Southwest Notes: Rockets, Smoothie King Center, Porter, Bey
The Rockets have dealt with changing lineups in three straight games as they juggle the availability of their injury-prone veteran guards. Head coach Stephen Silas notes that the ongoing lineup flux has impacted potential team chemistry, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle relays.
“As far as continuity of the group and really getting a feel for where your role is and how you can be effective in the scope of the group, it does affect it quite a bit,” Silas said of the Rockets’ lineup changes.
There’s more out of the Southwest Division:
- After starting the NBA season by allowing 800 fans inside their home arena, the Smoothie King Center, the Pelicans bumped that total up to 1,440 on January 29. They will be increasing their fan capacity again starting next week, to 1,900 fans, starting February 17 against the Trail Blazers, according to Christian Clark of NOLA.com.
- Once word got out of swingman Kevin Porter Jr.‘s locker room outburst, which effectively doomed his time in Cleveland, the Rockets immediately called the Cavaliers about his availability, according to Kelly Iko of The Athletic, who says a future second-round pick was considered a small price to pay, given Porter’s upside. “He just wants to play, hasn’t had an opportunity to really play much this season,” head coach Stephen Silas said of Porter.
- The Mavericks have sent rookie small forward Tyler Bey from the Long Island Nets to the Salt Lake City Stars as the NBAGL 2021 season in Orlando gets underway, according to an official team tweet.
Southeast Notes: Anthony, MCW, Aminu, Beal, Heat
With Markelle Fultz already out for the season due to a torn ACL, the Magic continue to have a hard time keeping their point guards healthy. Rookie Cole Anthony is the latest to have to deal with a health issue, as he was diagnosed with a shoulder strain following Tuesday’s loss to Portland.
As Roy Parry of The Orlando Sentinel details, the injury is muscular, so Anthony didn’t require an MRI. It also doesn’t sound too significant, as the rookie hasn’t yet been ruled out for Thursday’s contest vs. Golden State — he’s listed as questionable.
In another piece of relatively positive news for the Magic, veteran point guard Michael Carter-Williams, who has been on the shelf since January 4 due to a left foot sprain, has been upgraded to questionable for Thursday’s game (Twitter link). While there’s no guarantee that both Anthony and Carter-Williams will be in action tonight, it doesn’t sound like either player is far off.
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- Magic forward Al-Farouq Aminu returned on Tuesday after missing over a year due to knee problems. While the plan was for him to play in both halves of that game, he was ruled out of the second half after experiencing some hamstring tightness, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic. Like Anthony and MCW, Aminu is listed as questionable for Thursday’s game.
- Speaking to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports, agent Mark Bartelstein explained why his client – Wizards star Bradley Beal – has no desire to be dealt despite his team’s struggles. “He doesn’t want to quit on something,” Bartelstein said. “He’s an incredibly loyal guy, and he wants to always feel like he’s done everything he can to help something or someone be successful. It’s the way he was raised and what his values are based upon. … It’s the team that drafted him, the team that’s invested in him, and he desperately wants to make them a championship contender.” Beal will miss Friday’s game vs. New York due to rest, the Wizards announced today (via Twitter).
- The Heat will play their next seven games on the road, but when they eventually return home on February 24, they’ll increase the fan capacity at AmericanAirlines Arena to roughly 3,000 people, tweets Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
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Nets Notes: Irving, Jordan, Eastern Contenders
The Nets suffered a third consecutive loss on Tuesday, dropping a 122-111 decision to the last-place Pistons, prompting some self-reflection from star guard Kyrie Irving and head coach Steve Nash, among others. Irving said the team looked “very average,” as Malika Andrews of ESPN writes, while Nash said the club needed to improve its “competitive spirit,” per Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
The Nets responded on Wednesday with a 104-94 victory over Indiana — it was just the second time since acquiring James Harden on January 17 that Brooklyn had allowed fewer than 100 points in a game.
That game, which Brooklyn led by as many as 36 points, was an encouraging sign, but the Nets will need to string together more wins like it to show that they’re truly elite, says Mike Vaccaro of The New York Post. The team, which has a modest 15-12 overall record, has too often looked discombobulated and disinterested, according to Vaccaro.
