Wolves Notes: Edwards, Dosunmu, Finch, Randle
According to Timberwolves guard Mike Conley, “nobody” expected Anthony Edwards to be available for Game 1 of the second round on Monday after he suffered a left knee injury just nine days earlier that was projected to sideline him for multiple weeks.
However, as Anthony Slater of ESPN writes, Edwards made significant progress in his recovery over the weekend and was upgraded to questionable before being listed as available. The star guard was limited to 25 minutes off the bench, but scored 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting as Minnesota became the only one of four road teams to win Game 1.
“I know for a fact that me being out there calms everybody down,” Edwards said after the victory.
While Edwards presumably isn’t feeling 100%, he came through Game 1 with no setbacks, head coach Chris Finch said on Tuesday. According to Slater (Twitter link), it remains to be seen whether Edwards will be able to increase his minutes limit beyond that range of 25 in Game 2, but the plan was for him to do some light work and receive treatment on Tuesday in preparation for Wednesday’s contest.
Here’s more on the Wolves:
- Both Edwards and guard Ayo Dosunmu (right calf) are listed as questionable to play in Game 3, the Wolves announced (via Twitter). Dosunmu missed Game 6 of the first round vs. Denver as well as Game 1 vs. San Antonio due to that calf issue.
- Although the Wolves won Monday’s game, head coach Chris Finch is doing what he can to make sure the officials keep a closer eye on Spurs star Victor Wembanyama after the Defensive Player of the Year registered a playoff-record 12 blocked shots in Game 1. Speaking on Tuesday to reporters, including Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic, Finch said he thought at least four of those 12 blocks should have been goaltends. “Maybe even a fifth,” he said. “To me, it’s a little alarming that none of them were called. Here’s a generational shot blocker who is 7-6, who goes after everything, and there’s no heightened awareness that these blocks could be goaltends?”
- With Edwards leading the offense, Rudy Gobert anchoring the defense, and Jaden McDaniels emerging as a two-way star, Julius Randle has flown somewhat under the radar in Minnesota this spring. However, the three-time All-Star forward is a crucial part of the Wolves’ game plan against San Antonio due to his ability to be physical with Wembanyama and the Spurs’ front line, writes Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. “He’s the strongest player on the floor,” teammate Terrence Shannon Jr. said of Randle. “You know he can use his physicality against anybody. Any of them.”
Northwest Notes: Braun, Wallace, Love, Nurkic, Blazers
After signing a five-year, $125MM rookie scale extension with the Nuggets last October, Christian Braun had a down year. As Bennett Durando of The Denver Post details (subscription required), an ankle injury limited Braun to 44 regular season appearances and his three-point percentage dropped to 30.1%, easily a career low.
“I was rewarded for my work on my rookie deal, so I understand the expectations are higher, and I need to be better,” Braun said. “That just is what it is. So as an individual, I understand I need to get better. I need to play better. I get to get healthy, first and foremost. But there is no excuse.”
That left ankle injury – a severe sprain that included torn ligaments – was a recurring issue throughout the season and continued to swell up in the playoffs, Durando writes. Braun also sustained a left calf injury in Game 1 of the first round, two sources tell The Denver Post, which further limited his jumping ability. Still, the 25-year-old insisted that a disappointing year for both him and the team couldn’t be simply chalked up to health issues.
“A first-round exit’s not acceptable. We’ve gotta bounce back,” Braun said. “We’ve gotta get to work. … You can kind of put it on my shoulders. I think this team wasn’t resilient enough in the playoffs. … I just think I’m the leader of this team. I’m the vocal leader of this team. And when we don’t play well as a whole, you can blame whatever you want … You can blame anything. But I didn’t play well enough as an individual, and I didn’t have this team ready enough to play in a tough series. So we’ll be better. I’ll be better. I’m looking forward to next year, when we can respond.”
As Durando points out, while a cap-strapped Nuggets team may explore the possibility of trading Braun as his pricey extension begins, the widespread belief is that Denver would need to attach an asset or two to incentivize a team to take on that five-year contract. With that in mind, it’s more likely that Braun sticks around and gets a chance to rebuild his value with a bounce-back season in 2026/27.
