Heat’s Markieff Morris Close To Returning
Forward Markieff Morris has received medical clearance to return for the Heat, as Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press details.
Morris has missed 58 straight games with whiplash after a controversial incident between Morris and Nikola Jokic on November 8. Both players were ejected from the game, with Jokic receiving a one-game suspension.
It was reported a little over a month ago that Morris was eager to return to action, but the Heat were concerned with potential liability issues and were unwilling to clear him. Morris had a previous neck injury in 2019.
However, a source tells Reynolds that Morris has cleared a vital hurdle — he was deemed “medically able and medically fit to practice and play” by the NBA’s Fitness-to-Play Panel, which consists of three physicians.
According to Reynolds, the belief is the veteran will be available to play at some point during Miami’s current stretch of home games. The Heat face the Wolves on Saturday, the Pistons on Tuesday, and the Thunder next Friday.
Morris has been traveling and practicing with the team for several weeks, as well as doing pregame shooting sessions prior to games. Morris, 32, is averaging 7.7 points and 2.8 rebounds on .457/.364/1.000 shooting through 10 games this season (18.7 minutes).
Dillon Brooks Expected To Return Next Week For Grizzlies
Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said on Friday that Dillon Brooks is expected to return for the team’s upcoming road trip, Tim MacMahon of ESPN tweets.
Brooks has been playing five-on-five as he recovers from a left ankle sprain that has sidelined him since January 8 — he has missed the past 26 games (27 including Friday’s contest vs. New York).
Memphis has three games next week, all on the road — March 13 at Oklahoma City, March 15 at Indiana, and March 18 at Atlanta. The Grizzlies finish out the road trip on Sunday, March 20, at Houston. Brooks could return at any point during the four-game stretch, depending on how he’s feeling.
The 26-year-old is in his fifth season in the NBA, all with Memphis. Through 21 games (28 minutes) this season, he’s averaging 18.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.3 steals on .426/.327/.889 shooting. Brooks is a strong, versatile defender and is known as a locker room leader.
Brooks has unfortunately been beset by a number of issues this season. First, he missed the team’s first 10 games while recovering from a fractured left hand that he suffered over the summer.
He was able to play for about a month-and-a-half, then he entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols at the end of December and missed six games. In just his second game back after clearing the protocols, he suffered the sprained ankle.
Brooks’ return will be a welcome boost for the ascendant Grizzlies, who currently hold a 45-22 record, good for the second seed in the West.
Anfernee Simons Out At Least 1-2 Weeks
Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons has been diagnosed with mild patellar tendinopathy in his left knee after an MRI on Thursday, the team announced. He’s set to be reevaluated in one-to-two weeks.
Simons has missed Portland’s last two games while dealing with the injury. Through 57 games this season, the 22-year-old is averaging career-highs of 17.3 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 29.5 minutes. He sports an efficient shooting slash line of .443/.405/.888 (.583 true).
Simons was the No. 24 overall pick of the 2018 draft. He’s a candidate for the Most Improved Player award after seeing his numbers increase across the board. His emergence this season is a primary reason why the team opted to trade CJ McCollum to the Pelicans last month.
The combo guard will be a restricted free agent this summer and will receive a significant raise on the $3,938,818 he’s making this season. Simons said a few weeks ago that he plans to re-sign with the Blazers.
“I 100% want to stay in Portland,” Simons said, per Ben Pickman of Sports Illustrated. “And I think everybody wants me to stay as well. I think it’s a perfect fit for me.”
After losing six straight games, the Blazers are currently 25-40, the No. 11 seed in the West. They trail New Orleans by one-and-a-half games for the final spot in the play-in tournament.
Rockets To Guarantee Salaries Of Garrison Mathews, K.J. Martin For 2022/23
The Rockets will guarantee the salaries of both Garrison Mathews and Kenyon Martin Jr. for next season, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon (Twitter link).
Both players had non-guaranteed contracts for 2022/23, but Houston decided to reward them for their efforts this season. Mathews is set to earn $2MM next season, while Martin will make $1,782,621, per Spotrac.
Mathews, 25, started the season on a two-way contract but was later converted to a standard deal after several strong performances in place of the injured Jalen Green.
Through 49 games (27.2 MPG) this season, including 21 starts, Mathews is averaging 11.0 PPG and 3.2 RPG on .410/.367/.810 shooting, good for a 61.4 true shooting percentage. His relatively low field goal percentage is deceiving, because 82% of his attempts have come from three-point range.
Martin, 21, was the No. 52 overall pick of the 2020 draft. He’s in his second season with the Rockets, and his stats from the two seasons are quite similar.