Here’s more on the Nets:
- Although Kyrie Irving‘s injured right index finger only forced him to miss one game, he admitted that it bothered him in his return on Tuesday, as Brian Lewis writes for The New York Post. “It’s uncomfortable, but at the same time I don’t want to make any excuses,” Irving said. “I’m out there, put myself out there, do a lot of treatment on it and we’re down a few players obviously, as well, so you just want to go out there and compete and worry about the pain later.”
- Nets center DeAndre Jordan bounced back nicely after sideline clashes with James Harden and Steve Nash on Tuesday, Lewis notes in a separate story for The Post. “If I’m honest, it was an emotional night (Tuesday),” Nash said. “D.J. and I got upset at each other for a minute. I know D.J. got upset a few times during the game. So I’m proud of him because he bounced back with an incredible attitude, effort, performance.”
- Tim Bontemps of ESPN polled a handful of coaches, scouts, and executives from around the league on which Eastern teams are capable of reaching the NBA Finals and found that the Nets and Bucks are still considered the two frontrunners, despite the fact that the 76ers are currently the conference’s No. 1 seed.
Community Shootaround: Rookie Of The Year Race
Widely considered a strong contender to be picked No. 1 overall leading up to the 2020 draft, LaMelo Ball ultimately fell to No. 3, where he was snatched up by the Hornets. Now, less than two months into his rookie year, he’s showing why picking him first overall may have been the right move.
Through his first 26 games, Ball is leading all NBA rookies in PPG (14.3), APG (6.1), and SPG (1.4), and his 5.8 RPG ranks second only to James Wiseman‘s 6.1. Ball has been even better as of late, pouring in 21.6 PPG on .488/.440/.900 shooting to go along with 6.8 APG and 5.4 RPG in his last eight games.
That hot streak included Ball’s first NBA start, on February 1, and John Hollinger of The Athletic suggests it’s hard to imagine the rookie ever coming off the bench again. The 19-year-old has already improved by “leaps and bounds” since even the start of the season, according to Hollinger, who says Ball may already be the best player on Charlotte’s roster and looks fully capable of destroying the narrative that the 2020 draft didn’t have a superstar-caliber at the top of the class.
So far, Ball’s full-season numbers aren’t as impressive as those put up by Luka Doncic in 2018/19 or Ja Morant in ’19/20, but he’s quickly emerging as the overwhelming favorite to join those players in earning Rookie of the Year honors. Few other players from the 2020 class have had a major impact on their respective teams so far, and not many are in position to enter a starting lineup and take another huge leap forward like Ball has.
For now, Kings guard Tyrese Haliburton and Warriors big man Wiseman look like Ball’s top challengers for the Rookie of the Year award. Haliburton is averaging 12.0 PPG and 5.3 APG with a .455 3PT% off the bench for Sacramento, while Wiseman, who began the season as Golden State’s starting center, has recorded 12.2 PPG, 6.1 RPG, and 1.3 BPG.
However, it’s hard to imagine Haliburton taking on a much greater role this season than the one he already has (he’s averaging 29.4 minutes per game), while Wiseman figures to experience some ups and downs as he continues to adjust to the NBA on a veteran-led squad competing for a playoff spot.
We want to know what you think. Are you already penciling in Ball as the probable Rookie of the Year winner, barring an injury? Or is this race still very much up in the air, with Haliburton and Wiseman in the mix along with other potential challengers like Anthony Edwards, Cole Anthony, and Immanuel Quickley?
Head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
Heat Notes: Bradley, Dragic, Herro, Nunn
While Heat guard Avery Bradley is frustrated to be missing more time after dealing with a positive COVID-19 test and a knee contusion earlier in the season, he said this week that he’s relieved his calf strain – which will sideline him for about three or four weeks – wasn’t a more serious injury.
“I could just feel the pop, which really scared me because first thing you’re thinking with a non-contact pop is my Achilles,” Bradley said, per Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “So I was nervous and really frustrated. Now I’m just happy that it wasn’t anything severe and I’ll be able to rehab it.”
