Pacific Notes: Weems, Bryant, Griffin
Matt Petersen of NBA.com chronicles Sonny Weems’ path back to the NBA after playing in the D-League and overseas. Weems was traded to the Nuggets during the 2008 draft and ending up playing most of his minutes in the D-League. In less than a year, the guard was traded twice. Once he received meaningful minutes for Toronto, he showed he belonged in the NBA. Then the lockout happened. Like quite a few NBA players, he signed overseas, but his contract was the only one not to contain an “out” clause. Once his contract expired, he signed a two-year contract with CSKA, but this time he made sure to secure an “out” clause. The Arkansas product was shooting better than 40% from behind the arc and he knew he would generate enough interest to use it.
The Suns signed Weems this offseason to help aid their bench unit and the 29-year-old couldn’t be happier. “Every basketball player growing up, their dream is to play in the NBA,” Weems said. “Now I’m back.”
Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Kobe Bryant is back on the court practicing shooting drills for the first time since tearing the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, Eric Pincus of The Los Angeles Times writes. Bryant is in the last year of his current deal, which will pay him $25MM.
- The Clippers were able to improve their bench unit this summer with the additions of Lance Stephenson, Wesley Johnson and Josh Smith. The new arrivals should allow the team’s starters to get more rest during the regular season, which is something Blake Griffin sees as a huge advantage in the long run, Rowan Kavner of NBA.com writes. “It’ll help a lot,” Griffin said. “My third season in the league when we had that unbelievable bench, I think I dropped to like 32 minutes a game in the regular season…You definitely feel fresher toward the end, but you have to find that right balance of not holding back too much, being able to give everything. Having an elite bench is going to help us tremendously, especially come playoff time.”
Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 8/15/15
JaVale McGee has shown flashes of becoming an impact player in the NBA. When the former No. 18 overall pick agreed to a buyout with the Sixers last spring, he failed to generate much interest as a free agent. His lack of development, along with his health concerns, were major reasons why teams weren’t champing at the bit to sign the center.
The Mavs finally signed McGee earlier this week. Dallas previously had serious concerns about the center’s health, but it has apparently cleared that hurdle, as the Mavs remain confident that his injured leg will heal in time for the 27-year-old to join the team in training camp.
McGee’s deal, which covers two seasons, is only guaranteed for $250K, with another $250K becoming guaranteed if he remains on the roster past September 29th. Dallas currently has 20 players under contract, as our Roster Counts page shows, but it needs to trim that down to 15 by opening night. The Mavs have 15 players with fully guaranteed deals on the roster and opening up a regular season roster spot for McGee will be especially difficult, as the team only has six players who are eligible to be traded prior to the season.
Dallas has shown a willingness to eat guaranteed money in the past, waiving Bernard James and Gal Mekel last fall despite their fully guaranteed salaries. Even if McGee makes the roster, he will face competition for minutes at the center spot. Samuel Dalembert and trade acquisition Zaza Pachulia are likely to see significant minutes. The team presumably will prioritize getting free agent signee Salah Mejri on the court to give the 2011 FIBA African Championship MVP a chance at locking down the team’s open starting center spot.
If McGee can defy the long odds of becoming the team’s starter at the five, or at least crack the rotation, he could put himself in great position to remain relevant in the NBA and potentially raise his stock for the summer of 2017, when he could become a 29-year-old free agent. Dallas is a franchise that has a history of rehabilitating player values, as I illustrated in the Free Agent Stock Watch of Wesley Matthews. The team employs Rick Carlisle, who is one of the best coaches in the league and has demonstrated he can get the most out of players.
So here’s the topic of the day: Will JaVale McGee make an impact on the Mavs? Can a good environment in Dallas rehabilitate his value? Will he even make the team?
Take to the comments section below to share your thoughts and opinions. We look forward to reading what you have to say.
