Trail Blazers To Fully Guarantee Anthony’s Contract
Fresh off his first Player of the Week award since 2014, Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony will have his partially guaranteed veteran’s minimum contract with the team become fully guaranteed. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first broke the news.
The 35 year-old Anthony will earn the full prorated veteran’s minimum of $2.15MM for the 2019/20 season. Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter) that Portland, a taxpaying team this season, will only pay $1.36MM of the $2.15MM owed. The NBA will reimburse the Blazers for the remaining balance of that sum. With $148MM committed in salaries, the Blazers have the highest payroll for 2019/20.
After an uncomfortable 10 games with the Rockets as a bench scorer last season, Anthony was offloaded by Houston to the Bulls who subsequently waived him. The 10-time All-Star would not see hardwood action again until being conscripted as an emergency front court addition for the injury-plagued Blazers, one year and 11 days after his last NBA game.
Portland had until January 7 to fully guarantee the deal, but Anthony’s terrific recent play at a position of need made this a no-brainer for Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey and the rest of the Blazers’ front office. Blazers head coach Terry Stotts commended Anthony on ESPN Radio’s Spain and Company, according to Wojnarowski’s report: “He’s been the breath of fresh air for us that we needed.”
In eight games as the Blazers’ starting power forward, Anthony is averaging 16.9 points and 5.9 rebounds in 31 minutes a night. He is shooting a stellar 44.8% from the floor, including 38.7% from deep on 3.9 attempts per game. Portland is 4-4 since enlisting ‘Melo.
Anthony’s comeback has not gone unnoticed around the NBA. His fellow 2003 draftee, LeBron James (taken No. 1 to Melo’s No. 3 selection), commented to The Athletic’s Bill Oram and Jason Quick that Anthony’s resilient performance in Portland has been “a beautiful thing. Beautiful thing. Only the strong survive.”
Rockets To File Official League Protest Over Spurs Loss
Sources have informed Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle that the Rockets intend to file a league protest with the NBA over referees’ controversial ruling on a James Harden dunk in an eventual 135-133 double overtime loss to the Spurs Tuesday.
Harden slammed home the jam with 7:50 left in regulation and Houston still up by 13 points, but game officials ruled that the basket did not count when it popped out in front of the basket upon getting caught in the net. Had Harden’s dunk been tallied, it would have boosted the Rockets’ advantage to a 15 points. When the dust had settled, the team would go on to blow a 22-point lead in San Antonio.
Additionally, sources tell ESPN’s Tim MacMahon that the Rockets hope to have the final 7:50 of regulation be replayed in the future, with Houston up 104-89 and the dunk being counted for two points. Houston does not anticipate an automatically-rewarded win.
Replaying game action is not wholly unprecedented, though it is exceedingly rare. Due to this, the Rockets’ request faces an uphill battle for acceptance. The final 51.8 seconds of a Hawks–Heat game were replayed in 2008 during a subsequent meeting between both teams. Two other partial game replays over reversed rulings transpired in 1982 and 1979.
Both the Rockets and Spurs have five days to provide necessary evidence in support of their claims. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver then has five days after receiving all evidence to make a ruling.
Pacific Notes: Burks, Suns, Clippers, LeBron
Shooting guard Alec Burks originally thought he would be helping Paul George and Russell Westbrook take the Thunder to the promised land in 2019/20. But things change quickly in the NBA. Burks signed a one-year, $2.3MM veteran’s minimum contract with the Warriors this summer after Oklahoma City let out Burks of his deal once the team opted to rebuild following its trade of George to the Clippers.
Burks has been stuffing the stat sheet lately for an injury-depleted Golden State. And his efforts (including tallying 29 points and pulling down eight rebounds in 114-95 win over the Grizzlies this past Tuesday) have not gone unnoticed, as Logan Murdock of NBC Sports Bay Area reports.
“I definitely knew he could score,” three-time All-Star forward and defensive team lynchpin Draymond Green told Murdock. “When he’s been on any team, he comes off the bench and he gets it going. Going downhill, getting to the basket and I think he’s definitely improved his jump shot.” On such a favorable deal, Burks could serve as a spark plug bench shooter for a contender this spring.