We have more from around the Northwest:
- The Thunder – who have had the NBA’s best defense in each of the past two seasons – have no shortage of standouts on that end of the court, but Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman contends that third-year guard Cason Wallace deserves to be singled out with an All-Defensive nod this spring. “He leads the league in steals,” Luguentz Dort said of his teammate. “That says it all. The way he’s active with his hands, it’s really not easy to do. I’ve been trying, and obviously it’s not the same result. Just what he brings on that end of the floor, he’s active with his hands and he can move his feet really well. He’s really fast, and he’s stronger than people think as well. There’s a lot of stuff he does defensively that’s hard to do.”
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) previews what he believes may be the Trail Blazers‘ “most pivotal offseason in at least a decade,” examining the team’s cap situation and considering whether the time is right for the front office to make a major trade. It might make sense for Portland to cash in this summer on some of its excess first-round picks, Gozlan argues, since the teams those first-rounders are coming from – Orlando and Milwaukee – may improve in the coming years, reducing the value of their picks.
- Veteran big men Kevin Love and Jusuf Nurkic have expressed interest in remaining in Utah, prompting Sarah Todd of The Deseret News to consider whether the Jazz should want them back. Given that Love will likely be signing a minimum-salary contract, he’s probably more likely to return than Nurkic, whose future could hinge largely on his price tag in free agency, Todd writes.
Players Eligible For Rookie Scale Extensions In 2026
After the NBA’s 2026/27 league year begins this summer and the July moratorium ends, players eligible for free agency will be able to begin officially finalizing contract agreements with suitors. In addition to those free agents, another group of players will also become eligible to sign new deals.
For players who are entering the fourth and final year of their rookie scale contracts, the first day of the new league year (July 1) is the first day they can agree to rookie scale extensions. Those players, who were all 2023 first-round selections, will have until the day before the 2026/27 regular season starts to finalize long-term agreements with their current teams.
Players eligible for rookie scale extensions can sign new deals that run for up to five years, with those contracts taking effect beginning in 2027/28. If they don’t sign extensions during the coming offseason, those players will be eligible for restricted free agency in the summer of 2027.
Nine players who were eligible for rookie scale extensions during the 2025 offseason signed new deals, which represented a slight dip from recent years. From 2021-24, at least 11 players signed rookie scale extensions every year, including a record-setting 14 in 2023. Still, 2025 represented the seventh consecutive year in which there have been at least nine rookie scale recipients.
We should expect several more rookie scale extensions to be signed between July and October of this year.
Here are the players who will be eligible to sign rookie scale extensions during the 2026 offseason:
- Anthony Black (Magic)
- Noah Clowney (Nets)
- Bilal Coulibaly (Wizards)
- Gradey Dick (Raptors)
- Keyonte George (Jazz)
- Jordan Hawkins (Pelicans)
- Scoot Henderson (Trail Blazers)
- Taylor Hendricks (Grizzlies)
- Jaime Jaquez Jr. (Heat)
- Dereck Lively II (Mavericks)
- Brandon Miller (Hornets)
- Kris Murray (Trail Blazers)
- Brandin Podziemski (Warriors)
- Marcus Sasser (Pistons)
- Brice Sensabaugh (Jazz)
- Ben Sheppard (Pacers)
- Julian Strawther (Nuggets)
- Amen Thompson (Rockets)
- Ausar Thompson (Pistons)
- Jarace Walker (Pacers)
- Cason Wallace (Thunder)
- Victor Wembanyama (Spurs)
- Cam Whitmore (Wizards)
The following players were selected in the first round of the 2023 draft along with the players listed above. However, they aren’t eligible for rookie scale extensions this year for the reasons noted:
- Kobe Brown: Fourth-year option declined by Clippers in 2025.
- Kobe Bufkin: Waived by Nets in 2025.