Note: Since these Shootarounds are meant to be guided by you the reader, we certainly welcome your input on the topics we present. If there is something you’d like to see pop up here for a discussion, shoot me a message at hoopsrumorsmailbag@gmail.com or hit me up on Twitter at @CW_Crouse to submit topics or ideas for what we should present in future posts.
Atlantic Notes: Embiid, Afflalo, Hollis-Jefferson
Joel Embiid will undergo a second surgery on his right foot is expected to miss the entire 2015/16 season. The center will make slightly more than $9.05MM over his first two seasons, presumably without ever playing an NBA game, and Darren Rovell of ESPN.com reports that the Sixers will not be reimbursed for any of Embiid’s salary via the league’s insurance plan.
Every team has the contracts of its five highest salaried players included on the policy, so Embiid’s contract is insured. However, the big man’s right foot was excluded from the policy because it was a pre-existing injury. The Cameroon native originally injured his foot prior to being drafted by the Sixers. Embiid’s contract contains a team option after each of the next two seasons. It’ll be interesting to see if Philadelphia is willing to shell out over $4.8MM during the 2016/17 season and then $6.1MM during the 2017/18 season to see if Embiid can get onto the court.
Here’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- Arron Afflalo, who signed a two-year, $16MM deal with the Knicks last month, believes he can be a great oncourt complement to Carmelo Anthony, Marc Berman of the New York Post writes. “Just being able to shoot, ready to shoot, creating space for him,’’ Afflalo said of the ways he wants to complement Anthony. “I want to be a guy who can draw some attention and the guy has to leave him and make the game easy for him. More importantly, helping him with leadership, mentoring the younger guys, keeping everyone consistent and hungry and focused. Now he’s got another guy who will be on board with him for leadership. I think it will help him.’’
- Rondae Hollis-Jefferson believes he can be a leader on the Nets, Robert Windrem of NetsDaily writes. “Basketball, you got to show that you can be out there,” this year’s No. 23 overall pick said. “Show that you can do those things. If you show those things, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are, people follow good things and I feel with that, on top of that, I got a good smile. and I got a good personality. that they will follow and I’m willing to do what it takes to help, make it easier for everybody. So it should be a smooth transition, I believe.”
Western Notes: Morris, McGee, Grizzlies
Markieff Morris made it clear that he wants out of Phoenix and although his teammates would like him back next season, they understand the forward’s situation, Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic writes.
“If he stays with us, we’d definitely love to have him,” said Brandon Knight, who signed a five-year, $70MM deal with the Suns this offseason. “Great player. I’m looking forward to playing with him. But if not, it’s a business. Like I said, I just want Markieff to be happy. That’s the main thing. I love him as a player. I love his game. So as of now, I’m excited to play for him.”
Here’s more out of the Western Conference:
- JaVale McGee has a chance to rejuvenate his career in Dallas, as we discussed in tonight’s Community Shootaround, and Moke Hamilton of Basketball Insiders wonders if McGee can have the same type of career turnaround that Jermaine O’Neal enjoyed after being traded to the Pacers. O’Neal spent his first four years playing for a Blazers team that didn’t give him the best chance to succeed before coming to Indiana and developing into a legitimate MVP candidate. Hamilton argues that while the idea of McGee becoming a crucial part of a successful Mavs‘ season may sound ludicrous, the idea of O’Neal leading a title contender after sitting on Portland’s bench was just as absurd.
- Cody Taylor of Basketball Insiders believes the Grizzlies‘ offseason moves are being overlooked and the team quietly had one of the best summers in the league. Memphis was able to re-sign Marc Gasol, bring in Brandan Wright via free agency and add Matt Barnes via trade. Taylor expects this season to be a critical point regarding the team’s future. Barnes, Jeff Green, Mike Conley, Courtney Lee and Beno Udrih will all play major roles this season and will all be unrestricted free agents during the summer of 2016.