He’s averaging 8.9 PPG and 3.9 RPG this season (20.6 MPG, 63 games) after putting up 9.3 PPG and 5.4 RPG last season (23.7 MPG, 45 games). Martin is a hyper-athletic forward and has some amassed some impressive highlights in his short career.
As MacMahon observes (via Twitter), both players have proven to be valuable role players for the young Rockets, who view the two as pieces of their long-term plans. The rebuilding team is currently 17-49, the second-worst record in the league, as shown in our reverse standings.
Warriors Notes: Wiseman, Poole, Wiggins, Thompson
Warriors center James Wiseman returned to the court on Thursday for the first time in 11 months, playing for the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G League after recovering from a pair of procedures on his knee. As Anthony Slater of The Athletic writes, Wiseman had to shake off some rust, but had a productive outing, scoring 18 points and grabbing six rebounds in just 21 minutes.
According to Slater, the plan is for Wiseman to review film of the game on Friday, practice with Santa Cruz on Saturday, and play in another G League contest on Sunday. After that, Golden State will determine whether or not he’s ready to make his NBA return.
Here’s more on the Warriors:
- Jordan Poole‘s dagger three-pointers in the final minute of the Warriors’ Thursday win over Denver was the latest example of the 22-year-old’s ability to rise to big moments, according to Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic, who says Poole’s regular season performance bodes well for his odds of playing an important role in the team’s playoff run.
- Conversely, Andrew Wiggins‘ game has taken a “taken a precipitous decline” as of late, writes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. Wiggins has made just 34.6% of his free throw attempts since January, prompting Poole to wonder whether the All-Star forward can still be a regular part of crunch-time lineups this spring if he doesn’t turn things around soon.
- Klay Thompson‘s shooting numbers this season – including 34.5% from the floor and 28.8% on threes in his last seven games – remain well below his career rates. But head coach Steve Kerr isn’t worried about the veteran sharpshooter, who is still working his way back into top form following a two-and-a-half year absence due to ACL and Achilles tears. “The only thing that I’m stressing with Klay right now is to just get great shots,” Kerr said on Thursday, per Josh Schrock of NBC Sports Bay Area. “If he’s not open, to move it on. I think we’ve really tried to give Klay a lot of freedom in his comeback, just to be able to feel the game. Not to harp on mistakes and that sort of thing. But the bottom line is we are at our best when the ball moves, and we’re getting good shots.”
Pelicans Release Alize Johnson, Officially Sign Tyrone Wallace
The Pelicans have terminated Alize Johnson‘s 10-day contract a day early, clearing room on the roster to officially sign Tyrone Wallace to a 10-day deal, the team announced today in a press release. Both transactions are official.
Wallace, who has appeared in 106 NBA regular season games for the Clippers and Hawks, has spent this season with the Long Island Nets in the G League. He has averaged 18.2 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 4.3 APG on .483/.436/.727 shooting in 20 appearances (33.4 MPG) for Brooklyn’s NBAGL affiliate.
Word first broke on Thursday that Wallace would sign a 10-day deal with the Pelicans after CJ McCollum entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Placing McCollum in the protocols gives New Orleans a COVID-related hardship exception, allowing them to add a 16th man. But the team chose to use the final spot on its standard 15-man roster to sign Wallace, which is why Johnson had to be released.
It’s possible that the Pelicans will now use their hardship exception to re-sign Johnson to a new 10-day deal. Since COVID-related hardship signings don’t count toward a player’s limit of two 10-day contracts with the same team, it makes sense that the team would use that hardship exception on a player who has already signed a standard 10-day deal, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks observed (via Twitter).
Johnson has appeared in three games since signing last Wednesday, averaging 3.0 PPG and 4.0 RPG in 8.0 minutes per contest. He’ll be a free agent immediately, without having to pass through waivers.
Hoops Rumors’ 10-Day Contract Tracker
Due primarily to the league-wide COVID-19 outbreak in December and January – and all the replacement players required during that outbreak – the 2021/22 NBA season has been a record-setting one for 10-day contracts.
By our count, the number of 10-day contracts signed this season has reached a staggering 196, and will increase to 197 once the Pelicans‘ reported deal with Tyrone Wallace is officially finalized. We’ve tracked every single one of those signings using our 10-day contract tracker. The full list of this season’s 10-day pacts can be found right here.
Besides featuring all of this year’s 10-day deals, our 10-day contract tracker includes information on all 10-day contracts signed since the 2006/07 season. The search filters in the database make it easy to sort by team, player and year. For instance, if you want to see all the 10-day contracts that the Lakers have signed in recent years, you can do so here.