- Jalen Hood-Schifino: Third-year option declined by Lakers in 2024; waived in 2025.
- Jett Howard: Fourth-year option declined by Magic in 2025.
- Olivier-Maxence Prosper: Waived by Mavericks in 2025.
- Nick Smith Jr.: Waived by Hornets in 2025.
- Dariq Whitehead: Waived by Nets in 2025.
Lakers’ Jarred Vanderbilt Dislocates Pinky Finger
Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt suffered a full dislocation of his right pinky finger during Game 1 of their series against the Thunder on Tuesday, ESPN’s Shams Charania tweets.
As The California Post’s Khobi Price writes, Vanderbilt was injured during the first half attempting to block an alley-oop for Chet Holmgren. Vanderbilt’s right pinky hit the backboard as he swiped for the ball.
The 6-foot-8 forward immediately went to the ground in pain, holding his right hand near the Thunder bench. Some Oklahoma City players turned away when they saw Vanderbilt’s hand.
The loss of Vanderbilt would remove a wing/frontcourt option for the underdog Lakers, who are already waiting for superstar Luka Doncic to return from his hamstring injury. The veteran averaged 3.6 points and 4.4 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game against Houston during the first round.
Vanderbilt was benched during the decisive Game 6 after playing just six minutes in Game 5. He appeared in 65 games during the regular season, averaging 4.4 points and 4.5 rebounds per contest.
Oklahoma City went on to win the opener, 108-90. Once Vanderbilt came out in the first half, the Lakers essentially went with an eight-man rotation until garbage time.
Vanderbilt has two years remaining on his four-year, $48MM deal.
Pacers Hopeful Of Retaining Pick But Won’t Regret Zubac Deal
The NBA will hold its annual draft lottery on Sunday. If the Pacers have some lottery luck, they’ll retain their top-four protected pick. If they drop out of the top four, they’ll convey the pick, courtesy of the Ivica Zubac trade with the Clippers.
Should Indiana drop out of the No. 2 spot to No. 5 or 6, there will be no regrets, given that Zubac is viewed as the team’s long-term solution at center.
“When we made the trade, obviously we knew there was risk involved as there is in any other trade,” Pacers GM Chad Buchanan said in a recent radio interview relayed by the Indianapolis Star’s Dustin Dopirak. “With the draft pick involved, we looked at the finances of the situation and the scenario where you keep the pick, the scenario where you lose the pick. We felt that both scenarios provided opportunities to help our team be better next year.
“We don’t want to be standing on the sidelines watching teams go for a trophy. We feel like we have a team that showed us these last two years that we are in that mix when we’re healthy. Shame on us if we don’t try to help put this team in position to have another couple runs at it. If we’re always thinking long, long, long-term, you never step up to the plate and swing.”
The Pacers have never had the No. 1 overall pick. They had the No. 2 pick in 1988, when they selected big man Rik Smits. They have a 14% shot at the top pick and a 52.1% chance to get a top-four pick, with a 47.9% chance that it’s conveyed to the Clippers.
Zubac played just five games after the February trade, spending a month recovering from an ankle injury and then ending his season with a fractured rib. However, he averaged a double-double for the Clippers before the trade (14.1 PPG and 10.6 RPG) and made the All-Defensive second team in 2024/25.
“The core of this comes down to Ivica is a great player,” Buchanan said. “We’ve been a big believer, a big fan of him for a long time. This team has shown that it’s capable of doing some really special things. We were missing a starting center that we thought could keep us in that mix. We owed it to this group and these fans and our community to put us in position to try and do and replicate some of the things we’ve seen these last two years from this team.”
There will be “disappointment” if the Pacers have to send their first-rounder to the Clippers, but Buchanan is prepared to pivot.
“Should we lose the pick, there’s other opportunities to improve our team through free agency,” Buchanan said. “We still have trades. We gain a pick that we can use in the future for a trade. We feel like there’s a way to improve our team either way with the ping-pong balls, however they fall for us. We’re not putting all our eggs into one basket that, ‘Hey, if we don’t keep this pick, it’s doom and gloom,’ because it’s not. “
There’s a specific need he wants to address, with or without the lottery selection.