Blazers Notes: Offseason Changes, Future Goals
The Blazers could have attempted to keep their core intact after LaMarcus Aldridge made it clear he was going to leave in free agency, but the team believed that it wouldn’t have been in the best interest for the franchise long-term, Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com writes.
“Our goal was to bring LaMarcus back,” GM Neil Olshey said. “We were in the mix. He chose to take his career in another direction. But what we weren’t going to do was compound a negative situation and make it worse by signing long-term contracts and taking away flexibility for a team that, quite honestly, wasn’t going to be good enough. You have to be honest with yourself when you put a team together and you have to understand that was a group that got beat 4-1 in the first round of the playoffs with LaMarcus Aldridge, so it’s not reasonable to assume that that group as constructed, with no cap flexibility to bring in other players, was going to be capable of competing at a high enough level to justify giving up a future that can be a lot brighter as long as people understand it’s not going to happen overnight.”
The team’s core already begun to unravel prior to Aldridge’s agreement to sign with the Spurs. Portland let Wes Matthews, who agreed to sign with the Mavs, and Robin Lopez, who ended up inking a deal with the Knicks, leave in free agency and traded Nicolas Batum to the Hornets for an exciting young prospect in Noah Vonleh and a potential starting wing in Gerald Henderson.
Here’s more from Portland:
- Allen Crabbe, who readers of Hoops Rumors chose 10th in our re-picking of the 2013 draft, believes people are counting the Blazers out as contenders for the playoffs next season, but the guard feels like the team can prove the cynics wrong, Howard-Cooper writes in the same piece. “We lost four of our five starters, so I’m pretty sure they are [counting us out]. But it’s good to have a chip on your shoulder going into the season. A lot of people may take you lightly in games. It just gives us more motivation to go out there and practice harder, get ready for games and play as a team and just deal with that,” Crabbe said.
- Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum are the team’s only true offensive threats, but the lack of proven playmakers will allow Portland’s young talent a chance to develop, Mike Richman of The Oregonian writes. “I think it’s an opportunity for a lot of these players coming in to expand their games offensively in particular,” coach Terry Stotts said. “You look at [Al]-Farouq [Aminu] and Moe [Harkless], they have a chance to become ball handlers, facilitators much in the way that we used Nic Batum.”
Free Agent Stock Watch: J.R. Smith
The summer of 2015 provided one of the craziest starts to NBA free agency in recent memory. The projected salary cap rise for a year from now encouraged franchises to spend big on free agents and teams responded by doling out over $2 billion in contracts. J.R. Smith and his agent, Leon Rose, surely anticipated this and expected to draw from the free agency money tree. Thus far, that plan has not borne fruit.
The Cavs would like to have him back, but apparently only on a modest one year deal. The team cautioned Smith against declining his $6.4MM option. While Cleveland has the ability to offer him a deal as lucrative as the one he turned down because it owns his Bird rights, the tax implications behind making such an offer would be pernicious from a financial standpoint. Assuming the Cavs sign Tristan Thompson to the mammoth contract he is holding out for, the team would be well into the luxury tax, meaning every dollar they shell out to Smith would cost them $3.75 or more in tax penalties.
The former Sixth Man of the Year is has reportedly been angling for a three-year contract. The Cavs simply cannot accommodate his request unless owner Dan Gilbert is willing to foot a massive tax bill over the next few years. Cleveland doesn’t have any significant money coming off the books in the next couple of seasons and it will have to account for a monstrous new contract for center Timofey Mozgov. Mozgov’s arrival turned a below-average defense into a stable unit, and he played a integral role in the team’s slaughtering of Eastern Conference foes en route to the NBA Finals. Gilbert may be willing to pay a large bill a year from now to retain a difference maker in Mozgov, but he’s most likely not going to do that for Smith.
Cleveland will reportedly let the market dictate what kind of contract it offers Smith, in an example of a team properly forecasting the NBA economy. The Cavs recognize that New York had to attach Iman Shumpert to the deal that sent Smith to Cleveland in order to move him, and if any team thought Smith was worth the price of his previous contract, it would have just taken him off Phil Jackson‘s hands for nothing.
