Andrew Bynum Works Out At Lakers’ Facility
Andrew Bynum‘s attempted NBA comeback included an appearance this week at the Lakers’ practice facility, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. It wasn’t considered an official workout for the team, but Bynum was permitted to participate in activities at the gym.
L.A.’s current front office has an “open door” at the facility for current and former players, Charania adds (Twitter link). Bynum spent seven season with the Lakers, earning All-Star honors in 2011/12. He is arranging workouts with other teams in his quest to return to the NBA after a four-year absence, according to Charania.
Now 30, Bynum hasn’t had a successful season since his All-Star campaign. The Sixers picked him up in 2012 in the four-team trade that sent Dwight Howard to L.A., but knee problems prevented him from ever suiting up for Philadelphia. He signed with the Cavaliers in 2013 and played 24 games before being traded to the Bulls, who immediately waived him. Bynum’s last NBA experience was two games with the Pacers late in the 2013/14 season.
Cavaliers Notes: Workouts, Osman, Sexton, Thompson
Kevin Love‘s duties in taking over for LeBron James as team leader include organizing the Cavaliers’ annual pre-camp workouts, writes Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. Love, whose leadership role was cemented when he agreed to a four-year, $120MM extension this summer, is hosting the voluntary sessions this week at the University of Miami.
Most of the players who are under contract are expected to attend. Coach Tyronn Lue is in Miami as well, but won’t participate if the players-only tradition continues. Tristan Thompson, Cedi Osman and Ante Zizic are all out of the country to play in World Cup qualifiers.
James, who signed with the Lakers in July, organized the workouts in each of the past four seasons. They are usually held in vacation spots, with coaches and front office personnel accompanying the team but letting the players run things.
There’s more today out of Cleveland:
- Osman can look forward to a much larger role in his second season with the Cavaliers, Vardon notes in a player profile. Osman may inherit James’ role as starting small forward, although Rodney Hood is also a candidate. The 23-year-old saw action in 61 games as a rookie, averaging 3.9 points per night. Osman played several years in Europe before coming to the NBA and appeared much more polished in this year’s Summer League, according to Vardon.
- Collin Sexton will need to improve his shot, especially from long distance, to become a Rookie of the Year candidate, Vardon states in another profile. Sexton tied with Suns center Deandre Ayton as the favorite for the award in a poll among players drafted this year. However, his success could depend on improving his accuracy from 3-point range, where he hit just .336 last year as a college freshman, and just .242 in SEC games.
- Thompson, who owns a championship ring and has made four straight trips to the NBA Finals, hopes to create that same atmosphere of success on the Canadian national team. He has been playing for his home country for nearly a decade and believes there’s an opportunity for Canada to become a major player in international competitions. “Right now we have a wave of really good players in the NBA,” Thompson said, “but who knows? Maybe 15 years from now we have a drought, so while guys are here and at a high level, let’s take advantage of it.”
Matt Williams Signs In Finland
Matt Williams, who held a two-way contract with the Heat for part of last season, has signed to play in Finland, according to Orazio Cauchi of Sportando. KTP-Basket announced the deal with Williams this morning.
Undrafted out of Central Florida in 2017, Williams signed a two-way deal with Miami in mid-October and was waived at the end of December. He appeared in three games at the NBA level, playing 11 total minutes and averaging 1.7 PPG.
Williams was more productive in the G League, averaging 10.2 points and 2.7 rebounds per night in 43 games for the Heat’s affiliate in Sioux Falls.
Cavaliers Notes: Love, Trades, Hood
The Cavaliers will need Kevin Love to post the type of numbers he put up regularly in Minnesota for them to remain a playoff contender after the departure of LeBron James, writes Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. Love had an eventful off-season, highlighted by his 30th birthday last week and a four-year, $120MM extension in July.
Love was an All-Star with the Timberwolves before a trade brought him to Cleveland to be part of a Big Three with James and Kyrie Irving. That trio reached three straight NBA Finals and won the 2016 title before Irving was traded to Boston last summer.
Love played 59 games last season and made his fifth All-Star appearance, but he was sidelined for much of the year by a broken hand. He has become the face of the franchise now, Vardon notes, and the Cavaliers will be expecting much more than the 17.6 PPG and 9.3 RPG he averaged last year.