There’s more news from around the Pacific:
- In an excellent piece on the upstart Suns, The Athletic’s John Hollinger notes that the team, currently 8-7, has reason to be optimistic about their season outlook. Hollinger suggests that, with several teams amongst the 2018/19 Western Conference playoff crop already off to rocky starts, the conference feels wide open. A postseason berth is hardly off the question for the team, which has seen ample improvement after adding Ricky Rubio and Aron Baynes this summer, not to mention new head coach Monty Williams and incumbent star shooting guard Devin Booker. Hollinger credits Rubio as a big component to the team’s current two-way improvement, and Williams as a major culture-setting upgrade.
- USA Today’s Mark Medina observes that the Clippers have already determined their late-game dynamics with All-NBA forwards Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, their two blockbuster team additions from this offseason. This, of course, spells trouble for the rest of the league. “That’s the beauty of this team. Nobody cares who’s getting the shots down the stretch or who gets the looks,” George noted. “You have a group of guys that just want to win.”
- After the Lakers eked out a 109-108 win against the Grizzlies yesterday, All-Star forward LeBron James registered his ire at a lack of foul calls in his favor granted by the game’s attendant referees (he had zero free throw attempts). “I’m living in the paint,” James said after the game, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “If you look at my arm right here, these are four or five [scratches] that happened the last two games, and they weren’t called at all.” Lakers head coach Frank Vogel shares James’ frustration, and apparently intends to bring the officiating up with the NBA. “We’ll deal with the proper channels and talk to the league about that,” Vogel said.
Pacers Notes: A. Holiday, Mitrou-Long, Sabonis, Brogdon
With their second-year point guard Aaron Holiday on a tear recently, J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star notes that the Pacers will be sure to field a litany of trade offers. Nine months ago, team advisor Larry Bird apparently cautioned Indiana against including Holiday in a potential trade deal for Mike Conley with the Grizzlies. Bird was confident in the potential of Holiday, picked 23rd in the 2018 NBA Draft. The Magic and Suns apparently also expressed interest in making a move for Holiday around the 2018/19 trade deadline.
Following a performative hiccup at the start of the season, Holiday has picked up his play of late. Though he will return to the bench after starting in the injured Malcolm Brogdon‘s absence, Michael speculates that Holiday has displayed enough flashes to tantalize teams as a potential trade chip once again.
There’s more from Indianapolis:
- Speaking of Brogdon, The Athletic’s Scott Agness tweets that the point guard will return to the floor for the Pacers tomorrow against the Grizzlies for the first time since injuring his back on November 15th against the Rockets. “I think I stepped wrong and my back reacted strongly to it,” Brogdon said, per Agness. “They said I strained a muscle and possibly a joint. But now the inflammation has gone away, my movement is all the way back, I have no pain and I feel great on the court.”
- Two-way player Naz Mitrou-Long spoke with Mark Montieth of Pacers.com about his unlikely path to Indiana. A five-year college player for Iowa State, Mitrou-Long toiled in the 2017 Summer League and saw 15 games of NBA action as a two-way player for the Jazz in 2017/18 and 2018/19. He joined the Pacers on November 17th for emergency spot rotation minutes in a game against the Bucks before making the most out of the team’s next outing, a win against the Nets in which he scored 12 points in 25 minutes. “I know guys who have been in the league for three, four, five years who are looking to put a stretch together to reassure themselves,” Mitrou-Long said. “Playing a game like Brooklyn and getting my feet wet against Milwaukee, feeling the comfortability, it reassures me that I am an NBA player.”
- According to Ennio Terrasi Borghesan of Sportando, Pacers center/power forward Domantas Sabonis confirmed that he will appear for Lithuania in the FIBA Qualifying Tournament for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “It’s what we have to go through to qualify for the next Olympics,” Sabonis observed. “We’re going to battle for the tournament and get a ticket for Japan.”