The Jazz, Trail Blazers and Sixers are the only teams that are hoarding enough cap space to entertain a salary comparable to the option that Smith turned down. Philadelphia had ill-matched interest in Smith, but that interest has faded, according to Hoops Rumors contributor Sam Amico of AmicoHoops.net. Smith wants to be somewhere he can make a difference and he is just not a fit for any of the teams that are left with cap space.
Charlotte has the ability to offer the 29-year-old the full value of the mid-level exception, worth $5.464MM, as the team’s Salary Cap Page shows. The free agent market has dried up considerably and few remaining players outside of Smith can reasonably anticipate receiving a contract for nearly that amount. Let’s assume Smith is willing to concede on the value of his annual salary in favor of a longer deal that has more guaranteed money. The Hornets present an alluring situation for the shooting guard.
The team made a few gleaming upgrades this offseason with an eye on improving its overall shooting. New addition Nicolas Batum could slide into the starting two spot next to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at the three to solidify the team’s starting five. The team added Jeremy Lin, in a team-friendly deal, to presumably run the second unit. After the top six players, the roster gets murky. The big man rotation looks to be adequate, especially if Frank Kaminsky’s game can translate immediately as expected, but the chatter about playing Kidd-Gilchrist at the four could further extend an already thin wing rotation.
The Hornets picked up Jeremy Lamb as a follow-up to the Lance Stephenson trade. Lamb showed flashes of becoming a serviceable rotation piece last season, but his inconsistency led him to see the bench more often than not for a Thunder team that was derailed with injuries. P.J. Hairston could be a contributor, but after a less-than-stellar rookie season in which he shot 30.1% from behind the arc, the prospect of increasing his role doesn’t bode well for a team looking to make the playoffs.
Smith can be a reliable and somewhat efficient offensive weapon. After being traded to Cleveland, his slash line improved from .402/.356/.692 in New York to .425/.390/.818. He was simply taking better shots. He went from being a second option on offense for the Knicks to arguably the fifth option (LeBron James is option one and two), and he mostly played within his lane. Kemba Walker, Al Jefferson and Batum would all rank ahead of him on offensive totem pole should he sign with Charlotte, which would give him a poor man’s version of what he had on the court with the Cavs. Signing with the Hornets would aid Smith in centralizing his focus on basketball as well.
“I think [Cleveland] is the best situation for me, ’cause there’s nothing but basketball. There’s nothing you expect but basketball. There’s nothing, there’s no going out, there’s no late nights. There’s video games, basketball and basketball. So it’s a great thing, ’cause I go back to where I came from,” Smith said after being traded last season.
Nobody is mistaking the city of Charlotte for New York, Los Angeles or Miami in terms of its nightlife scene, so relocating to the Queen City may give the 29-year-old a similar environment to the one in which he thrived in Cleveland.
This is purely speculative, as the Hornets have not been linked to Smith in free agency, but adding the shooting guard makes sense for the team from an on-court perspective. Smith’s off-court antics, coupled with the franchise’s recent disaster signing of Stephenson, as Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors discussed in his weekly chat, may impede a potential pairing. Charlotte clearly intends to compete for a playoff spot this season, but the team has noticeable flaws on its roster. The expected rise in the salary cap over the next few seasons, along with the team’s ability to use the stretch provision, should mitigate the risk of offering Smith a two-year deal worth the mid-level exception, and the Hornets should take the opportunity to add talent at such a minimal cost.
What kind of deal do you think Smith will end up signing? Leave a comment to let us know.
Lakers To Work Out Bobby Brown
The Lakers will work out Bobby Brown on Monday, Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report reports (Instagram link). Brown has played in the Drew League as well as the Pan Am Games in Toronto for the U.S. National Team this summer.
The combo guard played for the Dongguan Leopards of the Chinese Basketball Association last season. He last played in the NBA during the 2009-10 season for the Clippers.