There’s more news out of Cleveland:
- The Cavaliers should ignore calls to trade Love and accelerate the rebuilding process, David Aldridge of TNT writes in a mailbag column. Cleveland doesn’t have a great history of attracting free agents, Aldridge argues, and that path would be much more difficult without an elite player on the roster. Love can keep the Cavs competitive for the next couple of seasons, then be traded if the organization decides to commit to a youth movement.
- Rodney Hood will be competing against a talented group of shooting guards when he becomes unrestricted free agent next summer, notes Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report. After failing to get a contract he liked as a restricted free agent, Hood opted to accept Cleveland’s $3,472,887 qualifying offer, reportedly turning down a three-year deal from the team in the neighborhood of $21MM. Also hitting the open market next summer will be Klay Thompson, J.J. Redick, Tyreke Evans, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Austin Rivers, Mario Hezonja, Danny Green, Terrence Ross and Jeremy Lamb.
- Hood’s body of work through his first four seasons suggests his best days might still be ahead of him despite his playoff struggles, Joe Gabriele of the team’s website opines. Hood could have a breakout season since he’ll have more of a scoring and leadership role with the James-less Cavs, Gabriele adds.
Heat Re-Sign Udonis Haslem
SEPTEMBER 10: Haslem has officially re-signed, according to a team press release. “It’s great to have our captain back,” Heat president Pat Riley said. “We’re looking forward to having UD back for his 16th season with the Heat.”
SEPTEMBER 6: Veteran forward Udonis Haslem will return for another season with the Heat, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. He agreed to a one-year contract at the veteran’s minimum of about $2.4MM.
The contract will include an “implicit” no-trade clause, notes salary cap expert Albert Nahmad, but it’s almost unthinkable that Miami would try to include Haslem in a deal (Twitter link).
Haslem has spent 15 years in the NBA, all with the Heat, but has transitioned into a mentor’s role in the past two seasons. He got into just 14 games last year, played about five minutes per night and averaged less than a point and a rebound per contest.
Haslem originally signed with Miami in 2003 after going undrafted out of Florida. He became a starter in his second season and averaged close to a double-double in points and rebounds for several years. He provided toughness and leadership as a part-time starter during the Big Three era when the Heat made four straight trips to the NBA Finals.
Miami has been holding two roster spots open throughout the summer for Haslem and Dwyane Wade. Today’s signing brings the Heat’s training camp total to 19 with Wade expected to announce a decision soon. Thirteen players have guaranteed contracts with Duncan Robinson and Yante Maten holding two-way deals and Briante Weber, Marcus Lee, Malik Newman and Jarnell Stokes all having Exhibit 10s (Twitter link).
Luol Deng Signs With Wolves
3:23pm: The signing is official, the team’s PR department tweets.
1:37pm: Minnesota has reached a one-year, $2.4MM agreement with free agent forward Luol Deng, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Deng becomes the latest member of a group that has been dubbed the “Timber-Bulls,” made up of coach/executive Tom Thibodeau and former Chicago players Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson. Deng reached his career peak playing for the Bulls under Thibodeau with a pair of All-Star appearances.
The low point of Deng’s career came last season with the Lakers, when he played 13 minutes on opening night and was benched for the rest of the year. Deng didn’t have any physical problems that kept him off the court, but he didn’t fit in with the youth movement launched by team president Magic Johnson and GM Rob Pelinka.
Deng agreed to a buyout last week that affects the final two seasons of the four-year, $72MM contract he signed in 2016. To get his freedom from the Lakers, Deng agreed to give back $7.5MM of the $36.8MM remaining, with 48.9% coming from this year’s salary and the rest from the 2019/20 figure.
Before being sidelined last year, Deng was coming off a disappointing debut season with the Lakers, posting a 7.6/5.3/1.3 line in 56 games while shooting 39% from the field. His last good season came with Miami in 2015/16 when averaged 12.3 PPG and 6.0 PPG in 74 games.
Minnesota has just 12 guaranteed contracts, so finding space for Deng won’t be an issue. The Wolves had their full $3.382MM bi-annual exception available, but Deng agreed to sign for the veteran’s minimum. The agreement doesn’t come with any guarantee of playing time, Wojnarowski adds.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Nuggets Adding Mark Price To Coaching Staff
Former NBA star Mark Price will join the Nuggets’ coaching staff, according to a post by Adrian Wojnarowski on ESPN Now.