“One thing this season revealed for us is the need for some scoring off our bench, I think will be important, probably from the wing position,” Buchanan said.
The Pacers project to have roughly $200MM in salary on their books for 2026/27, including non-guaranteed contracts and team options, according to Tony East of Forbes.com. That number will increase if they retain the pick, which would carry a cap hold of at least $10MM+. Without the pick, they’d have access to at least some of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception as well as exploring trade avenues.
“There’s a pretty significant salary slot for a top-four pick,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “Theoretically, there’s the opportunity to use that money, if it’s not being spent on a high draft pick, on some players in free agency or use that gap of money to be a part of another transaction that could help us. Time will tell.”
Jaylen Brown Fined $50K For Ripping Officials
Celtics forward Jaylen Brown has been fined $50K by the league for public criticism of the officiating, the league office announced on Tuesday (via Twitter).
Brown made his comments during a Twitch live stream on Sunday following the Celtics’ 109-100 loss to the Sixers in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series.
He accused officials of having “an agenda” against him. He also called out Sixers center Joel Embiid for flopping, saying it has “ruined our game.”
“Joel Embiid is a great player. One of the best bigs in basketball history. [But he] flops. He know it,” Brown said. “This ain’t breaking news. It is what it is.”
At one point during his comments, Brown showed a video of Philadelphia forward Paul George seeming to push off slightly before making a move. Brown, who was whistled for 10 offensive fouls during the series – twice as many as any other player in the first round – claims he isn’t officiated the same as everyone else.
“If you’re going to call push-offs, call that,” Brown said. “Same move. Same refs. Oh, it’s nothing? It’s play on, right? But you gonna call me? Everybody does it … but if it would have been me, it’d have been an offensive foul.”
Brown was called for 40 offensive fouls during the regular season, second only to Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns. However, foul calls were roughly even during the seven-game series, with 136 on the Celtics and 132 on the Sixers.
Brown averaged 25.7 points per game during the series, the best postseason scoring numbers of his career, while shooting 45.5% from the floor and 40.5% from beyond the arc. He was whistled for 3.0 fouls per game.
“Every good basketball player does this. What are y’all talking about? They clearly had an agenda,” Brown added in reference to George’s alleged push-off. “If Jaylen does this move, call the offensive foul and follow him every time. I don’t know if it’s because I pissed the refs off. I’ve been critical about them, and I called them out a bunch of times. So, they were like, ‘You know what, I got you in the playoffs. Watch this.’ [Because] that’s exactly what they did. It’s clearly an agenda. Look at the same move. Some referees that if I had to choose, if I had to, like, say there’s some referees that need to be investigated. We had three of them in the last three games.”
Brown also blasted the officiating after being ejected from a March 10 game against the Spurs for complaining about a no-call. He was fined $35K for his comments at that time.
Hawks Notes: NAW, Johnson, Playoff Loss, Workouts
Nickeil Alexander-Walker was named the league’s Most Improved Player. Following the Hawks‘ loss to the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs, the 27-year-old expressed a desire to improve his game even further.
“I think for me, it allowed me to reshape my focus, to say, ‘You know what, I have a chance at making something special of this situation. I get to respond next year, try to go to the playoffs,’” Alexander-Walker he told Lauren Williams of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “And, after losing the way we did, how I approach the game and having a whole season now under my belt and growing into it, and ‘OK, I can be so much better. This is how I improve.’ And then hopefully next year is different.”
Alexander-Walker sees the team continuing to improve, an exciting proposition for a player who signed a four-year contract prior to the season.
“It’s exciting and it’s promising,” he said. “And it shows that there is something there. Anytime you can have success to any degree when you work really hard, it’s reassuring to the process that you’re on. And it gives you that trial and error to say, ‘OK, we are doing the right thing. This is the right thing. Now, where did we go wrong along the way?’ Then you kind of, like, just reshape it and keep going and keep growing.”
