Eastern Notes: Ferry, Antetokounmpo, Raptors
With the racism scandal still fresh in Atlanta, Hawks GM Danny Ferry‘s former teammate Tim Duncan came to his defense, Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News writes. Duncan acknowledged during a radio interview that Ferry made a mistake in his comments regarding Luol Deng, but denied Ferry had an issue with race. Duncan said, “Knowing Danny, he’s not what everybody’s saying about him. He’s not a racist.”
Here’s more from the east:
- Bucks second-year player Giannis Antetokounmpo is embracing the team’s experiment of moving him to point guard, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. On Milwaukee asking him to change positions, Antetokounmpo said, “I’m not going to say I was shocked by it. It’s something that I feel comfortable with and I’ll play wherever Coach wants me to play, especially when it’s Coach Kidd who thinks that I can play point guard. That makes me feel like, ‘I can play it. I can play point guard.’ I’m going to try my best and just listen to Coach. I’ll do whatever Coach says to do and I’ll get more comfortable.”
- During an interview with Reggie Miller regarding injured Pacers swingman Paul George, team president Larry Bird said that despite his star player’s horrific injury, he would still like George to return to Team USA, Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star relays. “I hope so. That’s one of his goals,” Bird said. “He wants to play for Team USA. I think that any kid that gets the opportunity to do that and they want to play for their country, they should have that opportunity. And I think Paul will be there in Brazil (Olympics).”
- In their season preview the staff at HoopsHype predict that the Raptors will repeat as champs in the Atlantic Division.
- Despite last season ending with his potential game-winning shot being blocked by Paul Pierce in the playoffs, the Raptors‘ Kyle Lowry showed significant growth on and off the court, writes Jonathan Abrams of Grantland in his profile of the player and his career.
Hawks Re-Sign Elton Brand
SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
SEPTEMBER 12TH, 10:02am: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make an official announcement.
SEPTEMBER 10TH, 6:54pm: The Hawks will re-sign Elton Brand to a one-year deal for $2MM, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Brand spent his 15th NBA season as a role player in Atlanta, averaging 5.7 points and 4.9 rebounds in 73 appearances for the Hawks. He shot 53.9 percent from the field in 19.4 minutes per contest, helping Atlanta to land the eighth and final playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.
There were reports a few weeks back that Brand and the Hawks were in talks, and the Duke product also reportedly drew interest from the Heat and Knicks this offseason. The 35-year-old has had some injury issues at points in his career and took some time to consider retirement before committing to a 16th season in June. His PER declined for the third straight season in 2013/14 and, at 14.05, was the lowest mark of his career.
The Hawks drafted Adreian Payne at No. 15 in June to add to a frontcourt that already includes Al Horford and Paul Millsap. While Brand, a David Falk client, should get legitimate minutes in 2014/15, he figures to have a somewhat reduced role. He made $4MM in Atlanta last season. If his deal is fully guaranteed, it would make 14 such contracts on the books for the upcoming season in addition to Mike Muscala‘s partially guaranteed deal.
Hawks Sign Kent Bazemore
SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal is at last official, the team announced via press release.
SEPTEMBER 11TH: The Hawks and Bazemore finally put pen to paper Wednesday, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement. It’s likely that the signing took so long to complete because Atlanta wanted to preserve cap space, though that’s just my speculation. The Hawks could have used cap space to acquire other players and circled back to sign Bazemore using the room exception. As it stands, they’re using cap space to ink Bazemore.
JULY 11TH: 9:50pm: Bazemore’s agent, Austin Walton, confirmed the deal and that it is fully guaranteed, tweets Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops.
9:31pm: Kent Bazemore has reached an agreement to join the Hawks, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The deal is for two years and $4MM, according to Stein. Shams Charania of RealGM tweets that the deal is fully guaranteed, and contains no options.
The shooting guard was traded along with MarShon Brooks from the Warriors to the Lakers in the Steve Blake deal on February 19th of this year. Bazemore’s career numbers are 4.1 PPG, 1.1 RPG, and 0.9 APG.
The 25 year old who originally went undrafted out of Old Dominion also received interest from the Hornets, Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, Warriors and Celtics.