Price has held a variety of coaching positions since his playing career ended in 1998. His last job was as a college coach with Charlotte before being let go in December of last year. He has previous NBA experience with the Nuggets, Hawks, Warriors, Magic and Hornets.
One of the league’s most accomplished shooters during his 12-year playing career, Price served as a shooting instructor with the Hornets, which will also be part of his job in Denver.
Earlier today, the Nuggets added Charles Klask to their coaching staff (Twitter link). Klask has been an NBA assistant since 2011 and most recently worked for Stan Van Gundy in Detroit.
Atlantic Notes: Musa, Dudley, Knicks, Bird
Nets first-rounder Dzanan Musa has been bulking up since the draft in hopes of being physically prepared for the NBA, relays NetsDaily. In a weekend interview with with Radiosarajevo in Bosnia, Musa said he has been focused on “physical progress” and has gained 15 pounds this summer.
“As far as my physical predisposition is concerned, no one has to worry,” he said. “I have put on seven kilograms in a 25-day period, so I do not have to have any disadvantages by the start of the season, and I will try to give my team immediate input.”
The 29th overall selection has spent most of the summer at the Nets’ training facility, but recently returned home to Bosnia to participate in a pair of FIBA World Cup qualifying games.
There’s more news from the Atlantic Division:
- Trade restrictions on the Nets‘ Jared Dudley will expire September 20, according to a separate story on NetsDaily outlining important upcoming dates for the team. That date will mark the two-month anniversary of the trade that sent Dudley from Phoenix to Brooklyn, and it will lift the restriction that he can only be dealt in one-for-one trades.
- The Knicks picked up a pair of promising young players on one-year deals while preserving their cap space for next summer, writes Jesse Blancarte of Basketball Insiders in the season preview for New York. The Knicks signed Mario Hezonja for $6.5MM and Noah Vonleh for a non-guaranteed $1.6MM, giving them a year to see how much they can contribute before making long-term decisions. Blancarte also believes David Fizdale was the right choice to take over as coach.
- Jabari Bird is under guarded watch at a Boston-area hospital following his arrest Friday on a “domestic incident,” tweets A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston. Bird is expected to be released from the hospital today or tomorrow and will be officially charged for his role in the incident.
- The Raptors have scheduled a press conference for September 21 to introduce Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports (Twitter link). Both were acquired from the Spurs in a mid-July trade.
Wizards Sign Chris Chiozza To Training Camp Deal
Guard Chris Chiozza will join the Wizards for training camp, tweets Keith Smith of Real GM. Chiozza, who went undrafted out of Florida, played with Washington’s entry in the Las Vegas Summer League, averaging 4.8 points and 7.4 assists in five games.
He was a first-team All-SEC selection as a senior with the Gators. He averaged 11.1 points, 6.1 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game last season and broke the school record for career assists.
The addition of Chiozza gives the Wizards 18 players for camp, two under the league limit. Washington has 14 players with guaranteed contracts, with Chasson Randle expected to sign and both two-way slots filled.
Wolves Expected To Sign Luol Deng This Week
Other teams have expressed interest in free agent forward Luol Deng, but he will likely sign with the Timberwolves this week, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.
Deng, who reached a buyout agreement with the Lakers on September 1, would rejoin his former coach, Tom Thibodeau, in Minnesota, along with several ex-Bulls teammates. The Wolves already have Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and Derrick Rose, who all played with Deng in Chicago.
Deng met with Thibodeau on Sunday to discuss the possibility of a reunion. He had his best seasons with the Bulls, making a pair of All-Star appearances in 2011/12 and 2012/13.
The 33-year-old received one of the richest contracts of the 2016 offseason, signing with the Lakers for $72MM over four years. However, he had a mediocre first season in L.A., averaging 7.6 PPG in 56 games, then fell completely out of favor last year with just 13 minutes of playing time, all on opening night.
The Wolves have used most of their mid-level exception, but still have the full $3.382MM bi-annual exception if they want to offer Deng more than the veteran’s minimum. With just 12 guaranteed contracts, Minnesota has room on its roster for a couple of additions.