If the Heat play it safe with Bradley’s recovery, he likely won’t get back on the court until sometime after the All-Star break, which will run from March 5-10. However, the veteran guard hopes to beat that timeline and “get some games under my belt before the break,” as Chiang relays.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- Although Bradley won’t be back anytime soon, fellow guard Goran Dragic (left ankle sprain) could rejoin the Heat as some point during their seven-game, 13-day road trip, which begins on Thursday night in Houston, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald.
- Within that same Herald story, Tyler Herro says he has had no problem readjusting to a bench role after opening the season as a starter. “I played the whole (2019/20) year off the bench,” he said. “Doing whatever works for the team (is most important). Everyone hates losing. Moving to the bench wasn’t hard for me. I’ll do whatever this team needs me to do to win.”
- In a separate story for The Miami Herald, Jackson explores how the Heat could upgrade their roster in the coming months and how they could take advantage of their projected cap room in the offseason.
- In a mailbag, Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel explains why the Heat didn’t try to beat the Knicks to the punch to acquire Derrick Rose and notes that Kendrick Nunn is unlikely to retain the starting point guard role once Dragic and Bradley are ready to go. It’s worth noting that if Nunn starts three more games this season, he’d meet the “starter criteria,” bumping the value of his qualifying offer as a restricted free agent from $2.1MM to $4.7MM.
Raptors Will Finish 2020/21 Season In Tampa
The Raptors will spend the rest of the 2020/21 season playing their home games at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, the team announced today in a press release.
The franchise, which was unable to play in Toronto to start this season due to the coronavirus-related restrictions in place on the U.S./Canadian border, had left the door open to the possibility of returning to its own building – Scotiabank Arena – later in the season.
The hope was that the COVID-19 situation would have improved enough on both sides of the border to loosen those health and safety restrictions by the second half. However, it appears that won’t happen.
“Florida has been really welcoming to us and we’re so grateful for the hospitality we’ve found in Tampa and at Amalie – we’re living in a city of champions, and we intend to carry on the tradition of winning for our new friends and fans here,” Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri said in a statement. “But home is where the heart is, and our hearts are in Toronto. We think often of our fans, of our Scotiabank Arena family, and all those we are missing back home, and we can’t wait until we can all be together again.”
The Raptors have enjoyed only a slight “home-court” advantage in Tampa so far in 2020/21, going 6-5 in home games and 6-8 on the road.
The team hosted fans at Amalie Arena at a reduced capacity earlier in the season but later reversed course and closed its doors. The stated reason was the rise of COVID-19 cases in the area, but the fact that many of the fans in attendance were cheering for Raptors’ visiting opponents may have played a part as well.
Raptors Notes: Ujiri, Powell, G League, Trade Eligibility
Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Alan Strickland, who filed a lawsuit against Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri following an altercation at the end of Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals, has dropped that suit, as Lisa Fernandez of KTVU FOX 2 reports.
Near the end of the Raptors’ Finals-clinching win in Oakland, Ujiri attempted to get onto the court for the celebration and was stopped by Strickland, who claimed that Ujiri didn’t have the proper credentials and that the Raptors president assaulted him. Body-camera footage released later showed Ujiri attempting to present his credentials and Strickland shoving him twice before Ujiri shoved back in retaliation.
“Masai has been completely vindicated, as we always knew he would be,” Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, the Raptors’ ownership group, said in a statement (link via Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca). “… We continue to be deeply troubled by the fact that Masai was put in this position in the first plae, and believe he should never have had to defend himself. Masai is taking some time to process the ordeal, and intends to address it publicly at a later date.”
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- After getting off to a slow start this season, Norman Powell is on a roll lately, averaging 23.4 PPG on .507/.475/.872 shooting in nine games since entering the starting lineup on January 22. As Blake Murphy of The Athletic writes, Powell’s success will create some challenging decisions for the team in the short term – whether he’ll continue starting when OG Anunoby returns – and in the long term, since Powell can reach unrestricted free agency this summer.
- The Raptors 905 – Toronto’s G League affiliate – received NBAGL Franchise of the Year honors for the 2019/20 season, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. Per the announcement, the club was recognized not only for its play on the court, but its “excellent behind-the-scenes work” and activity in the community. “We said when Raptors 905 started that we intended to make this the best franchise in the G League, and we are really proud that we’ve been recognized for that,” Ujiri said in a statement.