Lloyd’s Latest: Thompson, Allen, Deng
LeBron James is set to play a game in a Cavs uniform less than two weeks from now for the first time in more than four years, but that’s far from the only storyline surrounding the team as it prepares for training camp. Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal shares 23 mostly Cavs-related thoughts in honor of James’ No. 23 jersey, and the entire piece is a must-read for wine-and-gold faithful. We’ll pass along three highlights here:
- The Cavs and Tristan Thompson‘s representatives with Klutch Sports have yet to talk numbers in a potential extension for the former No. 4 overall pick, a source tells Lloyd. Still, the Beacon Journal scribe believes agent Rich Paul will ask for a deal in the neighborhood of the four-year, $44MM extension the Bucks gave Larry Sanders and the four-year, $48MM extension the Jazz granted Derrick Favors.
- Cleveland’s brass maintains belief that Ray Allen will sign with the team, as Lloyd wrote Monday, but they anticipate starting camp without him, as their full 20-man roster indicates, Lloyd explains in his latest piece.
- The NBA and the Cavs are fairly certain that the racially derogatory remarks in the infamous Luol Deng scouting report that seemed to come from someone with ties to the Cavs emanated from someone who’s no longer with Cleveland, according to Lloyd. Instead, many around the league are directing their ire toward the Hawks for their handling of the situation, Lloyd writes.
Hawks Notes: Silver, Ferry, Owners
It’s been more than two weeks since Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson announced his intention to sell his stake in the club stemming from an investigation that uncovered an email with racially charged statements that he’d written in 2012. GM Danny Ferry helped defuse the controversy when he agreed to take an indefinite leave of absence after his own racist statements became public, but the leadership of the Hawks remains in limbo. Here’s the latest:
- A sitting NBA owner told Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Hawks will move to a new city “over my dead body,” casting further doubt on the notion that a new principal owner will move the franchise. Commissioner Adam Silver will meet Friday with Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed to discuss the state of Hawks ownership, as Vivlamore reports in the same piece.
- Silver said today that he thought Ferry was wise to take his indefinite leave of absence, as Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal tweets. Silver said earlier this month that he doesn’t think Ferry committed any offense that should prompt the team to fire him.
- Vivlamore’s piece also provides a breakdown of the Hawks ownership shares. Levenson owns 24% of the team, but his share combined with those of Ed Peskowitz and Todd Foreman total 50.1%, and all three are selling. Michael Gearon Sr. and Michael Gearon Jr. own approximately 42% of the team combined, while the rest of the club is in the hands of Rutherford Seydel, Beau Turner and a New York-based investment group that includes Steven Price.
Eastern Notes: Budenholzer, Moore, Sanchez
The recent trend in the NBA of coaches doubling as GM’s has made its way to Atlanta where Mike Budenholzer is handling both positions for the Hawks, Steve Aschburner of NBA.com writes. Budenholzer’s circumstances do differ from the Clippers‘ Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy‘s in Detroit, and the Wolves‘ Flip Saunders, in that he took over the extra duties due to GM Danny Ferry being forced to take a leave of absence after his racist remarks were made public, and not by design.
Here’s more out of the east:
- E’Twaun Moore‘s minimum salary deal with the Bulls comes with a guarantee of $425K for the first year, with the second being non-guaranteed, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link).
- The Knicks have guaranteed $15K of Orlando Sanchez‘s minimum salary contract, Pincus notes (Twitter link).
- JaKarr Sampson‘s four-year, minimum salary deal with the Sixers includes a $50K guarantee for the first season according to Pincus (Twitter link). The remaining three years of the deal come with no guaranteed money.
Eastern Notes: Hawks, Gibson, Cavs, Celtics
Scouts and executives admit that front office talk can be brutal, but they say Hawks GM Danny Ferry crossed the line with comments that are far from the usual chatter, writes Howard Beck of Bleacher Report. “I’ve never seen anything like what was in that report, just in terms of the language,” said a former team executive with nearly two decades of front-office experience. “I think most people would tell you that would be surprising. More out of the East..
- Privately, Bulls forward Taj Gibson isn’t too thrilled with the prospect of continuing to be a reserve, multiple people familiar with the situation tell Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com. Still, Gibson is an upbeat, team-first kind of player, Sam writes, and he values winning and chemistry too much to make it a distraction. It sounds like we shouldn’t expect any trade demands to come from Gibson anytime soon, though it might be a situation to monitor.