Taj Gibson Talks Growing Up In Brooklyn, NBA Memories, Young Knicks
Big man Taj Gibson signed a two-year, $20MM contract with his hometown Knicks this summer. Though there has been plenty of drama for the Knicks already in the 2019/20 season, the 6’9″, 34 year-old Gibson has been a stabilizing old-school post presence, averaging 6.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in just 15.9 minutes a night.
In a far-reaching conversation with Steve Serby of the New York Post, the Fort Greene, Brooklyn native reflected on his tough childhood, his proudest basketball moment, the upside of his young Knicks teammates, his time at USC, his favorite movie, and much more.
The whole article is well worth a gander, but here are some highlights from Serby’s chat with the 11-year vet.
On his childhood in Brooklyn:
“Fort Greene Ingersoll Houses has always been tough. It was a lot of murders, a lot of killings. To this day, I thank my dad personally for some days making me stay in the house, ’cause there was a lot of stuff going on outside. I lost a lot of friends that were just … young, and never got a chance to grow. I think my parents deserve most of the credit for just knowing when to keep me inside and keep me locked in.”
On his proudest basketball achievement:
“Going to the [2011] Eastern Conference finals [with the Bulls]. Just knowing how hard it is to win basketball games in the NBA, but when you’re locked in with a group [of] guys, to have a bond and you’re in the heat of the battle each and every night, especially going against everybody’s opinion on you, telling you you can’t do something, you can’t do this and you overachieve in it, that’s the best feeling in the world.”
On the Knicks’ young pieces:
“Frank [Ntilikina] is eager to learn, he’s eager to get better. I think he’s taking the next step, which is understanding what he has to do to become a good professional basketball player in this league. He’s only scratched the surface… [Mitchell Robinson] can be All-World if he wants. He works extremely hard every morning with me, and he’s extremely competitive. And he listens. And you can’t teach those things… [RJ Barrett is] super-competitive, eager to learn, always willing to listen. He has a grown man frame already.”
Atlantic Notes: Celtics, Simmons, Kyrie, Knox
After Al Horford left for bigger free agent riches in Philadelphia this summer, the Celtics signed scoring-oriented Enes Kanter as a cheap replacement, hoping that Daniel Theis, Kanter, Robert Williams and rookie Grant Williams could compensate for Horford’s absence piecemeal.
So far, that has proven to be the case during Boston’s 11-4 start. A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston preaches caution against disrupting team chemistry by trying to trade for a major center upgrade like Clint Capela or Karl-Anthony Towns.
Instead, Blakely notes that 7’5” rookie Tacko Fall, on a two-way contract, has impressed in the G League thus far. Blakely suggests that Fall might be an option who could shore up the Celtics’ interior defense in spot minutes. Boston should also monitor the buyout market and top Chinese Basketball Association centers, Blakely opines.
There’s more from around the Atlantic:
- After making his first NBA triple in a 109-104 win over the Knicks, Sixers All-Star point guard Ben Simmons mentioned his desire to play for the Australian national team in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Tim Bontemps of ESPN reports. Sixers coach Brett Brown was recently announced as the Australian national team’s coach for the event.“We have a great relationship,” Simmons said of Brown in his postgame comments. “I’ve known him my whole life. I’m excited to put together a great team.”
- Prized offseason Nets acquisition Kyrie Irving has missed the past four games with a shoulder impingement. Though coach Kenny Atkinson insists that the ailment will not be a long-term issue, he concedes that Irving is not healthy enough to play, as the New York Post’s Brian Lewis relays. “We have a protocol before a guy comes back to play. Usually we’re not just going to throw you out there without seeing you. We have these kind of set standards in the past,” Atkinson notes. “We’re not at that point yet. Hopefully, he will get there soon.”