Here’s more on the Hawks:
- The Knicks held Jalen Johnson to 19.5 points per game on 43.5 overall shooting and 29 percent from long range in the first round. Johnson vows to be better the next time he gets into a postseason series. “If I’m being honest, it was just bad,” Johnson said, per Williams. “It was a terrible feeling. Unacceptable. Like I said, there’s plenty of room for growth, and we’re going to continue to grow from this. We’re going to learn a lot from this series, and just making sure the non-negotiables never happen again.”
- Getting blown out by 51 points in the decisive Game 6 will serve as a motivator for the entire team, according to Johnson. “Just a lot of fuel going into the next season, a lot of fuel going into the offseason for everybody, and we’re going to make sure this never happens again, we never get this type of feeling again, just a sick feeling to our stomach,” he said.
- Flory Bidunga (Kansas), Ugonna Onyenso (Virginia), Peter Suder (Miami OH) and Milos Uzan (Houston) are some of the prospects the Hawks are bringing in for pre-draft workouts, Williams tweets. Those players are potential second-rounders — Bidunga is ranked highest at No. 46 overall by ESPN. Atlanta possesses two first-round picks via trades, including a lottery selection, and the No. 57 overall pick late in the second round.
Knicks Notes: Offensive Explosion, Bridges, Anunoby, Game 2, Jones
The Knicks are firing on all cylinders. New York made 53 of its 84 shots en route to Monday’s 137-98 blowout win over the Sixers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“It’s a lot of fun when you have concepts on either end of the floor and guys are trying to embrace those concepts at the highest level,” head coach Mike Brown said, per James Edwards III of The Athletic. “When they do, it doesn’t really matter what you call or (who) initiates the action because guys are trying to play the right way. It can be any team out on the floor. If they’re trying to embrace what you’re throwing out there, sacrificing, all of that other stuff, it can be a lot of fun to watch.”
As Edwards notes, every New York starter besides Josh Hart, who had eight points and six assists, scored 17 points or more and only Jalen Brunson took more than 11 shots.
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- Mikal Bridges had 11 points or fewer in each of the first five games of the first-round series against Atlanta before erupting for 24 points in the Knicks’ 51-point blowout in Game 6. Apparently, it was no fluke. He had 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting along with five assists and a plus-19 rating in 27 minutes during Game 1 against Philadelphia. He also kept Sixers play-maker Tyrese Maxey under control. “It’s very important. He’s a huge factor for us,” Brunson told Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “He’s been playing great.”
- In the last three games, OG Anunoby is 23-for-30 from the field and 8-for-11 from distance, Braziller notes. “I think [it’s] the way he’s been able to create space, the way he’s been attacking,” Brunson said. “Those things have been a key factor for him. Obviously, he’s knocking down shot after shot. He’s just playing real aggressive, really downhill. … He’s creating havoc, and he’s making good decisions.”
- Brunson expects a much tougher game from the Sixers on Wednesday. “I don’t think we’re going to see that team, from Game 1 to Game 2,” Brunson said, per Vincent Goodwill of ESPN. “They’ll be ready to go.”
- The Knicks hosted Florida State’s Lajae Jones for a pre-draft workout on Monday, Ian Begley of SNY tweets. Jones averaged 12.7 points and 5.7 rebounds for the Seminoles, his third college team.
Bulls Notes: Graham, Infrastructure, Sweeney, Lewin
Likening the Bulls‘ hiring of Bryson Graham as their new head of basketball operations to Charlotte bringing in Jeff Peterson or Detroit adding Trajan Langdon, K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Sports Network (Twitter video link) cautions that there’s no guarantee Graham will be as successful as those execs have been so far, but says it’s a “swing on upside” by Chicago.
According to Johnson (Twitter link) and Shams Charania and Jamal Collier of ESPN, the Bulls are expected to give Graham full autonomy – and the resources necessary – to fill out the rest of the front office as he sees fit. As Johnson points out, Graham has ties to current Bulls executives Brian Hagen and J.J. Polk dating back to his time in New Orleans and worked with Pat Connelly‘s brother (Tim Connelly) in New Orleans as well, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll all remain in their current roles.