You can also use the tracker to identify which 10-day deals remain active. That list, which can be found right here, is as follows:
- Charlotte Hornets: Isaiah Thomas (runs through 3/11)
- New Orleans Pelicans: Alize Johnson (runs through 3/11)
- Portland Trail Blazers: Drew Eubanks (runs through 3/13)
- Boston Celtics: Malik Fitts (runs through 3/14)
- Boston Celtics: Kelan Martin (runs through 3/14)
- Toronto Raptors: Armoni Brooks (runs through 3/15)
- Cleveland Cavaliers: Moses Brown (runs through 3/19)
Players are typically prohibited from signing more than two 10-day contracts with the same team in a given league year. Since Thomas, Johnson, Brooks, and Brown are on their first 10-day contracts with their respective clubs, they’ll be eligible to sign at least one more.
Eubanks would also be eligible to continue signing 10-day deals with the Trail Blazers, since his first two have been completed using an injury-related hardship exception — those hardship deals don’t count toward the limit.
Fitts and Martin are on their second standard 10-day deals with Boston, so they won’t be eligible to sign a third unless Boston qualifies for a hardship exception. The Celtics will either have to sign them to rest-of-season contracts or let them go after their current deals expire on Monday night.
Community Shootaround: Most Improved Player
The NBA’s Most Improved Player award is often the one that generates the most crowded field of candidates. While there are only so many legitimate contenders in a given season for awards like Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year, there could be dozens of players who have decent cases for MIP consideration.
This season, however, oddsmakers believe there’s a clear-cut frontrunner for Most Improved Player honors — betting sites like Bovada.lv and BetOnline.ag have made Grizzlies guard Ja Morant the overwhelming favorite. If you want to place a wager at BetOnline on Morant to win the award, you have to risk $2,000 just to potentially win $100.
Morant has certainly taken a leap in his third NBA season. His scoring average has increased from 19.1 PPG to 27.5 PPG, and his shooting percentages have improved too, from .449/.303/.728 a year ago to .495/.346/.763 in 2021/22. The ascendant point guard has led the Grizzlies to a 45-22 record, the second-best mark in the NBA.
As ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Tim Bontemps observed this week on The Hoop Collective podcast (video link), Morant has gone from missing the All-Star team in his first two seasons to becoming an All-NBA lock and a viable MVP candidate, which Bontemps calls “the hardest leap to make.” That’s why he looks like the safe bet to take home the Most Improved Player award this spring.
But is Morant a lock? Hornets forward Miles Bridges, Cavaliers guard Darius Garland, Spurs guard Dejounte Murray, Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons, and Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey are among the next-best candidates listed at Bovada and BetOnline.
Bridges’ shooting numbers have dipped a little this year with his increased usage rate, but he has increased his scoring average from 12.7 PPG to 19.8 PPG and is putting up career highs in almost every other key category.
Garland has put up 21.0 PPG and 8.2 APG with a .480 FG% (all career highs) while playing a crucial role in the Cavaliers’ unexpected turnaround, but he had already established a pretty impressive baseline (17.4 PPG, 6.1 APG, .451 FG%) in his sophomore season in 2020/21.
Murray has taken his game to another level in his sixth season, with 20.6 PPG, 9.4 APG, and 8.4 RPG (all career highs) to go along with an NBA-best 2.1 SPG. The Spurs’ 25-41 record may hurt his case, however.
None of these candidates has improved his scoring numbers more than Simons, who averaged 7.8 PPG last season and is up to 17.3 PPG in 2021/22, without a drop in efficiency. Simons has benefited from an increased role, but his per-minute numbers are also the best of his career.
Maxey, meanwhile, helped the Sixers remain in the playoff mix this season with Ben Simmons absent, with 17.4 PPG and 4.4 APG on .481/.419/.864 shooting after playing a limited role as a rookie. It’s worth noting though that some voters shy away from second-year players, since it’s considered a given that most will take a significant step forward.
What do you think? Is Morant a lock to win this year’s Most Improved Player award? Do you think Bridges, Garland, Murray, Simons, Maxey, or someone else has a stronger case?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
Pelicans Notes: Zion, Ingram, Alvarado, Roster
Pelicans forward Zion Williamson has officially rejoined the team, having been spotted today at New Orleans’ shootaround, as Andrew Lopez of ESPN tweets.
Reports last week indicated that Williamson would be returning to New Orleans after spending much of the winter rehabbing his foot injury on the West Coast. The former No. 1 overall pick moved his rehab to Portland in early January.
