes. The NBA will be paying close attention to the resumption of play in Germany, per ESPN’s duo, since the league may be able to incorporate some of the BBL’s ideas into its restart (though I’m not sure the NBPA would be enthusiastic about tracking chips).
Northwest Notes: Nuggets, Jazz, Blazers, Roberson
While the Trail Blazers were the only NBA team to vote against the NBA’s return-to-play plan, they weren’t the only Northwest club that would have preferred a solution besides the 22-team format the league settled on.
Two league sources tell Mike Singer of The Denver Post that the Nuggets initially voted in favor of a plan that would have sent the 16 current playoff teams immediately to the postseason. According to Singer, Denver was “strongly” opposed to a 20-team format that would’ve involved a World Cup-style group stage, believing it undermined the team’s regular season success.
While those 16- and 20-team plans received consideration, Silver ultimately decided that the 22-team format was in the NBA’s best interest, and when he brought it to the league’s Board of Governors for a vote on Thursday, the Nuggets voted to approve it.
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- Now that the Nuggets have officially clinched a playoff spot, Nikola Jokic ($466K) and Paul Millsap ($150K) have secured their playoff bonuses for the 2019/20 season, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks observes (via Twitter).
- In a series of pieces for The Athletic, Tony Jones examines what the NBA’s return-to-play format means for the Jazz, while Jason Quick does the same for the Trail Blazers and Jon Krawczynski explores what’s next for the Timberwolves now that they’ve been left out of the league’s return. Although Utah is assured a playoff spot and Portland isn’t, the Jazz will be missing injured forward Bojan Bogdanovic, while the Blazers should get big men Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins back in their lineup.
- Within his own look at what the restart plan means for the Thunder, Erik Horne of The Athletic reports that Andre Roberson would be ready to play now if the season hadn’t been suspended. Without being able to scrimmage or practice at all over the last three months, it’s not clear if Roberson will return this summer, but it sounds like it’s a possibility. The veteran forward, who has battled multiple knee issues, hasn’t played in an NBA game in over two years.
Kevin Durant Reportedly Won’t Play This Summer
Despite ongoing speculation about the possibility of Kevin Durant making his Nets debut this summer when the 2019/20 NBA season resumes, multiple sources tell Anthony Puccio of NetsDaily that Durant won’t return for the rest of the season.
Puccio’s report is the most definitive update we’ve gotten yet on Durant, but it aligns with everything we’ve heard over the last few months about the star forward’s recovery from an Achilles tear suffered last June.
Durant’s manager and business partner Rich Kleiman has repeatedly stated that it’s unrealistic to expect KD to play this summer; after initially leaving the door open to the possibility of Durant’s return, Nets general manager Sean Marks seemed to close that door last month; and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski stated in a podcast nearly a month ago that Brooklyn wouldn’t be playing the two-time Finals MVP this summer.
This week alone, several more updates have indicated that Durant still isn’t expected to suit up for the Nets until the 2020/21 campaign begins. As Greg Logan of Newsday notes, teammate Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot recently told a French outlet that he didn’t think KD would be back this summer.
Appearing this morning on ESPN’s Get Up (video link), Brian Windhorst said the Nets’ official stance is that Durant won’t play this summer, adding that the compressed nature of the tentative schedule make it an even unlikelier proposition. And following up on Puccio’s report, Chris Mannix of SI.com tweeted that the idea of Durant returning this summer was “never a serious idea.”
Getting Durant and Kyrie Irving back for July 31 would have made the Nets an intriguing challenger in the Eastern Conference playoffs, even though they won’t be higher than a No. 7 seed. However, with Durant’s return apparently off the table and Irving’s status still up in the air, according to Puccio, the idea of Brooklyn making a deep postseason run looks like a long shot.
It makes sense that the Nets would prefer to play it safe with Durant, given the unusual nature of the summer schedule and the fact that he’ll likely be very rusty upon returning. The optics of KD’s Finals return and subsequent re-injury for the Warriors a year ago may also be in the back of the Nets’ minds. And even with Durant on the court, Brooklyn probably isn’t a serious title contender this season, so there’s little upside in risking another setback.
As Durant continues to rehab and work toward his return to the court, he’s also been busy off the court. Mark J. Burns of SportsBusiness Daily reports that the 31-year-old has become a stakeholder in the Philadelphia Union, a Major League Soccer franchise. Durant’s share is believed to be worth between between one and five percent, according to Burns.