- Knicks coach David Fizdale has challenged second-year forward Kevin Knox to improve his defense, according to Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “I am definitely riding Kevin, to challenge him to go to another level, especially defensively,” Fizdale confirmed, before praising his improved offense. “His shooting percentage is up, finishing around the rim is much better, he’s seeing the floor better. But I want him to take a big jump forward defensively… He’s got the physical tools to do it.” Braziller points out that Fizdale has been quicker with the hook for Knox lately. The 6’7″ forward from Kentucky has averaged 14.7 minutes across the team’s last four contests, a far cry from the more generous 23.6 minutes he was allotted over New York’s first 11 games.
Community Shootaround: Potential NBA Schedule Changes
This morning, ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Adrian Wojnarowski reported that serious discussions were transpiring between the NBA, the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and their television partners about making dramatic changes to the NBA season.
Those modifications apparently include: a reduced regular season schedule (which seems savvy), a postseason play-in tournament for lower seeds (which sounds fun), a conference finalist reseeding (all 16 playoff teams should be reseeded, in this writer’s opinion), and a midseason playoff tournament (which feels pointless and desperate).
One of the big elements on the table is shortening the regular season game count from 82 to 78. Since the 1968/69 NBA season, the 82-game regular season has been the norm.
The league played as few as 60 or 61 games (it varied amongst the 11 teams) in its inaugural 1946/47 season. The game count gradually grew, reaching 72 by the 1953/54 season, the end of the George Mikan‘s Minnesota Lakers dynasty. In the 1959/60 season (year three of the Bill Russell-era Celtics reign), the tally expanded to 75 games. The next season, that number hit 79, before stabilizing at 80 from 1961/62-1966/67. For one lone season (1967/68), the NBA had an 81-game regular season before making the pivot to its current 82-game schedule when it expanded to 12 teams.
Under the leadership of commissioner Adam Silver, the NBA has already taken steps to reduce the grind of the 82-game schedule. It shrank teams’ preseason commitments. It has taken pains to decrease back-to-back games. The NBA experimented with shortening game lengths from 48 minutes to 44 minutes.
Knowing what we know now about the “load management” era, where certain superstars opt to avoid playing in at least one game of a back-to-back tilt and teams liberally rest healthy players in advance of the playoffs, is reducing the full game tally the right move?
Business Insider’s Cork Gaines has noted that Bill Simmons of The Ringer has long advocated for a schedule reduction, arguing that modern NBA players actively try harder during the regular season than their predecessors in the 1980s and 1990s. Simmons also has been a proponent of a play-in tournament in the past.
How many games should the NBA season last? The Ringer’s Rodger Sherman proposed a radical shortening, to 58 games (so that every team players every other team exactly twice), after watching injuries befall several core Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals.
This writer votes for reverting back to the 72-game model, completely excising the preseason, and eliminating back-to-back games. The latter two items were not discussed in the Lowe-Wojnarowski report this morning, but I’m hoping they are given fair shrift during these upcoming negotiations.
If the season is condensed much beyond 72 games, the opportunity exists for this era’s players to make unfair statistical gains on prior player generations. A midseason tournament seems like a method to placate middling franchises with meaningless award hardware. Essentially, it would only yield the equivalent of a “Conference Finalist” banner for its “winning” team.
What do you think? How many games should the NBA season last? Would you eliminate back-to-backs and/or the preseason? Would you be interested in watching a midseason tournament?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
Northwest Notes: Hernangomez, Nurkic, Patterson, SGA
Fourth-year Nuggets power forward Juan Hernangomez, a restricted free agent in 2020, made the most of a rare appearance in last Thursday’s 101-93 victory against the Nets. Though his counting stats (two points and eight boards in 19 minutes) don’t jump off the page, coach Mike Malone lauded Hernangomez’s effort in the team’s comeback win, reports Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post.
“I thought Juancho was the difference-maker tonight,” Malone said. “He had not played (much) in the first 10 games. I wanted to throw him out there knowing that he’d provide a spark and energy.” Hernangomez subsequently rewarded his coach’s faith with a 15-point, three-rebound, 29-minute night during a 131-114 Nuggets win over Memphis on Sunday.