- While Aron Baynes and DeAndre’ Bembry became trade-eligible last weekend, a handful of Raptors players still can’t be dealt. Paul Watson‘s trade restrictions will lift on February 25, while Chris Boucher and Fred VanVleet will be ineligible to be moved until March 3.
Lonzo Ball Meets Starter Criteria
Having started his 21st game of the season on Wednesday night, Pelicans guard Lonzo Ball has now met the “starter criteria,” which will have a significant impact on the value of his qualifying offer this offseason.
The starter criteria applies to players who will be eligible for restricted free agency at season’s end. Typically, a player is required to average 41 starts during the two seasons prior to his free agency to meet the criteria, but that threshold has been adjusted and varies from player to player this year, since each of the last two NBA seasons have been shortened.
In Ball’s case, the Pelicans played 64 games prior to the hiatus last season and will play 72 this season, for a total of 136. He needed to start half of them (34 per year, or 68 in total) to meet the starter criteria. After starting 47 of those pre-hiatus contests a year ago, he now has 21 starts this season.
In order to make a player a restricted free agent, a team must extend him a qualifying offer, which is essentially a guaranteed one-year contract offer that gives the team the right of first refusal on a rival offer sheet. Meeting the starter criteria makes a player eligible for a larger qualifying offer than he would have been if he’d fallen short of that criteria.
That difference is especially important for Ball, whose qualifying offer would only have been worth about $7MM if he hadn’t reached the starter criteria. Now, his QO – assuming he receives one – will be worth $14.36MM.
Ball has been the subject of some recent trade rumors, so there’s no guarantee that he’ll still be a Pelican when he reaches free agency later this year. However, he has played some of his best basketball as of late, averaging 17.3 PPG, 5.8 RPG, and 4.8 APG on .476/.484/.909 shooting in his last eight games. If he continues to produce at that level, his team at season’s end – whether it’s New Orleans or another franchise – likely won’t bat an eye at issuing that $14MM+ QO.
Ball is the third RFA-to-be to meet the starter criteria this season, joining Devonte’ Graham and Duncan Robinson.
Bulls Notes: Porter, Hutchison, Markkanen, Trade Market
Bulls forward Otto Porter Jr. hasn’t played since February 1 because of a lower back issue and it doesn’t sound like he’ll return for a while, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. Coach Billy Donovan said Porter has made only “incremental gains” in his rehab process and no timetable is in place for him to play again.
‘‘(Porter’s) still dealing with discomfort,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘It’s been very, very limited for him. Obviously, part of the rehab and recovery is to work on some strengthening and some mobility in his lower back, but he’s still dealing with some symptoms in his lower back. He’s made some incremental gains, but I wouldn’t say he’s really made some significant gains. Some of his rehab has been maybe limited to how he’s feeling a little bit, so there’s certain things he can do physically and other things he can’t do.’’
The Bulls are concerned that Porter’s back problems might be a recurring issue, according to Cowley. Porter is in the final year of his contract, so he’ll want to be careful not to damage his back any further heading into free agency.
There’s more from Chicago:
- The Bulls aren’t putting any pressure on Chandler Hutchison, who is out indefinitely for personal reasons, Cowley adds in the same story. No details have been released on Hutchison’s situation, but Cowley says the team is giving him time to handle some personal matters. ‘‘He’s working on some of the things that are challenges right now, but a lot of it is going to be on his timetable on how he’s doing,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘But he’s in constant dialogue, he’s around the team, he’s around the guys and I have great respect for the way he’s handled himself and the line of communication, how open and honest he’s been. We’ll look forward to getting him back, but it’s really going to be on him to see how he’s progressing and how he’s doing.’’
- Lauri Markkanen is sidelined two to four weeks with a sprained shoulder and he believes he can make his recovery time closer to two weeks, according to Jamal Collier of The Chicago Tribune. “When it happened, I was frustrated and disappointed,” Markkanen said. “I did everything on my part to not have this happen. That’s part of the game unfortunately. I feel better — I would say not every day, there are bumps in the road — but I do feel better now compared to when it happened.”
- A 9-14 start could push the Bulls to become sellers on the trade market fairly soon, Cowley suggests in a separate story. He adds that no players should be considered untouchable, even first-round pick Patrick Williams.