Jon Greenberg and Nick Friedell of The Athletic say that league observers are curious about whether the Reinsdorfs will be willing to spend as necessary to upgrade the team’s front office structure, suggesting that ownership has been hesitant to do so in the past and that the team’s scouting and analytics departments have lagged as a result.
However, Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times refers to that as a “false narrative,” writing that team ownership never said no when former executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas wanted to add to his front office and that money was never an issue. The problem, according to Cowley, is that the pre-Karnisovas regime of John Paxson and Gar Forman worked mostly as a “two-man operation,” so even though Karnisovas built up the front office during his tenure, it still didn’t catch up to the rest of the league.
That’s expected to change under Graham, with one source telling Cowley, “We’ve been playing checkers and now it’s time to play chess.”
Here’s more on the Bulls and their new lead front office executive:
- Having solicited sources inside and outside the organization for their thoughts on Graham, Johnson (Twitter link) says those sources described him as a “great listener” and “straight shooter” who “brings people together.” One source added that Graham “knows he doesn’t have all answers and is comfortable using depth to help.”
- Graham’s ability to collaborate appealed to the Bulls, per Charania and Collier. Team sources told ESPN that they like the fact that Graham has held so many roles up and down a front office throughout his career, since the club is hopeful he’ll be able to bring together a basketball operations department that became “disjointed” under the previous regime.
- Sources in league coaching circles expect Spurs assistant Sean Sweeney to emerge as one of the Bulls’ head coaching candidates, reports Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Substack link). Sweeney is also reportedly in the running for New Orleans’ job.
- Cowley reported over the weekend that the Bulls would still love to hire Celtics assistant GM Dave Lewin, who was a finalist for the head of basketball operations job. He reiterates that point today, writing for the Sun-Times that if the Bulls aren’t able to bring Lewin aboard under Graham, they’ll want to find someone like him, since they were very impressed from his presentation “from an analytics and strategy standpoint.”
Atlantic Notes: Embiid, Nurse, Ingram, Quickley, Celtics
Sixers center Joel Embiid, who underwent an emergency appendectomy less than a month ago, grimaced after taking a shot to his midsection from Knicks forward Mikal Bridges during Monday’s Game 1 loss (Twitter video link). Asked about it after the game, Embiid stopped short of calling the contact “dirty,” but questioned whether it was necessary within the flow of the play.
“I don’t know if it was dirty or not,” Embiid said, per Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer (subscription required). “I guess I’ve got to do a better job of protecting, especially that part (of my body). … I just felt like it wasn’t necessary, but we move on. It is whatever. It’s playoff basketball. If that’s the reality of it, I guess we got to go out and be physical, too, and do it too.”
We have more from around the Atlantic:
- Sixers head coach Nick Nurse is currently away from the team in order to mourn his older brother, who unexpectedly passed away last week, per Tony Jones of The Athletic. Nurse attending the funeral service in his hometown of Carroll, Iowa and is expected to rejoin the 76ers in time for Wednesday’s Game 2 in New York, Jones adds.
- After battling heel inflammation near the end of the regular season and in the playoffs, Raptors forward Brandon Ingram is visiting a specialist this week to discuss the treatment plan for the injury, head coach Darko Rajakovic said on Tuesday (Twitter link via Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca). Both Ingram and guard Immanuel Quickley, who missed the entire first round due to a hamstring strain, expect to be back on the court within three or four weeks and shouldn’t have their offseason routines significantly impacted by their health issues.
- Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe (subscription required) takes stock of where the Celtics‘ roster stands entering the offseason, writing that all indications point to head coach Joe Mazzulla being back on the sidelines next season. As for center Nikola Vucevic, the only player on the 15-man roster without a guaranteed contract or option for next season, Himmelsbach says Vucevic will have to take a sizable pay cut no matter where he ends up, adding that he won’t be surprised if the big man doesn’t return to Boston.