The Lakers currently only have 12 fully guaranteed contracts on the books. The team’s guard rotation isn’t a finished product, but the players on the roster are projected to soak up a majority of the minutes. Jordan Clarkson and first-round pick D’Angelo Russell should split time at the one spot with new addition Lou Williams projected to play some minutes there in addition to the shooting guard position. The team also has Nick Young, Jabari Brown and of course Kobe Bryant to play the two, so if the 30-year-old signs with Los Angeles, he would most likely only see court-time should there be an injury.
Pacific Notes: Speights, Morris, Clippers’ Depth
Marreese Speights wants to reward the Warriors for picking up the team option on the final year of his contract, which is worth $3.815MM, Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com writes. The Big Man has emphasized conditioning thus far in his offseason workouts and he hopes the hard work translates into a bigger role on the team.
“So coming into this year, I’m going to prepare differently so that I’ll come into camp in the best shape I’ve ever been. And hopefully that will give me a chance to get more consistent minutes,” the Florida product said.
Speights will have competition for back-up frontcourt minutes with new addition Jason Thompson coming into the fold and Festus Ezeli primed to take on a bigger role.
Here’s more from the Pacific Division.
- Markieff Morris‘ situation has created uncertainty for the Suns, Jesse Blancarte of Basketball Insiders writes. Morris reportedly wants out of Phoenix and trading the forward probably makes sense for both parties. Blancarte argues that because of his team-friendly contract, which has three years and $24MM remaining on it, Morris could be a valuable oncourt addition to another franchise. However, the Suns are likely to receive a less than stellar return for the 25-year-old, similar to what the Nuggets netted for Ty Lawson, because of his offcourt issues.
- New additions Lance Stephenson, Wesley Johnson, Paul Pierce and Josh Smith bring some much needed versatility to the Clippers, Rowan Kavner of NBA.com writes. Smith’s ability to play the center position, which he did 12% of the time last season for the Rockets, should give Los Angeles the ammunition to matchup against top small-ball lineups, such as the Warriors’ lineup with Draymond Green at center.
Celtics, Corey Walden Agree To Camp Deal
AUGUST 4TH, 3:01pm: Walden has signed for two years at the minimum salary with a partial guarantee of $25K for this season, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). Boston has yet to make an official announcement.
JULY 26TH, 10:14am: Corey Walden will be added the Celtics’ training camp roster, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com tweets. Considering the multitude of point guards the Celtics have on their roster, the 6’2” Walden will face very long odds in terms of making the 15-man roster.
It’s likely Walden’s deal will be a minimum salary arrangement. Boston currently has the flexibility to use cap space to sign Walden, although the team will lose that ability once it officially acquires David Lee on Monday as expected.
Walden, who went undrafted out of Eastern Kentucky, appeared in two games with the Celtics’ summer league team in Las Vegas, averaging 2.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 3.5 steals per game. Walden averaged 18.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists for EKU is his senior season.
Arthur Hill contributed to this post.
Heat Sign Josh Richardson
AUGUST 3RD, 1:44pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
11:59pm: Richardson will make the minimum salary in at least the first two seasons of the deal, while the sides are still hammering out the terms of year three, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
JULY 28TH, 5:34pm: The Heat and Josh Richardson have agreed to terms on a three-year $2.5MM deal, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. The deal is fully guaranteed for the first season and partially guaranteed for the second year, Charania adds.
Miami could offer Richardson a contract of three years because the team still possesses the taxpayer mid-level exception, former Nets executive Bobby Marks notes on Twitter. Had the Heat signed someone using that exception, they would only be able to offer a two-year pact.
Richardson was the 40th overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The 21-year-old averaged 16 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.6 per game last season for the University of Tennessee. The 6’6″ guard likely won’t carry a heavy burden on offense for Miami. If he sees significant minutes, it will most likely be because of his impact on the defensive end.