Williamson’s return to the Pelicans doesn’t necessarily mean his return his imminent, but his recovery from foot surgery is believed to be trending in a positive direction again following a couple setbacks earlier in the season. If he’s able to play before the regular season ends, it would make the Pels all the more dangerous entering next month’s play-in tournament.
“It’s good. It’s good for him,” Pelicans guard Devonte’ Graham said on Friday (Twitter link via Christian Clark of NOLA.com). “I know he missed being here. Just being around your family, your brothers. It was a warm welcome when he came back. Just want to see him healthy. That’s all.”
Here’s more on the Pelicans:
- In a Hoop Collective segment (video link), ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, Tim Bontemps, and Tim MacMahon debate whether the Pelicans are more likely to extend, trade, or stay the course with Williamson during the 2022 offseason.
- With Williamson sidelined for the entire season, Brandon Ingram has taken on more responsibilities in 2021/22, making an effort to be more of a leader despite having a quieter, more reserved personality, writes Will Guillory of The Athletic. “We just have a really good group of guys, and we all care for each other. We all want to see each other at our best,” Ingram said. “I just try to share my experiences to help those guys and let them know I’m there for them when they need me. It’s also good for me when I go up to those guys and tell them what I see, because it helps me get out of my own head. Once I do that, it’s easier to focus on the moment and play the game the right way.”
- Ingram’s teammates have been impressed by what they’ve seen from him this season, as Guillory details in the same story. “He’s just growing up in this role. He’s more locked in,” Naji Marshall told The Athletic. “Not saying that he wasn’t last year, but I feel like this year, he’s taking it personal. Whether it’s not getting the recognition from people or not making All-Star, he’s taking it all personal. It’s showing on and off the court. You can’t question how special that dude is.”
- As an undrafted free agent on a two-way contract, rookie guard Jose Alvarado wasn’t expected to play a major role for the Pelicans this season, but he has exceeded all expectations and leads first-year players in plus-minus, says Christian Clark of NOLA.com. The Pelicans have a +12.4 net rating when Alvarado plays, compared to -4.6 when he sits.
- In case you missed it, the Pelicans are set to sign Tyrone Wallace to a 10-day contract after placing CJ McCollum in the health and safety protocols. Alize Johnson currently occupies the club’s 15th roster spot on a 10-day deal that will expire tonight — New Orleans could re-sign him and add Wallace by completing one of the signings using the COVID-related hardship allowance, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets.
Heat Rumors: Herro, Robinson, Oladipo, Martin, Offseason
Heat guard Tyler Herro is the frontrunner to win the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2022, having averaged 20.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 3.9 APG in 32.7 MPG this season while coming off the bench in 44 of his 54 appearances. Herro is having his breakout year at the right time — he’ll be eligible for a rookie scale extension this offseason.
According to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report, some rival executives and agents believe Herro’s next deal could approach the maximum salary. Others believe it’ll be a step below that and have used Jaylen Brown‘s four-year extension with Boston – which had a base value of $103MM, plus $12MM in incentives – as a point of comparison. Recent four-year, $85MM contracts for the likes of Fred VanVleet and Lonzo Ball have also set a potential baseline for Herro, Fischer observes.
There are still people around the NBA who believe Herro could be the “odd man out” if the Heat try to land another star, Fischer writes. “We all know Miami goes big-fish hunting,” one general manager told Bleacher Report. Still, until an obvious big-name target emerges, it seems likely that Herro’s future will be in Miami, where he’s highly valued.
Here’s more on the Heat from Fischer:
- Assuming Miami is unable to add a star player this offseason, the team’s biggest summer move could involve sharpshooter Duncan Robinson. Fischer says league personnel view Robinson as the Heat’s most logical trade chip, and sources tell Bleacher Report that the club gauged his value prior to February’s trade deadline, though no discussions ever got serious. The Heat would love to add another impact player in the frontcourt and have shown interest in Rockets big man Christian Wood and Hornets forward P.J. Washington, among others, Fischer adds.
- Victor Oladipo and Caleb Martin, both of whom will be free agents after the season, have strong interest in remaining with the Heat, sources tell Fischer.
- People around the NBA believe last month’s KZ Okpala trade that freed up Miami’s 2023 first-round pick to be dealt could be a precursor to a potential offseason move, says Fischer. “They are the best in the league at lining up for a big move,” a Western Conference executive said. Another source suggested to Fischer that Miami always has “plans for every actuality,” so the team isn’t necessarily zeroed in one specific target.