- The Heat took some heat for having too many older players on their roster and the Cavs are getting similar criticism this offseason. That’s not really fair, Zach Lowe of Grantland argues. LeBron’s two supporting stars are 26-year-old Kevin Love and 22-year-old Kyrie Irving, Cleveland has an extra first-rounder eventually coming from the Grizzlies, and there are valuable young guys including Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters, and Matthew Dellavedova.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com looks at three Celtics players who are on the bubble heading into training camp. Shooting guard Marcus Thornton, forward/center Brandon Bass, and forward Gerald Wallace are all in jeopardy as the season draws near.
Eastern Notes: Hawks, Ndiaye, Magic, Raptors
The Hawks enter the upcoming campaign with the gloom of a racism scandal hanging over the franchise. In his season preview Adi Joseph of USA Today predicts Atlanta’s record will improve slightly, and the team will snag the No. 7 seed in the east despite the outside distractions that GM Danny Ferry‘s and majority owner Bruce Levenson’s comments have brought.
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- Hamady Ndiaye‘s contract with the Nets is non-guaranteed until October 25th, but if he remains on the roster past that date a $25K guarantee kicks in, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets.
- The Raptors have one of the younger teams in the league and every significant player from last season is returning, and Basketball Insiders season preview predicts another Atlantic Division crown is on the way to Toronto.
- While the Magic didn’t add any superstar players in free agency this offseason they still have been quite busy tweaking their roster. Ken Hornack of Fox Sports Florida runs down Orlando’s additions and what each brings to the franchise.
Southeast Notes: Heat, Beasley, Hawks
Earlier this week, we learned that the Magic are bringing Seth Curry, younger brother of Stephen Curry, in for training camp. Curry had reportedly been weighing overseas opportunities earlier this summer, but he’ll try to stick in Orlando instead. More out of the Southeast Division..
- In today’s mailbag, a reader suggests to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel that former Heat forward Michael Beasley could become a superstar under Spurs coach Gregg Popovich if he signs in San Antonio. The Spurs have found a way to make things work with guys like Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson that didn’t fit elsewhere, so Winderman could see Beasley enjoying a career renaissance in San Antonio.
- The Hawks have dominated NBA headlines in recent weeks but in-fighting amongst their ownership has been going on for years, as Mike Tierney of the New York Times writes. Tierney noes that a year after the current ownership group took over, managing partner Steve Belkin blocked a trade for Joe Johnson that had been negotiated by GM Billy Knight and was favored by Belkin’s colleagues. The dispute wound up in court and Belkin finally sold his share of the team after five long years of bickering.
- Even though the Heat‘s D-League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, is still without a head coach, recent hires Chris Quinn and Octavio De La Grana figure to have a hand in the club’s operations, writes Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside.
And-Ones: Hawks, Douby, Heat
The league’s players have mixed opinions on whether or not they would consider signing with the Hawks, Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report writes. The majority of players polled agreed with Carmelo Anthony‘s assessment that players would avoid signing with Atlanta in the wake of GM Danny Ferry and majority owner Bruce Levenson’s racist remarks, notes Bucher. But there were a few that said they wouldn’t let the incident get in the way of their potential earnings, but also added that they “wouldn’t shake Ferry’s hand” when the deal was completed.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Former Rutgers star and NBA player Quincy Douby has signed with the Tianjin Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association, according to his agent Bill Neff, Zach Links of Hoops Rumors reports (Twitter link). Douby last appeared in the NBA during the 2008/09 season with the Raptors.
- The partial guarantee on Khem Birch‘s two-year deal with the Heat is worth $50K, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
- Keith Smart and Chris Quinn have been added as assistant coaches to Eric Spoelstra‘s staff with the Heat, the team announced.
- The Bulls are hoping for a healthy season out of Derrick Rose, and that their new additions of Pau Gasol and Doug McDermott will help them contend in the Eastern Conference. The crew over at Basketball Insiders previews the upcoming season, and the majority opinion is that Chicago will finish second in the Central Division.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.