There’s more out of the Northwest:
- By missing his 13th game of the 2019/20 season Saturday, injured Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic will officially miss out on a $1.25MM games-played bonus. This will result in his future cap hits for Portland being depreciated to $12.9MM this year and $12MM in 2020/21, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN. Nurkic had to play in 70 games and Portland needed to win 50 games for the bonus to materialize.
- Ahead of tonight’s ongoing tilt against the Thunder, Clippers power forward Patrick Patterson reminisced about his two injury-plagued years logged in Oklahoma City. In speaking with The Oklahoman’s Joe Mussatto, Patterson had a laundry list of causes for the Thunder’s underwhelming 2018/19 season. “I don’t think it was just one thing,” Patterson reflected. “Coaching staff, not everyone on the same page from the heads up top to the players on the bottom. Effort on the players’ part. Focus, playing together, playing good solid defense with communication. We missed a lot of shots.” Patterson’s candor on the team is refreshing to see. He continued, “It’s pretty much everyone that was within the organization’s fault.”
- On the other side of the trade that landed Patterson in Los Angeles, former Clippers teammates and coaches of Clipper-turned-Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gave SGA rave reviews before tonight’s tipoff. The Oklahoman’s Maddie Lee reports that LA coach Doc Rivers had this to say about his former point guard: “He’s the greatest kid… I don’t know if I’ve had a more favorite young player, like, he’s the best.” Atlanta guard Tyrone Wallace also raved about his former running mate. “Everybody loved Shai,” Wallace said. “It was one of those things, I think a lot of fans were kind of upset (that he was traded).”
NBA G League Assignments/Recalls: 11/18/19
Here are Monday’s assignments from around the NBA G League. There were no recalls today:
- The Grizzlies assigned 6’9″ small forward Bruno Caboclo and second-year point guard De’Anthony Melton to their G League affiliate, the Memphis Hustle, for a contest tonight against the South Bay Lakers, the team tweeted. Caboclo has logged minutes in 10 games for the Grizzlies this year. Melton, who has seen time in five NBA contests this season. According to Memphis, both players will be recalled immediately following the game so that they may join the Grizzlies for a bout with the Warriors tomorrow night.
- The Knicks have assigned rookie wing Ignas Brazdeikis to their Westchester affiliate, according to SNY’s Ian Begley (via Twitter). The 6’6″ small forward from Michigan was drafted with the 47th pick by New York this summer. He has played sparingly in four NBA games.
Aron Baynes Talks Celtics Tenure
After spending two seasons with the Celtics, center Aron Baynes found himself off-loaded in a trade to the Suns this summer when president of basketball operations Danny Ainge needed to make cap room to sign maximum free agent Kemba Walker.
A 25-game suspension to 2018 No. 1 draft pick Deandre Ayton has paved the way to a starting slot for Baynes, and he has been having the season of his life thus far, at age 32.
Baynes had never averaged more than 6.6 points, 1.2 three-point attempts, or 18.3 minutes in any of his prior seven NBA seasons. Now, he is averaging 15.6 PPG and shooting 4.3 three-pointers a night at a 46.8% clip, all while playing 23.8 MPG.
Interviewed at a shootaround ahead of tonight’s road tilt against his former team, Baynes discussed his old Boston running mates. His conversation was relayed by Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald.
On the influence of the Celtics brass on his three-point shooting:
“[Celtics coach Brad Stevens] definitely gave me confidence. Danny also says the 3-point line’s there for a reason. Everyone knows that. So it’s kind of one of those things. I was told one day by Brad that if I don’t take the shot, then that’s hurting the team. So, you know, I’ve got to go out there and do what I do in practice. Having that confidence from your coach, it’s a good thing.”
On his trade away from Boston:
“There’s no reason to look back. You know, you can always ask, ‘What if?’ But you’ve got to think about what I get to [do]. So I get to get to come out here and keep playing, and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”
On keeping tabs on his former teammates:
“You build friendships with guys, and that’s the most fun thing for me to watch is the friends that I have in this league and how they’re still doing well. So that’s what I watch more so than just the teams. It’s always good to keep an eye on your mates.”